[Release Date: August 31, 2021] We’re used to thinking about games as fantasy worlds we escape to, while leaving our bodies behind. In this traditional perspective of gaming, video games liberate us from our bodies and free us to be anyone and anything. But, is that really the case? In this episode we speak with Dr. Rob Cover, who rejects this view and argues that it’s morally important to remember that we never leave our real bodies behind when playing video games.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: we’re here today with Dr rob cover rub cover is a professor of digital communication at our MIT University in Melbourne Australia.
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Shlomo Sher: rob’s researches broadly in the health and belonging aspects of screen and digital media and technology, often from cultural ethical perspectives.
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Shlomo Sher: Which is why we’re here he’s led several major research council projects on minority representations and film TV and digital media.
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Shlomo Sher: And works, also in the Suicide Prevention space developing frameworks for approaching Suicide Prevention from arts humanities and social sciences perspective.
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Shlomo Sher: is interested in all aspects of our contemporary digital experiences and their implications for identity belonging behavior health and well being from digital health tracking devices to gaming platform it’s quite a range and it’s a pretty fantastic and amazing range.
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Shlomo Sher: he’s the author of seven books and about 100 scholarly articles his recent books include digital identities, creating communicating the online self 2016 emerging identities new sexualities gender and relationships in the digital era.
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Shlomo Sher: flirting in the era of me to negotiating intimacy would allison bartlett and kyra Clark 2019 and fake news and digital cultures with Jay Thompson and Ashley.
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Shlomo Sher: ha, which is coming up this year, so this man is prolific and he’s here today to talk about the ethics of video games specifically we’re going to talk about the body.
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Shlomo Sher: And the body is our bodies is definitely something that when we normally talk about video games is not a topic that comes up very often.
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Shlomo Sher: Dr cover or rob which way, would you like to be known in our conversation rob.
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Rob Cover: Overall place.
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Shlomo Sher: robbie’s all right rob why don’t you start off by telling us, why is it that you think the body is a neglected topic when it comes to talk about ethics and video games.
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Rob Cover: are good thanks thanks for thanks for inviting me honest, you know, this is a great topic to think about to talk about our.
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Rob Cover: bodies are neglected in one angle of talking about gaming all the time, and this this isn’t really old what we kind of call the master signifier of the mind versus the body or the that the soul versus the meat of the body.
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Rob Cover: or the spirit of the cell from the arm at the end, the call for yourself is the old master signify that you know it’s technically centuries old, but it really came into play in early Internet days in the early 90s.
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Rob Cover: And when people were on chat rooms and there was this entire cyberpunk discourse of.
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Rob Cover: letting go with the the meat of the body that you know one kind of jacked into the Internet, you know which which really meant dialogue and.
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Rob Cover: You know, communicated and could be something other than what the body dictated and then jacked out and came back to some kind of real life, and so, instead of this this real body versus virtual.
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Rob Cover: Online space idea and it’s creepy now, when we actually think about it, the idea of going on and pretending to be something other than that they are in a chat room and it’s dictated by the technology of course pre broadband where we couldn’t really broadcast face.
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Rob Cover: or very much else about the self you know where even you know sending an image was going to take a while to download so one didn’t.
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Rob Cover: And it influenced a whole set of scholarship and a whole set of public cultural thinking on how all digital technologies work that somehow the body was irrelevant in this.
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Rob Cover: And you combine that with this will give some cyber park elements as well that the, the body is the meat that will be left behind and somehow we will be uploading our consciousness into.
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Rob Cover: An online setting, which of course is impossible and, frankly, ridiculous when we actually think about a consciousness is something that resides on the body of the body, you know, there was no self.
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Rob Cover: Without a body, there was no possibility of a distant body itself.
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Rob Cover: But I think it’s it’s been problematic because it’s governed a whole set of ways of thinking that suggested that anything that was digital was somehow.
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Rob Cover: Not only disembodied and therefore good but from a different angle, it was disembodied and, therefore, that was the site of being unethical or a society.
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Rob Cover: That would allow our bodies to become unfit or for people to pave in ways that not governed by their identities so.
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Rob Cover: and so on, and one thing that i’ve been trying to do is bring the body back into the picture as the absolute forefront, so that we stop thinking about mind vs body or soul versus body but see the body is being.
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Rob Cover: Absolutely at the Center of all gaming activity and and and all other kinds of digital communication.
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Shlomo Sher: You know it’s interesting because i’m yeah i’m thinking way back to God i’m thinking back to the 80s, we are where I am with my with my modem and I first go on bbs isn’t and you know first get online.
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Shlomo Sher: And that was the whole promise that you can leave all of reality behind right, and you can get into new reality, and you can be.
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Shlomo Sher: Anything you want, even before we get into right this idea of uploading yourself with this goal of up, it will be yourself, it was supposed to be liberating right this whole idea that.
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Shlomo Sher: Your trappings right whether it’s your moral traffic’s trappings if you’re like Ray kurzweil and right want to cheat the you know singularity moment of upload yourself.
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Shlomo Sher: Or if it was just like you know here I am I there’s so many things I can’t do with this particular body right.
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Shlomo Sher: Or maybe i’m looked down on because I have this particular body right online or let’s say in the game that i’m playing right, I could be anyone I could be anything I am liberated in this way, so what what’s wrong with seeing it this way right that our body lawlessness is just liberating.
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Rob Cover: hmm.
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Rob Cover: Really, because it’s not liberating you know that we do have to come back to the body and and also the body is presence, and this is, this is one of the things that I really.
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Rob Cover: Like about digital technology, when we try to look at it from that embodied angle that we’re surrounded by devices that our devices for our bodies and not devices to leave our bodies.
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Rob Cover: So you know so at the moment, you know that we have screens and microphones and so on downstairs there are a couple of game devices, these are all things that are really not just corporeal but things that we assembled ourselves into and engage with you know, in the.
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Rob Cover: Creative world.
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Rob Cover: But i’ve got this this way of trying to think about it as a saying that if we think about the space, you know of, we want to think about how the Internet will gain exposure to that as a space, which is always be it to.
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Rob Cover: That we constantly pushing ourselves towards that same with we’re trying to get closer and closer to it, but we never actually crossing into it, we never even at the part in our body.
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Rob Cover: at all, so the body is always there to start with, but isn’t isn’t liberating to try to be something other it’s informative so you know I could you know play as a and.
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Rob Cover: give the impression to others, that I might be a 13 year old girl on a gaming platform, but there are all sorts of problems around that as well, and you know those are the problems around.
