The ethics of videogames

Key Links
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14293226/nba-2k10/videos/nba2k10_vdr_v2.html
Video Review

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14293226/nba-2k10/videos/nba2k10_vdr_v2.html Xbox 360, XBOX 360 review

http://orange.half-life2.com/hl2.html The Orange Box, Info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatures_in_the_Half-Life_series#cite_ref-2 , Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Creatures in the Half-Life series

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife/images.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gsbottomnav&tag=quicklinks;images Game Spot, Half-Life Images

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(video_game) Wikipedia, Half-Life (video game)

Key Books and Articles

Craig Alan Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile, Katherine E. Buckley - Games - Oxford University Press (2007)
Mainly Focus on the influence of violence videogame can bring.

Barry Atkins, More than a game, Gritty realism: reading Half-life, 2003
The analysis of different game in the book are convincing and distinct.

Mark J. P. Wolf,Bernard Perron, The video game theory reader, Playing at Being, 2003
GIve me a brief understanding of that video game industry affecting people's ideology.

Stéphane Natkin, Video games and interactive media: a glimpse at new digital entertainment, Preface, 2006

Geoff King, Tanya Krzywinska,Tomb raiders and space invaders: videogame forms and contexts,I.B.Tauris, 2006
This book focuses on key formal aspects of video games and the experiences and pleasures offered by the activities they require of the player.


Case Study

• Maker of the game: Orange Box



• Name: Half Life



• First released :1998
  



• Detail :

1. Provide:
   Valve Software--constructing the model
   Steam Platform--Allow players to exchange information through texts, voice, images etc.
   



2. Expansion: three expansions: Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Decay



3. Game’s setting
   Protagonist was called Dr. Gordon Freeman. He is a physicist. Once he has failed an experiment, then an unexpected "resonance cascade" happened. After that, there was lots of alien life-forms from other worlds (Vortigaunts, Headcrabs, human-liked) in his working country. The place he worked was a secret underground research facility which is in New Mexico. The name of it is Black Mesa Research Facility.



4. Story’s background
   Someone said that it was Simulating a possible near-future environment.People there is experiencing the new century.
   This game's story makes knowing references in popular genre, however, it generated a totally new model for the game-fiction.

• Interesting Part:

1. Innovation of narrating



2. This game valued both immersive action and story telling which is unusual for the other games. It uses scripted sequence rather than cut scene.



3. Key Quote: "Increase immersion and to maintain a smoothly-flowing experience that keeps the player's interest”



4. Because of its innovation in the story telling, the protagonist follow the chapter flow and can seldom be interrupted.



5. The story progress neither depends on the levels nor grading between scene to scene. It is quite a special different from the other games.



6. The “Boss” in the game is not expected as they occasionally appear in chapters
   Therefore it is a very fluent story which gives player a sense of compact and tight.



7. Players are then easily indulged into the videogame's virtual world.
   



8. Innovation of acting the protagonist
   As it is a first person shooting game, you are him and can see what he sees.It is a first-person perspective, so you never see character’s face and voice



9. Ways to play



10. To be people's hero and to attack the alien invaded. As the plenet's sources are depleted and populace are reduced, you are the only can use power to fight against the invaders. When all friends count on you, the things to do is to save the place and confront all the invaders furiously.

• Key issues the videogames raised



• Keyquote: As..."Violencecontent in video game is criticized, which is related to ‘moral panic’ subject...‘computer games cause violence’ discourse is mostly psychology-based "
  ---Flew, Terry and Humphreys
• We have the duty to look at those issues. First of all, we have consider the following points in order to have a brief understanding of the problems Half life has given.
  Questions here...
  Does Half Life offer us a fictional world…
  With Moral?
  With Ethical complication of the adult world?
  With anything mistaking?
  Teaching people to be reliable as being a hero? Or by contrast, to betray and be violent in order to survive, to rescue?
  We can explore them by considering at three aspects.
  1)Freedom for choices
  2) The imitation of real world
  3)Use of real person’s characteristic

1. Freedom for choices
   •The only way to survive in such a danger planet, to save the place is to use weapon
   •Generally, most of the people will chosse to survive by seeking help from others or cooperating with another
   •But…in this game, if you want to open a crucial doorway and the game terminates to escape, you should first sacrifice someone; kill a scientist, soldier of guard
   •In videogame....these is no accommodation of humane motives



2. The imitation of the real world
   •Techonology provide us an virtaul wolrd but with a real historical background. Like the Black Mesa Research Facility is similar to Los Alamos National Laboratory.
   •The protagonist studied in University of Innsbruck which is a real school in the real world.
   •It (somehow) sways players impression and understanding towards the actual world.
   Key Quotes:Technology”…leading to a view of the world that always satisfies the player/ spectators. The danger is the use of this knowledge to control customer habits, moral attitudes, or political viewpoint.”
   --- Stéphane Natkin
   Analysing this quote:
   • Customer Habits : to express, to voice there feeling, to vent
   • Moral Attitudes : Use of violence is an heroic attitude?
   • Political Viewpoint : The enemy against our land, the New Mexico??



3. Use real person’s characteristic as the game’s players
   •The sophistication of character’s feature easily makes people get indulge into this virtual world
   •correlate the affairs happen in the game with the real world
   •It is challenging people’s origin