Game Developer Ethics
Matt posted in The Industry on December 1st, 2006

In the same edition of blogged out that I mentioned in my last post regarding reviews, there was also something interesting that I wanted to comment on:

“I’ll play Devil’s Advocate for a moment, and argue that game developers only have a responsibility to make games, no matter the value of the content of those games. What right have we to demand that they defend or explain their “artistic intent”?
Perhaps I’m on the wrong track – after all we do want games development to be more intelligent and less exploitative on sensation and controversy – but I feel that more accountability on the part of developers only ends up inhibiting inspiration. I’m not sure we can afford that trade-off.”

I disagree with his assertion that “game developers only have a responsibility to make games”. I am probably in the minority with my opinion, but I feel that as a game developer, I am personally responsible for the content in what I work on. If I spend thousands of hours working on a product, I want it to have a positive impact on the world. When I look back at the many hours I’ve spent slaving away in front of a computer screen, I want it to mean more than just a paycheck. I want to see myself as someone who leaves a positive impact on the world for all my hard work. I would much rather make a financially unsuccessful game that really touches the lives of gamers and improves them than the most successful game ever that has a negative impact on gamers in the long run, even if they enjoy it at the time.

The major problem with my ideal is that it is impossible to accurately assess the worldwide impact a game has. Let’s use the popular example of “Grand Theft Auto”. Although, I don’t play the game because I am disgusted by its content, it is a very popular game series that has brought countless hours of enjoyment to people all over the world. It is also the frequent target of finger pointing for increases in youth violence. Personally, I think the content in the game is pretty awful. Although it may be a fun game, it certainly allows you to do things that are just terrible, like pay money for a woman of ill repute’s accompaniment, and then if you are dissatisfied with her services, you are free to chainsaw her in order to acquire a refund. Now, I think the designers and the development team behind the game were very talented and clearly did a lot of things right in order to make such a hugely successful game. But is it necessary to have objectionable content in it? One of the major features it is praised for is the sandbox style gameplay. Could the same development team have made an equally fun game with less objectionable content? I’d say yes although I imagine many would argue no.

What makes Grand Theft Auto fun? Most people will tell you it’s not chainsawing prostitutes, but rather roaming an open world environment and enjoying the emergent gameplay. In college, I watched my housemates play many hours of GTA, and they enjoyed turning on the cheat codes and flying around with the tank. So, would the game be as fun without the assassinations, crime and all that? It’s difficult to determine because one of the things that people enjoy about the game is choice. People like to be able to make choices. A game is more immersive when you are presented in a world where you can play around and experiment rather than just do the things the game designers thought of. (This may explain the decline in adventure games in the past several years)

By removing questionable content, you remove the opportunity to do certain things. One game that handled choice better than Grand Theft Auto is Fable. Now,  most people wouldn’t say that Fable is a better than GTA. In fact, they would probably argue the contrary. But, rather than giving your character ONLY the opportunity to commit terrible crimes, your character can choose to be a hero. Fable had other problems, and I think a sandbox of a fantasy world is less appealing than the real world to the mass market, but  I’m very interested to see how Crackdown turns out. It’s similar to Grand Theft Auto in that it is a free roaming open world game and that it is also being developed by David Jones, the creator of GTA. Besides adding a comic book-y visual flair, in Crackdown, the player is a super hero rather than a criminal. Will this game be as fun as GTA without the objectionable content? I hope so. Although you lose choice in terms of objectionable actions (well, hopefully), you gain choices that you couldn’t do in Grand Theft Auto. You can gain Spiderman’s powers of scaling buildings. You can leap great distances. It seems like it’s a wish fulfillment game for everyone who’s ever read a comic book.

The next question is does the terrible content in Grand Theft Auto have an effect on people? Although it doesn’t really have an effect on adults, I would argue it does on children. Now, Grand Theft Auto is not a kids game. It is very clearly marked mature, and I think that rating is reasonable. The problem is as a recent NIMF report suggests parents aren’t doing their jobs when purchasing video games for their children. So, the fact that Grand Theft Auto gets in the hands of children is the fault of bad parenting, and perhaps irresponsible older siblings. Unfortunately, I cannot do anything to address that. I can’t force negligent or ignorant parents to shape up all over the world. What I do have control over is where I work and what I work on. Even if the responsibility lies with the parent, as I mentioned before, I don’t want to have a negative impact on the world. Sure, GTA provides entertainment, but I feel that Rockstar could have provided that same entertainment without the objectionable content like I mentioned above.

Many argue that it has no effect on kids. I played Mortal Kombat as a child. I even went as Scorpion for Halloween when I was pretty young. Now, I’m not a violent person at all. I’ve never torn someone’s heart out of their chest. I get terrified if an animal runs in front of my car because I don’t want to extinguish a furry critter’s spark of  life. But I think Mortal Kombat (at least the old ones. I haven’t played the later ones, so I can’t comment) is more akin to Tom and Jerry cartoons, which were actually fairly violent. Certainly, I could be wrong about this. Maybe Mortal Kombat has a similarly bad effect on children. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d work on a Mortal Kombat game. But, I KNOW I wouldn’t work on a GTA style game. I think GTA has a negative effect partially because of its realism. Now, although the game may not be photorealistic, it’s in a real world setting and pretty much glorifying a life of crime. The protagonists (if they can even be called that) in Grand Theft Auto are criminals. They do a lot of bad things and rarely have to deal with the consequences of their actions. If you kill a cop and steal his car, you can either escape with absolutely no punishment, or you get busted and rather than sitting out for a length of time in prison, you are able to get right back into the game. There have been numerous studies saying games are effective learning tools, but what lessons might young, impressionable minds learn from Grand Theft Auto? I can only think of negative things.

Now, if you think I am arguing FOR censorship, you are mistaken. Censorship is bad because giving governmental control over our forms of expression is a slippery slope that we should stay as far away from as possible. Rather, I feel like game developers should personally censor their work based on what they think will have a positive impact on the world. I have been asked if I would be willing to work on a game with questionable content. I honestly told my boss that I wouldn’t work on it. If High Impact Games next game were similar in content to GTA, I would quit.