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Rob Cover: The violence that we might actually do to another 13 year old girl who befriends me thinking that i’m Rebecca.
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Rob Cover: And i’m her age, and in fact i’m not, and so the power imbalance that that’s already there in that relationship is.
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Rob Cover: His problem, it is by not having actually being a little bit more honest about the body that i’m having.
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Rob Cover: yeah so it’s, not to say that it’s not useful for me to try to think about what might it be like to be a 13 year old girl what my 13 year old girl experience and what kinds of reactions my die actually get and so that was the.
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Rob Cover: That various liberal humanist perspective that that came with you know of this is so great, when we go into this online, but I think that the downside is is that.
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Rob Cover: You know, we may actually unwittingly, be doing violence to others, just in order to.
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Rob Cover: improve ourselves they might be best and more ethical ways for me to imagine what it’s like to be a first thing to go without necessarily having to.
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Rob Cover: Give off the pretense of being one right and it’s like like if we’re playing a role playing game round table I could play a 13 year old girl and everybody knows that i’m not really a 13 year old girl, but if i’m on line, nobody necessarily knows that.
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Rob Cover: yeah and the I think the even I think the unfairness in the game environment as well that, to know that there is an added advantage that is changing the gameplay now that might be great for that 13 year old girl who.
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Rob Cover: might be challenged by the opportunity to play against metal.
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Rob Cover: But at the same time I you know suddenly when, God I don’t really think we’ve got away thinking through what what actual damage might that be to someone who is going to be constantly losing and then discover that that is because she’d been playing.
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Rob Cover: against someone that you know purported to be something quite different right, what does that do for the engagement with gaming what’s the big deal that plays a factor as well right, we could be taking something away from her that she could enjoy her entire life.
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Right and that seems like a real major harm.
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Shlomo Sher: So, so let me go go back a little right because we use words like violence and an ethics and we have this particular case and let’s go back to this case it in a bit i’m curious.
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Shlomo Sher: If you can more broadly, what do you think is the relationship here right between the body and ethic what what sort of issue that’s thinking about the body raise when we talk about video games.
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hmm.
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Rob Cover: I think you know the body is it, it opens up new and interesting ways to think about ethics, I mean the two angles, with this one is the body is something that we all share, so that we don’t disembodied human beings, so we we share that as part of our experience of humanity.
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Rob Cover: The second angle of that is that our bodies are vulnerable from the very beginning of life, and this, this is work that I borrow from James Butler.
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Rob Cover: From the very beginning of life, we are vulnerable and we are given over to being social beings we don’t survive unless we cared for.
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Rob Cover: By the birth, so not being lizards that hatch and I suppose anyway, not being that action you know crawl out and go need straightaway, the so we share that before we even have identity, so we were part of social fabric.
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Rob Cover: Simply because we are embodied not because of any other reason and because those bodies are vulnerable.
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Rob Cover: So that runs obliges an ethics, because it pre exists a sense of identity, a sense of self portrait that you know comes in, as we grow up.
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Rob Cover: It obliges us to engage non violently with that society, which means all the other bodies that are actually in at all the other bodies that also to come.
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Rob Cover: So it’s a slight trick of ethics, to think that I think what is the obligation that is there it’s an obligation of being required.
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Rob Cover: to recognize ourselves as being dependent as being the terminology is constituted in built literally upon that social setting that we do not survive without society, we do not, and, as we know, even as adults, we are not going to survive without society isolated and alone.
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Rob Cover: So being given over to that society from the beginning, obliges us to not do violence to it to others in it and to those and enter the society that has to come with a future, that is to come.
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Rob Cover: So it sets the same for all sorts of ways of behaving but not necessarily setting up rules for us to buy so it’s ways of conceiving how we can think through our place our very being in society.
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Rob Cover: Without saying well here’s a rule for you, you know you must not do this, you must never you know.
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Rob Cover: take up arms, you must you know to always speak in a peaceful he’d be like time, you must do, and so on.
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Rob Cover: You know that those aren’t really quite what an ethics can do what it really does is forces to think about the quandary of how we make decisions, so how we might make decisions for the future say in relation to the climate of the earth, we are our decisions.
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Rob Cover: My decision to throw that piece of plastic, you know into the beam is that a decision that’s going to.
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Rob Cover: Do violence to the future of humanity, probably the requirement, the ethics here is to think through that rather than to say.
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Rob Cover: You know that this is always bad you know if i’ve got to throw that in the bin because I want to go and rescue someone who is about to fall off the cliff, then you know that is not that so it’s really a.
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Rob Cover: way of governing how we think about the decisions that we make rather than actually giving us a set of rules, regulations regimes.
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Shlomo Sher: So, so we got at the heart of this, but this recognition that we’re all vulnerable right and this kind of guide that.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, at the heart of our dealing with other.
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Shlomo Sher: People is recognizing their own vulnerability as well, and you know we could talk about this obviously in terms of the body.
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Shlomo Sher: in real life right, but now we’re in games so.
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Shlomo Sher: How, how do we get this right, I guess, maybe, maybe a way into this and i’m trying to get kind of into it, and then we can kind of broaden out but.
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Shlomo Sher: In what way are people vulnerable in games and so, and if our obligations here are our way of kind of engaging with other players and other people in the games in in the gaming world, even if we’re not you know directly playing with them.
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Shlomo Sher: What do we need to consider in terms of the vulnerability of the of the other people vote.
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Rob Cover: So how are people vulnerable in games.
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Rob Cover: The best starting point is how they know, for me, that is someone’s Avatar is not vulnerable it’s not necessarily unethical for me to you know to to shoot down somebody else.
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Rob Cover: And we get in the same way, I suppose, you know as to the Olympics it wouldn’t be unethical to beat somebody.
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Rob Cover: You know, even though they go to feel sad been coming forth in the Olympics and the worst thing that can happen to some people, but that is you know, within the context of the gameplay itself that that’s not necessarily the unethical part.
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Rob Cover: So it’s really around that Meta level that i’m quite understood how do we treat each other in the context of gaming.
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Rob Cover: So i’m thinking of the kinds of examples in which we’ve seen inherent racism in chauvinism and sexism in some gang cultures and I don’t want to say that this is, you know universal in any way because it’s not seriously.
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Rob Cover: Among very relatively small group of people, but a small group of people who are effectively ruining the game for others, so where the game space becomes you know, a negative space to actually be a space of.
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Rob Cover: feeling shamed for being different so i’m thinking about the violence of marginalization violence of exclusion, the violence of certain kinds of bullying of certain kinds of online hostility.
