Sicart, Miguel, 1978-,

Beyond choices : the design of ethical gameplay / Miguel Sicart. - 1 PDF (viii, 180 pages) : illustrations.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-177) and index.

1. Introduction -- 2. Defining ethical gameplay -- 3. Being a game -- 4. The player, the player -- 5. The design of ethical gameplay --

Restricted to subscribers or individual electronic text purchasers.

Today's blockbuster video games -- and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots -- provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films -- including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver -- filled theaters but also treated their audiences as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection.Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play.




Mode of access: World Wide Web

0262317133 9780262317139 9780262317122 0262019787 9780262019781


Video games--Philosophy.
Video games--Moral and ethical aspects.


Electronic books.

GV1469.34.C67 / S52 2013eb

794.8