The Ethics of Game Design: Addendum
I'm writing this post in response to, or as an extension of, Doone's "The Ethics of Game Design," an article into which Doone poured a lot of time and thought, and might be one of his greatest.
In his article Doone discusses the ethical responsibility of developers in the face of the addictive side of video games, a side that we often withhold from discussion because it seems to belong to the laity, those unacquainted with our medium and unable to pass judgement. But addiction is not exclusive to young Asian men collapsing after a 28-hour session of WoW. In a lower degree, it affects almost everybody. Many games are designed with addiction techniques in mind. The language of addiction is lavished in opinion articles and reviews: "addictive mechanics", "time flies while playing this game", etc.
Doone holds the developers accountable for employing mechanics that are not meant to make the game "fun" but "addictive". I agreed with that diagnosis, but wrote to him that developers are not only able to do so, but also encouraged, because our society values that particular kind of entertainment. Or rather "entertainment" as a whole, a concept which I'd like to challenge.
Some weeks ago I wrote a personal post on how I struggled with my hobby because I realised the way in which I made use of it — not as a fun activity, but as something to keep me entertained, secured from my thoughts. When Doone discusses fun and notes the six characteristics that constitute a game, he then proceeds to assign some games the label of "something else", a "non-game", because their goal is not to provide fun, but to addict, and I venture: to entertain.
Etymologically, "entertainment" is something that "holds". Employment of addictive mechanics "hold" your intellect and reduce you to a passive engagement with the game, providing you with entertainment. My definition of entertainment diverges from the accepted one, or rather engages with it more consciously. To entertain is to provide amusement. Note the passive voice. In the same way Doone questions the concept of "game" that we have come to accept, and addiction mechanics as providers of fun, I question the idea of entertainment as a positive notion.
It is now commonly accepted that society conditions our identity and that we hold the opinion superimposed on us, until challenged. Common sense are those axioms that ought not be questioned: that democracy is the lesser of evils, that love conquers all, that you must indulge in entertainment. Period. What I propose instead is thinking that we must engage in rest periods of a limited duration in order to recuperate from high CPU usage: one cannot play Planescape: Torment for 28 hours. The problem is, entertainment is not understood as that, and we are encouraged, through addictive mechanics and other pressures, to misuse our leisure time, throwing it away at mindless dailies as our parents threw it away at the TV.
The addiction that Doone talks about is not the extreme, blatant case of twelve-hour daily sessions playing WoW. He is concerned with the pervasiveness of a design that focuses not on fun, and the intellectual engagement required for it, but on passive entertainment and artificial attachment, the fuel of MMOs. As proof of the effectiveness of the genre in creating dependence, RPG elements have now become the trend in non-RPG games, as a means to appeal to the subconscious desire of progress and achievement rather than immediate fun. Shooters with levels and hats.
I am concerned about the little value we give to our time, the little value we are told we should give it. In a little dosage, as rest, engaging and fun entertainment should be praised. What we get instead is long hours of numbness and detachment from our intellect in the form of artificial loops that, upon jumping, reward us chemically. And we comply because it is the easy way, the path of least resistance. A thoughtful engagement with reality is hard, production is hard. But its rewards are what constitute our humanity: reason, creativity, happiness.
Some weeks ago we installed Lord of the Rings Online. We needed a change of scenery for our roleplay, and I remembered the Shire fondly. I wanted to take my partner to Tom Bombadil's house and search the forest for Goldberry. Upon entering the game, I felt a dread that had something in common with the sight of a ringwraith. In order to explore their game, I would have to jump those "fun loops", and I might become conditioned to keep jumping them for more numbers and pixels of pretty clothing for my prideful elf. Why must I subject myself to that addiction in order to have fun? Is that the ultimate goal of MMOs, or will they ever challenge the Skinner box techniques and provide real fun? I don't want to become entangled in your game, I want to have fun for a while and get back to my life.
In 2010, Clay Shirky coined the term "cognitive surplus" to define the productive outcome of our leisure time. Wikipedia and Lolcats are examples of cognitive surplus. He uses it to account for collective products freely given away, but we could also add individual produces such as blogs. And if we stretch it more, any individual productive activity. Shirky believes that the internet has allowed us to become more productive. And yet most of us are eminently consumers. Most of us will seek to be entertained instead of seeking to create. There are so few John Galt's in our world. It probably has something to do with the perils of an active, intellectual population. Game developers introduce those maligned mechanics, but we ask for them and comply with them.
P.S.: I received some weeks ago a request for assistance with a psychological study on avatars and gender. This is what the research is about, if you are interested and would like to share your experiences:
“We are conducting an Internet based psychological study at Charles Darwin University and are seeking male and female participants who are over 18 years of age, are able to read and write in English fluently and who use avatars. The study will examine participants' identification with their avatars as well as explore why people may use, or not use an avatar of the opposite sex. The study will examine psychosocial functioning in the real world, personality factors as well as sex role identification of the participants' and their avatars, and will take around 20 minutes to complete. Please go to http://cduhes.asia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_brQ0uYKeagINqo4 for more details. You are not required to provide any identifying information in order to participate. All information given will be anonymous and protected. Ethics approval has been obtained for the conduct of this study. Thank you.”
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I think you are right, a thing to keep in mind is though that different people define entertainement differently. One specific person might even want different types of entertainement, even opposite ones, at different times depending on the circumstances.