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Rob Cover: That that play in those spaces, the violence to the game itself and then this is the one that that i’m actually very much interested in when I think about digital hostility, the way people will.
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Rob Cover: In some examples will actually ruin the space for others, so we say the kind of the graffiti in of online forums like reader’s.
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Rob Cover: digest the the disruption of that space or the disruption of particular practices cultural practices.
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Rob Cover: that have emerged around that and I think we’re also seeing that in game spaces, where the radio someone goes in with the intent to.
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Rob Cover: record for everybody and take pleasure that that that to me, would be an unethical act because it’s doing violence to the and the game is a space of student violence to the people who are there.
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Rob Cover: And it may actually be wounding linguistically people through certain kinds of name calling all kinds of racism or sexism.
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Rob Cover: And they’re all of these kinds of arms is can be quite serious so violence is really problematic, I think, because it’s it’s such a flexible term.
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Rob Cover: And the term itself gets used in all sorts of awkward ways.
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Rob Cover: So there are attempts to try this it often happens legislation attempts to try to say.
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Rob Cover: Violence is only physical that you know that there was no kind of verbal violence that we do have you know prayer for defamation laws, depending on our jurisdiction, which actually recognizes that certain kinds of ways of speaking can do violence to another person.
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Rob Cover: But often that tries to test it to say, but how much monetary value have they actually lost rather than How much are they felt hurt or felt offense or you know right right well had the pleasure ruined.
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A Ashcraft: So much.
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Rob Cover: it’s like you brought that up because it was one of the things that we were discussing before you popped.
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A Ashcraft: On was like this, this idea, like most people think of violence as something physical.
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A Ashcraft: But then you started if you’re an activist spaces, then you start hearing about things like economic violence and you hear about you know micro aggressions and these sorts of things and and the violence of these sorts of things and that’s sort of a different way of thinking about violence.
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Rob Cover: hmm absolutely and and, of course, the one of the things just like ethics, we don’t necessarily want to pin down, you know strict definition of what violence will actually be.
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Rob Cover: Because, because the term is used yeah we don’t want it, we don’t want it to grow to nod but we often say it used by let’s say.
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Rob Cover: states and governments in regards to legitimate protest and it will be talked about the violent protest or the violence of a protest.
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Rob Cover: Even though.
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Rob Cover: That protest is actually possibly probably ethical because it’s attempting to reduce other kinds of bottoms or attempted to dress or redress other kinds of violence.
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Rob Cover: rate you don’t necessarily want to you guys, to have a strict definition of it, but the same time, we do have to recognize that, yes, it’s not necessarily going to be the physical blow.
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Rob Cover: And that, in some cases, the physical glow is not necessarily going to be a violent act either the physical blow to restrain someone who was hurting somebody else if it’s a glowing self Defense and so on is you know ethical.
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A Ashcraft: Right.
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Shlomo Sher: For the physical blow in the game that involves physical blows right, I mean that’s.
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Shlomo Sher: You know that.
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Shlomo Sher: That itself is going to have a camera replace though it’s interesting cuz we talked about that, as you know, a time and place for violence, where we take out the negative connotations of violence.
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Shlomo Sher: You know it’s interesting because right.
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Shlomo Sher: We can definitely talk about you know to me as a philosopher, the thing I latched on us to the potential harm done.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and I love this idea of thinking about the vulnerability of the people that we engage in right, and I think of it, not just in terms of the the Trolls that we could talk about, and you know and the bullies.
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Shlomo Sher: But also the game designers right as game designers are thinking about the vulnerabilities of the populations that they might engage with right whether those are minorities dealing with representation or disabled people are various kinds.
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Shlomo Sher: or kids obviously.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and and you know, obviously we can have psychological harm, but at the same time there’s also.
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Shlomo Sher: The harm that can come to people from being offended and i’ve always had a problem with you know the harm that you get from being offended i’ve always this is, to me, has always been personally like a difficult thing to deal with.
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Shlomo Sher: On the one hand, I feel like Of course you gotta care about people being offended they’re offended them they’re harm, but I always think the way to men today.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, am I responsible for them being offended right and one nice thing about the ethics of vulnerability is.
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Shlomo Sher: It doesn’t maybe think in terms of obligations in the sense right so traditional more philosophy would kind of think you know, and my obligated to make sure that no one’s offended well no not really.
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Shlomo Sher: But if instead i’m going on this kind of direction where I want to think about how people vulnerable right, I can be hurt if I put myself in the position of other people who could also be hurt maybe I want to proceed with doing that, before decide what exactly i’m going to do.
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Shlomo Sher: Is that the is that the idea.
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Rob Cover: is very, very true, I mean I agree as well on the question of offense and the question of being sold as well that it is questionable.
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Rob Cover: And the again is not a strict way in which we can stay, you know, we must never offend we must never insult.
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Rob Cover: And we’re not necessarily evil responsible alone for the offense or the insults in giving an example, we were always borrowing from a wider context, anyway, that we didn’t make up the term we didn’t make up the insult.
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Rob Cover: There is a wider social obligation around this around minimizing minimizing themselves but tonight, if we if we wanted, we try to make it individually, we were effectively barking up the wrong tree, really, and this is where this.
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Rob Cover: I hate to invoke the language of work.
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A Ashcraft: The.
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Rob Cover: way it’s been discussed in public sphere environment as if it’s a two sided debate offenses always wrong or no it’s fine to insult as widely as possible and it’s obviously a lot more complex.
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Rob Cover: Right, but we do need to think, then, and this is where I like coming back to ethics around, how do we do, how do we engage with each other as a social body.
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Rob Cover: Without making people vulnerable, which does not necessarily preclude offending.
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Rob Cover: Things to get up in the mornings, really.
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Rob Cover: there’s actually probably greater harm myself if I die, so you know.
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Rob Cover: That.
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Rob Cover: it’s it’s a task for the wider social body.
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Rob Cover: Around.
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Rob Cover: And I don’t think that that’s going to come by.
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Rob Cover: The anti war perspective, who says, you should be more resilient.
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Rob Cover: If I rather which we should really be recognizing that insights do do damage to.
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Our.
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Social body.
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Rob Cover: start to develop ways we can’t conceive of have better communication that minimum.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so let’s.
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Shlomo Sher: let’s talk about that before we do really quick Andy I don’t know if you did something.
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A Ashcraft: yeah i’ve been messing around with my can you hear me at all.
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Shlomo Sher: Too much super super super super super loud.
