Ethical Impacts

Ethical impacts of video games have been an area of great interest, specifically in the recent decade. Much of this has come up with regards to whether or not video game developers have an ethical obligation to make their video games more or less ethical or addictive. The answer has surprisingly been a unanimous “no.” With the rising popularity of games such as “Bully,” “Grand Theft Auto,” and other violent games, the subject is now attracting the attention many people.

Should video game authors be held responsible for making their games less addictive or less violent? That is a subject of much controversy. Andrew Phelps, an assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology has touched on this himself.

“I posed this question to my graduate class last year: 'Does the games industry have an ethical obligation to produce less violent and/or addictive content?' Not one of them said yes. Zero. I found that astounding. … Sometimes that just because they can doesn't mean they should. I am saddened that so far I haven't found anyone in the younger than 30 player-base that agrees with me, and I'm wondering where the moral technological compass went. Perhaps it's all at the feet of Napster, the Greek God of Piracy, our ethical obligations in technology creation went right out the window.”

It is clear that he believes that the video game industry should take some stance on making their games healthier or less addictive, but he does not believe that legislation should be the driving force behind it. He believes that the video games industry should look at ethical issues by themselves.

Many believe that video games are a form of free speech. That leads to an interesting problem, as many children play video games daily. How can the video game industry’s free speech be kept to allow adults who want to be exposed to the type of content they want to put out while still protecting young children who probably should not be seeing the content anyhow? It certainly is a dilemma. Several states are acting on this, however. It is now a felony in many states to sell “Adult” rated games to minors and most states require the buyer to be at least seventeen years of age to purchase “Mature” rated games. Stores are now required to post the ESRB rating system near where the video games are being sold.