And while games, everyting actually, offer addictive methods to keep you “hooked” as it were, those methods can only be effective if you thnk they or what they promise to give you are fun. If grinding mobs is not worth the effort of the reward or you just don’t like killng mobs no matter the reward it will never feel addictive. So while the gamedesigners are to be held somewhat to account so are you as the individual player. Of course its also part of our society to be very goal driven but still.
On a plus note I also think there are a lot of good things with passive entertainment as well. Language acquisition works perfectly when lstening to music or watching films regardless if you are critical about what you are doing or not.
That said I think there should be entertainment for everyone and for everytime, sometimes you cant be critical of everything all the time sometimes you just need to be passive. That does not rule out that you cant be critical of it afterwards either!
Bottom line though when it comes to entertainment the subject is very fuzzy because it is so subjectiv. Your experience with LOTRO probably only shows a shift in your priorities in what you consider fun and that is great! Life would be boring without change. Whats more sad is that there is not that much out those that see fun the same way… :( And I thnk we all should be able to feel that we are fulfilled in the type of entertainment we seek for our off hours.
roguekish recently posted..Lost and Found: Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
I think you have a point, but I covered the points on the designer’s perspective in my post while Lady seems to cover the angle that players ask for a lot of the stuff we receive.
I had never thought to question whether entertainment itself is a bad thing. It’s hard to see how, but I’m willing to mull it over to be sure. I think some people will see this point as an attack on them and they ought not to. It’s about having a conversation and questioning things we don’t ordinarily question, things we take for granted.
Also, everything is subjective :) I don’t think people have to see fun the same way to make statements that they’re potentially being manipulated by their “fun” and that it’s possibly harming them. I also don’t think that we can find fulfillment in entertainment. We can be entertained, but you’ll have to explain how entertainment is fulfilling (i.e. makes your life more meaningful and purposeful).
Doone recently posted..Gun Control and Mental Health
But does not manipulation require ignorance of the fact that we are being manipulated? Most people who play MMOs or games knnow which features are there to make them stay subbed longer e.g. become addicted. Same with commercials, people also know that commercials want us to buy the stuff that is advertised and as such they are for good and for bad manipulative. I do not think one can fall back and say “I was manipulated” if one knew there was manipulation going on and one out of one’s own free will chose to fall for it. That was merely one making a choice. Saying I was manipulated makes it stink to me as trying to dodge the responsiblity of one’s actions. But I just think we have different definitions on that front so I definetely see your point =)
On your last question there I can provide only a subjective answer. For one as you know I met my current partner through my choice of entertainment, as such that she makes my life more fulfillng it can be said that entertainment had a hand in making my life more fulfilling. On another note entertainment allows me personally to relax and as such gives me the energy to do all the things that make life fulfilling. So yeah entertainment for me personally is not what makes life fulfilling but without it a integral part of making life fulfilling would be missing; I would not have as much creative energy without reading for instance.
Also I have had many a philosophical debate on the choices you face in some RPGs. I think just thinking about games from that angle certainly makes life more meaningful (for me at least). But then again we may have different definitions ont his as well (which makes for great discussions :) )
Hopefully we did not totally manage to derail the topic here…
I probably did not stress enough the difference between passive entertainment, the one I’m questioning as valuable in the amounts in which we consume it, and productive entertainment, which engages with your intellect and provides fun and/or insight (dailies versus raiding, TV versus reading). Even though there is no such thing as “passive” entertainment, because our minds have to decode and interpret the stimuli from whatever we are consuming, there are also degrees of interactivity and quantifiable benefits from one piece of entertainment to another. Not all consumption is bad. I would rather consume a good book than produce Lolcats, for instance.
What I advanced was the idea that entertainment should be subjected to your other leisure activities and not the other way around. Instead of spending five hours a day playing an MMO, you could as well play your six hours a week doing something meaningful (raiding or rated BGs). But the genre is not that pliable: you must trade two daily hours for the privilege of raiding.
Remember the Feenix server? What I liked the most about it was the possibility of jumping into dungeons with very little preparation, thanks to the xp rates. I could engage with the part of the game that I enjoyed from day two.
Each one of us has to decide how to use our time. What I am challenging with this post is the idea that those leisure hours are well-employed by throwing them away at entertainment that fuels on addictive, dumbed-down mechanics. I would like to add that some sort of production (learning a language, creating a website, playing an instrument, drawing, writing) instead of so much consumption would be beneficial to society, but that is for each person to choose.
Thank you so much for your well-thought out response to the topic. Your writing is something to aspire to and I’m really glad you wrote this follow up.
Also, LFM John Galts :) lol
Doone recently posted..The Ethics of Game Design
Your post is great food for thought at a point in my life when I’m taking a really hard look at how I spend my leisure time.
It’s easy to justify raiding as social bonding, and Auction House play is probably worth doing as it’s both interesting and easy to scale with whatever time I have available, but I’m seeing more and more elements in WoW as just busy work, completely lacking in substance, and the “rewards” a pale justification for spending that much of my time doing something I don’t enjoy.
Coreus recently posted..Flow in WoW
I think more and more players have begun demanding substantial outcomes off their playtime, and that is why we will be seeing a resurgence of the sandbox MMO, where you don’t have to follow a pre-established path to the endgame, but you log on to have fun at your convenience. I’m keeping an eye on the development of Everquest Next. Plus I’m always on the lookout for fun games that do not fall into the trap of conditioning you to play through rewards or habit, if that is possible :).
The general meaning of ethics: rational, optimal (regarded as the best solution of the given options) and appropriate decision brought on the basis of common sense. This does not exclude the possibility of destruction if it is necessary and if it does not take place as the result of intentional malice.,.
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