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A Ashcraft: Sorry, how about now.
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Shlomo Sher: A yet you also you had a lot a lot, a lot of static oh come in, now it seems fine Okay, or you know can can you mute for a second.
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yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay unmute rob can you mute for a second.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay nevermind I think I think we’re good.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay okay.
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A Ashcraft: And my audio is good.
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Shlomo Sher: I had forgotten.
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A Ashcraft: i’d actually forgotten to move my microphone to me when we were doing the audio leveling earlier, it was still sitting at the far edge of my desk.
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Shlomo Sher: I see.
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A Ashcraft: So i’ve been trying to slowly move it towards me and also adjusted, at the same time, so clearly I got it wrong.
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Shlomo Sher: Man, you know 24 episodes Andy I know.
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Shlomo Sher: We still we still make mistakes.
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Shlomo Sher: we’re still just figuring it out as we go.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so rob let’s talk about um can we talk about some specific examples of where right thinking about the body in games now and thinking about this idea of vulnerability can really come into play.
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Rob Cover: Like a specific example, I suppose, of gaming and in which bodies are made vulnerable it’s really I think the fact that so much of this happens at a distance is not really.
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Rob Cover: Where we see the body made horrible but the body that that is actually you know again hurt by the offense or hurt by the insult, you know which is.
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Rob Cover: A bodily reaction, you know when we feel shame we blush you know that.
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Rob Cover: We know and there’s this you know work on this is only you know, at the very beginning, but we know that you know, there can be cerebral damage from being persistently in central persistently offended.
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Rob Cover: You know in ways that experience either quite visceral so you know people will you know make themselves sick by being a particular space to overcome sick from it so.
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Rob Cover: There is a car, there is a level of vulnerability there, but really this does happen, you know much more conceptual, though.
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Rob Cover: So we’re really interested in what happens then when we start bringing bodies together in gaming what happens when we start moving away from the stereotype of gamers as being alone isolated, you know in mom and dad’s basement.
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Rob Cover: aged 48 and.
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Rob Cover: You know, on the verge of you know shooting up a workplace or shopping mall and so on yeah that stereotype is probably the most dangerous thing that’s actually happened for.
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Rob Cover: For thinking about the ethics of gaming because it seems to come back and seems to hover is this specter always there when the key stakeholders talk about gang and we know that that’s not actually you know how gaming is experienced at all so.
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A Ashcraft: Everybody was here, so if it was ever true that that was the gamer it’s certainly not true anymore, like everybody plays games now literally everybody grandmother’s playing games, the kids are playing games mom and pop or playing games or everybody’s playing games now.
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Shlomo Sher: Though it’s interesting how we, you know it is easier.
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Shlomo Sher: So if we’re talking about embody the gamer right that this is kind of the image of if we’re going to connect to the quote unquote gamer as.
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Shlomo Sher: As another person right if we’re a non gamer right it’s interesting that this is the image that was latched onto.
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Shlomo Sher: Right, and this is the embodied image right of people who, in the games in the game world right, you would not have any kind of bodily you know knowledge of, and yet this is the image that we came up with of their bodies right but but it’s not I mean like.
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A Ashcraft: When I say i’m a gamer is it different than just saying I like to play games.
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Rob Cover: yeah sometimes i’m.
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Rob Cover: was actually like the term gamer but it’s like Vikki versus you know I ride a motorbike or you know.
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Rob Cover: You know i’m a tracker as opposed to United what message, a message to star trek.
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Rob Cover: it’s like the way that that one label then becomes stereotypes and where stereotype always takes an identity label and sticks a whole bunch of.
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Rob Cover: attributes to it, so you know when when someone tells me there again, you know the the assumption, but obviously not asked where we know better, but you know.
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A Ashcraft: Someone else.
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Rob Cover: For example, my mother that their game and and her perception is going to be yes, this is a very lazy person, you know who was from the bed to the desk right assessments and.
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Rob Cover: plays games all day and that goes back to get a better game, you know.
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Rob Cover: doesn’t eat lunch so that’s that doesn’t really matter because I don’t really think that my mother’s view is necessarily going to be, you know sort of significant.
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Rob Cover: um I think examples, though, whereas someone might go i’ll go to my GP and you know for medical advice, and you know.
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Rob Cover: I mean, I might have said, say, high blood glucose and i’ll confess to being a gamer and the response I get is through that stereotype or you need to do more exercise, you need to.
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Rob Cover: change your eating habits and soul that you.
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A Ashcraft: Might you might also be a marathon runner but that’s not what you said.
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Rob Cover: You said i’m a gamer because that’s how I by identifying that space and then what that means there is that the test for pancreatic damage.
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Rob Cover: not actually being done to determine, you know what is necessarily wrong, now that would obviously be really bad GPS is not really right whole person in front of them.
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Rob Cover: Right, but you know we do that, that you know at this kind of absurd level of the example that the stereotype can do a lot of damage when we are misinterpreted as being something that we’re actually not the.
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Rob Cover: Most games, I know you know so exceedingly fit and active and have active lives and jobs, and you know massive social lives and don’t live in the basements and so on.
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Rob Cover: there’s a lot of thinking it’s it was never true that stereotype anyway, their brand games in the.
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Rob Cover: late 80s and early 90s as a kid was you know, it was an exceedingly social events that are involved for my family, but you know people came around bodies came together around a Commodore 64 whatever we’re using.
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Rob Cover: You know in ways that were you know sort of involved a lot of social engagement in ways that we learned how to hopefully be more ethical with each other that might be around sort of you know, sharing the game time as well you know, making sure that.
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Rob Cover: bottles of wine proper backups left behind, not given as much game time as others, but you know, there was an engagement that that learning and the decisions that are actually made around that and the and the social life with that particular game that game plan that group of people.
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Shlomo Sher: You know rob i’m thinking about the and Andy and I talked about this before right the difference between the way.
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Shlomo Sher: You know Westerners and let’s say people in you know in China or South Korea play right where right.
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Shlomo Sher: As Westerners we often play you know let’s say you know, on our own, though connected to people to a headset.
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Shlomo Sher: Right well in Asia, you know it’s often as a social activity where you go with your friends, right to the PC bang or you know, to the Internet CAFE is there a difference and how how they perceive the body wouldn’t relation to gaming you know anything about that, but.
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Rob Cover: I do know that there are different ways of conceiving how bodies come together in terms of digital technologies.
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Rob Cover: Related to debase cultural practices and that that sometimes depends on when the technology was introduced as well throughout a lot of the western I think particularly North America, Australia, the UK, there were.
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Rob Cover: You know, we we were experimenting a lot with with how to introduce technologies into our lives that came into other spaces later.
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Rob Cover: And some of the models that are dependent on our housing, the way our cities are designed and rural settings we lived in and so on.
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Rob Cover: And you know they they were brought in, and ways to change those spaces, but also govern how those technologies were brought into our lives in other settings and i’ve got.
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Rob Cover: friends and colleagues in parts of South India very different ways of conceiving gaming, and this is, you know about how looming happens how housing happens how families work together.
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Rob Cover: You know in ways that relates to technologies we I think I think in particularly North America we introduce a secondary be set a lot sooner than.
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Shlomo Sher: occurred in other.
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Rob Cover: Cities so you have this kind of divided of the family, you know the children’s space and the and the analog space right.
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Rob Cover: And that’s happening in a sort of a little bit ahead of the personal computer as well right, you know it starts, as you know, the family machine and then, of course, you know, to the individualized into these other spaces.
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Rob Cover: But you know you’ve got this this economic elements, then to it as well.
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Rob Cover: In what spaces these affordable and not, and how does that govern particular kinds of gameplay at the same time you’ve got the the introduction mobile gaming is.
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Rob Cover: more popular in some settings and it’s you know played, and I know again we’re often when i’m in China.
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Rob Cover: it’s you know, I see a lot of people playing games on mobile devices, but together and I don’t know whether they’re saying bad or not, but there you know, there is a cluster in a public space, rather than the private space to the bedroom.
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A Ashcraft: yeah I even have a mobile game that I play every day that i’ve invited my friends into my my my clan you know, on on this game and and we, and there is a social element to it, even when we do get together physically we talk about it.
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Let me ask you about.
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A Ashcraft: esports so esports seems like an opportunity for us to since so try to like drive home the idea that that.
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A Ashcraft: That games happen that in games include our physical bodies, because these esports athletes and they are athletes, you know that we’re finding that they need, you know they can’t be lethargic.
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A Ashcraft: And they can’t be that typical that that archetypal gamer in order to be competitive, they need to you know, actually, you know be fit.
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A Ashcraft: And so that seems like a really good opportunity to enter say look, you know clearly this doesn’t just happen in your brain this happens throughout your this this This includes your brain and your body working together.
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Rob Cover: yeah I think so i’m seeing it must be very early 2000s i’m when the dumps matt came out as a as a device for gaming and, of course, you know we all thought that was very natural to really work, you know, to start with.
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Rob Cover: But there’s this one, which I think people will becoming very, very aware beginning there than to say we fit and so on.
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Rob Cover: The gaming applications around that that this was very much as a bodily fits you know engage way of being.
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Rob Cover: But I think, especially where I get really interested in question, the body as well, is there and I don’t really know there’s a lot of research on this part in how.
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Rob Cover: People who are playing less active kinds of games perceive their body as well, save the bodily reactions, the the the sweat the being on edge the adrenaline rush, you know which which can even be in something as simple as.
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Rob Cover: A contractor the other night, it was it was it was an awfully banal games, you know because i’m just you know Microsoft titans chest tightness and.
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Rob Cover: You know, really, this was just a moment, from which I should have been writing but was taking a break it’s meant to be some downtime absent mindedly playing.
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Rob Cover: But getting excited and then you know, then losing like my King has taken realizing oh my God cried out in the spring morning and I cried out and at this.
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Rob Cover: thing and realized that you know this, this whole bodily thing i’m sweating and anxious, you know over you know simple game of chess that’s right of a moderate level.
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Rob Cover: And it’s just chase inside the the you know the is you know such a physical elements which are all these processes that are actually happening.
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Rob Cover: So you know it really when I when I think again, I think of it on that continuum from from those to you know, to the esports games, you know which will change, but a lot of activity and a lot of.
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Rob Cover: prepared us for a lot of business around it as well at that, and so we say that the body is always there and the guy.
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A Ashcraft: Playing again it’s certainly true that I have taught in my class that brand that games, take place in our minds and i’m going to stop doing that.
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A Ashcraft: That say that are these Games, take place in all in our in our bodies, which include our minds right.
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Shlomo Sher: Depending on your mind body theory, of course, I have to step in, as the philosopher here, you know.
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Shlomo Sher: Do you know I want to go back to this idea of vulnerability and and the body right and and i’m thinking here about the relationship, what does this tell us in terms of the.
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Shlomo Sher: i’m i’m thinking and part of the.
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Shlomo Sher: Effort that’s been put recently into giving people the options greater options in customizing their in game bodies.
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Shlomo Sher: right there virtual bodies, how do you think that kind of plays into it, this kind of you know, ethics of vulnerability, the this is coming from the game design companies, but of course they’re responding also to you know, a you know both public demand and player demand.
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Rob Cover: I think a lot about avatars never really got to quite conflicting views on it there’s a whole lot of research done about 10 or 15 years ago around how people were choosing their avatars of in game bodies.
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Rob Cover: and finding that it didn’t necessarily align well with how people identified so.
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Rob Cover: I think this is this great case in which we found that a lot of.
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Rob Cover: teenage boys were choosing.
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Rob Cover: A princess peach or something because of because of the way the character played in gay and that alignment of the self with with how was represented on screen was was not really a key factor but that’s not necessarily going to be for everyone and so i’m really interested in how.
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Rob Cover: opportunities are changing for people to actually line up gaming characters, and this is really becomes a matter of representation.
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Rob Cover: Do we have enough people of color represented in games integrate in a way that allows you as a young person to say not just I am represented, and I can see, you know.
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Rob Cover: myself on that screen, so I don’t feel excluded, to begin with, but also that you know that I can play as that particular person it opens up me a greater range for.
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Rob Cover: Other people to actually be able to see as well, but that range is going to have to keep on increasing so you know we’re starting to see examples of.
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Rob Cover: push to make sure that well, can we have non binary people are represented, how can we ensure a very vast range of genders and races to be available there, you know as on screen voted.
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Rob Cover: So this feeds into to some of my.
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Rob Cover: desire my ethical desire to see people as represented themselves in slightly more honest way.
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Rob Cover: In online spaces, we know that that’s where people become less violent less harmful towards others when they was honestly, so we know that from social media that but people anonymize themselves, we see greater digital hostility particular insight online forums.
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Rob Cover: I think that’s actually playing out gaming culture as well that when people can actually be more anonymous or feel that they’re not necessarily going to be traced, then the.
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Rob Cover: ethical obligation falls to the side, but when it’s me and my face and literally my face, and since we’re getting so close to be able to do that with with technologies now with deep technology to be able to incorporate exactly me into against face.
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Rob Cover: Video space, but I don’t think we’re very far off that that might actually become one of the logical ways in which we become more ethical by representing.
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Rob Cover: ourselves but it’s also going to have all sorts of problems around that as well.
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Rob Cover: or problems of identification problems of risk being especially younger people and so on, and we don’t have a you know we don’t have any kind of roadmap for front of work out how that might actually play out.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, sorry you got it you go ahead out.
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A Ashcraft: You guys, I was gonna say that.
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A Ashcraft: it’s interesting that you thought you’re thinking about that already because I have.
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A Ashcraft: I was involved with a project a couple of years ago about there was going to be basically a virtual shopping Center.
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A Ashcraft: Where people would would their avatars they could make match their physical you know their their actual measurements, so that they could go clothes shopping buy things see how it looks on their Avatar and then have that shipped to them.
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A Ashcraft: So we might see some of that that’s that’s where I would expect to see some of that stuff start starting to show up.
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A Ashcraft: But yeah we make avatars for ourselves and all kinds of ways, like like animal crossing i’ve got a little animal crossing me i’ve got a you know, a me on my we that little.
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A Ashcraft: Little character and sometimes I you know, and I keep hoping that when we come back after this coven thing that will all be basically dressed like our animal crossing characters.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, I was, I was actually thinking in a I was thinking about doesn’t article I was thinking about player role identification right and how important it is for me.
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Shlomo Sher: At least you know, usually right I usually really enjoy identifying with my characters and reading an article from Maybe it was like eight years ago, seven years ago uh you know where a woman was essentially talking about how.
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Shlomo Sher: That experience has just been something that she’s never really thought of she didn’t really think that that’s what gaming was about that, for her gaming was essentially about the fantasy of playing someone else because we’re all identification just really wasn’t available to her.
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Shlomo Sher: And you know so it’s not like she missed it she just starts up as having a different experience but from my, from my perspective, like oh man did she like miss out on something really, really important, or at least the option to do that um and it’s it’s really interesting this idea of.
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Shlomo Sher: If we if our avatars really represented us, you know, so we have much more role identification, whether that really is true that we would you know that we would be more more honest more ethical.
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Shlomo Sher: Though it’s you know.
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Shlomo Sher: If the only reason is because.
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Shlomo Sher: we’re scared of real repercussions, I mean, mind you, that still is a reason I mean that’s still you know I mean there’s you know it’s not a bad thing we have social repercussions for being jerks you know, for being bad to people, I mean that’s that’s a good thing.
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Shlomo Sher: But it’s interesting if just beyond those social repercussions if we just feel you know the you know if we feel our vulnerability more.
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Shlomo Sher: When we are identified, I mean go ahead and I have to say I would feel vulnerable in a game, if it was my real face.
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Shlomo Sher: And then I wonder if I would then feel that others are equally vulnerable in this way is this a good idea, but do you think we should push for everybody to be with their faces or with their with their real bodies in game.
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Rob Cover: I think it’s really difficult one, because I think it could also reduce the pleasure factor as well.
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Shlomo Sher: definitely have to be upfront.
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Rob Cover: about playing a little civilization based games again may not just be playing alone.
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Rob Cover: But my in game character in that space was you know, a grateful grateful totalitarian, fascist dictator or what I would do to try to you know, to build a city or to build.
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Rob Cover: an empire, you know which which, which is never aligned with my politics, now I would hate to be doing that in an online space with my name on it.
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Rob Cover: And then be providing evidence, you know for some terrible because it’s going to try to harm say my reputation by saying you know rock over this is awful fascistic take a look at how we play these games because it’s simply just play.
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Rob Cover: With them we recognize that you know, while players, you know it’s a vested in culture as well yeah there are certain lines that demarcated and so it’s possible for.
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Rob Cover: me to go do that as opposed possible also to explore So what does it mean, how does it make me feel to be this fascist dictator.
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Rob Cover: So that’s part of the ethics office engaging also.
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Shlomo Sher: Then.
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Rob Cover: See you have that part apply but wouldn’t make me a wouldn’t play differently if I was up front in an online setting.
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Rob Cover: With my name and photograph if if I could, if I could interject a little bit I think you.
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A Ashcraft: You might end up.
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A Ashcraft: Being an actor, to a degree, right like an actor would take on a role, and of course everybody knows, is the actor, but sometimes the role.
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A Ashcraft: That sometimes people don’t see the actor, like the role is so strong or the the character is so strong after that the actor as hard time getting work outside of.
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A Ashcraft: That kind of character playing or nobody can see them anything else other than that, so you have this sort of dilemma right of like should I play there’s a movie where I could play Hitler, but should I or will I be stuck playing Hitler for the rest of my life.
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Shlomo Sher: Or will those you know it’s interesting my wife my wife was an actor.
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Shlomo Sher: And you know i’ve talked to her before Emmanuel content, the philosopher essentially was really worried about butchers.
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Shlomo Sher: And you know, he was really worried about how butchers kill all the time right and he assumed that.
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Shlomo Sher: And i’m putting this in the game context right because, of course, you know we do that in the game context right we kill the time and here you have these butchers who literally kill the time.
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Shlomo Sher: And he was essentially warning people about you know the dangers of butchers, because there were used to killing animals, so they were probably going to be more likely to kill people.
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Shlomo Sher: And I talked to my wife about this in terms of acting right if you were so if you did play someone let’s say we’re doing a play in every night, you were Hitler.
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Shlomo Sher: Right right would that affect your long term personality right and you think of all the you know this Liam Nilsson go around killing like tons of people.
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Shlomo Sher: or pick your favorite action hero right, and you know it, it seems it’s it’s interesting how that affects when we do act, I see my wife walking behind me.
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Shlomo Sher: You know.
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Shlomo Sher: When when we do act, it still seems not to you know, be a part of our identity to death kind of degree, but of course.
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Shlomo Sher: You know.
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Shlomo Sher: As a you know Andy and i’ve talked before you think of a game like manhunt 2043.
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Shlomo Sher: Right this idea of like a virtual reality super realistic and you wonder how acting as yourself in that, and whether be yourself in that, rather than the character that you’re coming into the story with might have this kind of impact on you just because you’re wearing your body.
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Rob Cover: And yeah.
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A Ashcraft: I don’t know that i’d be able to play myself and again.
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Shlomo Sher: Maybe they’re not like that.
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Shlomo Sher: I don’t know I don’t know that I would behave in the way that everybody thinks that I should behave.
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Rob Cover: yeah, so I think that.
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Rob Cover: That destroys the pleasure element as well, because it is in part that wanted to be something other as well, I wanted to explore that something other I think acting is the best analogy for.
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Rob Cover: The problem I think we have thought is that you know the good actor recognizes that it, even if they you know.
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Rob Cover: Even if they’re a method actor they recognize that you know that there is a distinction between the self and the part that’s being played right good.
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Rob Cover: Critical audience Member recognizes that as well, but then you know some soap opera stars, you know being really, really nasty characters they do get spat on in the street.
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Rob Cover: right as well, so there’s some people do have difficulty differentiating between you know the character that they see and the actor that they see and you know.
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Rob Cover: It won’t be really careful not to not to be demeaning to those people as well, but it does come down to a lack of critical faculties.
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Rob Cover: Lack of the capacity to do critique to see context to see into texts to see you know.
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Rob Cover: What what we you know walk in our everyday respectable decides to see reality, but to see to see things that has they are so often think of say how conspiracy theorists you know mistake, you know the fantasy of a of a conspiracy, for you know the reality that.
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Politicians I usually just bumbling about, and you know couldn’t manage conspiracy that alone, the extra thing.
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Rob Cover: ability for critique to do that, and particularly ethical.
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Shlomo Sher: I want to go back to the acting thing because it made me think of okay so actors are sometimes criticized for.
401
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Shlomo Sher: taking on the role of bodies that are supposed to be not available to them right so right typically that’s that’s racial.
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Shlomo Sher: What do you think about that in games right is there, you know, are there responsibilities that come in this context in gains in terms of the bodies we choose our some bodies.
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Shlomo Sher: And of course we have this whole fantasy element right is there a limit of how we do that doesn’t matter if we’re in a single player game or multiplayer game.
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Shlomo Sher: Or is it that we have a license in the you know gaming universe to kind of abandoned our real body and allow ourself a chance to try out anybody, we want.
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Rob Cover: I think I think the capacity to try things out is something that would be lost if it were you know only are so we always had to align our identity now, I think we did this a lot at the moment around non trans actors playing transgender characters.
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01:00:11.370 –> 01:00:22.260
Rob Cover: And I have i’ve been I understand the argument, but I have a bit of a concern about whether we lose something by saying we must always alive.
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01:00:23.010 –> 01:00:39.990
Rob Cover: it’s good to live, because it does mean that transact is then we can actually get more work and that the work that is most suited for them, in many cases, is not being taken away, but when David to company played a trans character in twin peaks in composite very early 90s.
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Rob Cover: He did something that was united, he did a great justice to everyone, because he really showed that you know this this this relatively masculine.
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Rob Cover: character actor, was able to actually to do attract character, without a being a jerk or without being funny and you know and played with with great sympathy and great dignity.
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Rob Cover: And I think that that did something, then for Trans people are actually perceived.
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Rob Cover: There, so you know it’s like there’s this enormous benefit for others as well to see people doing things that you know i’ve not necessarily in alignment.
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Rob Cover: With that, with that identity as well, so you know the context of the game to be able to see that the perhaps.
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01:01:24.780 –> 01:01:31.770
Rob Cover: Maybe we need more information to say you know it’s like look, this is, this is, who I am in the game, this is, who I am in real life, you know.
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01:01:32.640 –> 01:01:37.050
Rob Cover: don’t troll me to find this information and don’t docs me box.
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01:01:37.650 –> 01:01:50.400
Rob Cover: You know I will be up front if everybody else will be up front and please understand that i’m making particular choices here because it’s pleasurable or because it’s you know it’s interesting to me is do so what i’m trying to make a.
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01:01:50.760 –> 01:01:57.150
Rob Cover: point that there were all sorts of diverse motivations for how we choose, those in get characters right right.
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A Ashcraft: And and and we have a responsibility if we’re going to play, something that is not ourselves to treat that character, with respect to treat the right to so that we’re not we’re not basically just.
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Doing virtual blackface.
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Shlomo Sher: Right right and yeah I was, I was thinking of all the kind of.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s interesting because part of this is in the hands of developers of course right to what options are you going to have and.
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01:02:25.740 –> 01:02:35.670
Shlomo Sher: You know what if I want to play if I want to play a stereotype and I want to really amp that up to the stereotype in the most negative kind of ways, you know that that I can do.
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A Ashcraft: You know I noticed when I do that.
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Shlomo Sher: And people, of course, people will do that because you know people are wonderful and people are assholes you know, and you know, and though it’s interesting, of course, with the anonymity.
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Shlomo Sher: Right aspect of it, people will do that will do that more right, but it is interesting right, because with the with the example of let’s say the Trans actors or Latino actors right someone is losing out.
425
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Shlomo Sher: Here you have this fantasy world, but no one’s obvious who’s losing out, but you still want to think about the vulnerability.
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Shlomo Sher: Of the people you are encountering right as you take, and no one’s gonna care if you’re taking on like you know you’ve muted in your dark Elf body in some sort of way right versus you know you are essentially playing as like a really bad negative stereotype of a Latina right right.
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um.
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01:03:32.520 –> 01:03:36.900
Rob Cover: you’ve got the you’ve got the context on it, I suppose, really apply, I mean I think a lot about.
429
01:03:38.010 –> 01:03:45.300
Rob Cover: How my apartment I will mimic grateful races, by using the kinds of language, and we do this today.
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A Ashcraft: Usually, you know discussing.
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01:03:49.200 –> 01:03:56.430
Rob Cover: behind closed doors, yet behind closed doors, because if anyone heard this out of the context or did not understand the context, we would sound like.
432
01:03:56.760 –> 01:04:05.250
Rob Cover: A horrible racist St St how terrible insulting things you know, we found that we’ve actually you know even us of over over years of you know curtail.
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01:04:05.850 –> 01:04:14.280
Rob Cover: More concerned by somebody did over here that is it’s even more so it’s that’s a good thing, because that That to me is with one of those ethical quandary is there.
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Rob Cover: But the you know sort of like what How should we speak, and you know and and how insulting by to be to actually even to parody.
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01:04:23.310 –> 01:04:26.760
Racist but at the same time.
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01:04:28.320 –> 01:04:38.640
Rob Cover: You know, I think that if context with better recognize the people around us we’re more critical than becoming less harmful events and might be bored the training more pedagogical.
437
01:04:39.330 –> 01:04:52.080
Rob Cover: For other people as well, rather than be mistaken, so one of the things i’ve got some fear a lot, you know, socially, is that we’ve become so quick to charge on so many things and to just say you know.
438
01:04:52.380 –> 01:05:00.120
Rob Cover: That person chose that particular Avatar now what does that mean Okay, yes, now i’ve seen it without actually asking are without excuse and critically unpacking.
439
01:05:00.840 –> 01:05:09.750
Rob Cover: What is actually happening and I don’t want to do that, that you know dreadful nostalgia thing of like a you know, things were so good before the Internet, we all just thought you know we all.
440
01:05:09.960 –> 01:05:17.640
Rob Cover: ask questions and slowly so that that wasn’t true at all and that’s just a false and started for something that really exists but.
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01:05:18.180 –> 01:05:40.650
Rob Cover: No, I think that that becomes way, so the ethics actually plays out in how can we actually be less judgmental and more critical than the critique sense, you know by engagement, rather than simply slamming a particular behavior that today I instantly just as well.
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01:05:41.880 –> 01:05:47.820
Shlomo Sher: yeah you know, let me switch from that a ND quick check with you, where are we on time.
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A Ashcraft: we’ve probably got one good question left.
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Shlomo Sher: Then let me ask one good question um you say that giving teaches us about social justice and it’s play as a kind of Corporal and you know bodily in a social activity.
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Shlomo Sher: How does give me do that so let’s end up in a hopefully a positive note right does, how does gaming teach us about social justice and the body.
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Rob Cover: it’s it becomes the place to play out things that actually matter.
447
01:06:18.270 –> 01:06:23.940
Rob Cover: Well, I mean I am you know i’m often very interested in that line of play that the quoting.
448
01:06:24.120 –> 01:06:36.270
Rob Cover: You know where we’re just be no other players always known purpose for, and you know it has no utility but you know but exist as part of cultivates always separated from it and i’m interested in how that line actually it’s a very great one.
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01:06:37.080 –> 01:06:47.820
Rob Cover: As well you know I always like to avoid arguments about you know games, you know, have a utility that that reminds me of those childhood remarks that used to get into playing games that rabbi.
450
01:06:48.690 –> 01:06:55.440
Rob Cover: nervous parents or teachers, you know who want to accept but but don’t really like it’s very good for hand eye coordination.
451
01:06:56.760 –> 01:06:57.210
Rob Cover: yeah.
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01:07:00.000 –> 01:07:00.630
Rob Cover: stay.
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01:07:01.830 –> 01:07:09.060
Rob Cover: So you know I don’t like that some details and I don’t like to say the Games always you know, without purpose either pleasure has assigned to episodes.
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Rob Cover: But I do think that there was always a pedagogical element and everything that we actually do and so that’s why I tend to think that if.
455
01:07:16.770 –> 01:07:27.690
Rob Cover: If the attitude to gaming is right if it’s the one that sees the body, you know compare reality, the way we work together thrown into social settings.
456
01:07:28.170 –> 01:07:40.350
Rob Cover: and thrown into a game space in which we are obliged to co-habit rather than to exclude or to say these people should not be here or and so on.
457
01:07:40.830 –> 01:07:48.540
Rob Cover: it’s that opportunity to play those outs and learn and to constantly learn, you know in that that interaction with others.
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01:07:48.990 –> 01:08:00.060
Rob Cover: yeah and then this is where you know, for me, as well as it’s about getting away from the stereotype of the game is being you know something that has played exclusively alone privately and and suddenly could eat it’s.
459
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Rob Cover: The sociality of it is very much over emphasized, and I don’t think it matters that we’re not socializing in the same.
460
01:08:07.770 –> 01:08:14.610
Rob Cover: bodily space we have bodies that are connecting and assembling together across you know vast distances.
461
01:08:15.390 –> 01:08:23.490
Rob Cover: In order to play out how does society work and how should society work and that you know that, just like you know.
462
01:08:24.150 –> 01:08:38.490
Rob Cover: Film and TV and I would also plays out those key questions you know all the time, you know how should people behave what what are our ways of engaging with each other, that is, to varying degrees, but it’s still always that question I think that’s part of what.
463
01:08:39.150 –> 01:08:47.940
Rob Cover: Humanity achieve and communications about how can we do better all the time yeah that’s an assessment, so why we communicate.
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Shlomo Sher: With right, what does that mean well i’m i’m going to dig a little bit under this into the same question, what does that mean for people like me who are a game designers how do is this.
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A Ashcraft: Like should I just make sure that i’m always just thinking about the game assemblage as you talk about you know the game, plus the players, plus their minds, plus their bodies all of that is the game, or the game space this inside the circle, the magic circle we’ve talked about.
466
01:09:20.280 –> 01:09:28.140
A Ashcraft: Is that basically the way I should just think about things, and then proceed onward or is there is there more specific things I should be thinking about.
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Rob Cover: You know, look, I think, I think, yes, but I think that, I mean most game designers I talked to already do think about those things, and you know this is where, again, you know.
468
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Rob Cover: The problem of stereotypes, the problem with the idea that game designers only thinking about the narrative of the guy or.
469
01:09:44.310 –> 01:09:50.640
Rob Cover: The or the you know how it’s going to look and so on, but you know some we know for a fact that most can design so thinking about well.
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Rob Cover: You know, not just will this be popular will people enjoy playing it, but how will people play it, how will it further the the engagement, you know what are the bodily limits to what kinds of game controllers will be needed and and and so on, right yeah that that’s all picture.
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A Ashcraft: covered within the idea of the user experience right.
472
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Rob Cover: So I think that you know I think what’s going to design and build was thinking that in that ethical way and I really hate seeing.
473
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Rob Cover: You know the industry being slammed for games that are perceived to be violence or aggressive at the underside of these are just just.
474
01:10:29.400 –> 01:10:44.940
Rob Cover: dreadful people training our children to do terrible things to each other, because we know again that even children get this even to get kids can understand the difference between you know being unethical and you know playing a first person shooter and really get.
475
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Rob Cover: The other things, and I mean it was about the question of what game developers could do around ethics.
476
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Rob Cover: I mean here’s an interesting one that i’ve been thinking about a lot, and this might just be me getting older and the statute for games I played in the past, but is there an ethical responsibility.
477
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Rob Cover: On the industry to preserve those Games and to preserve the access to them as well, so I think if the Commodore 64 games that are you know really difficult to play, because the emulators don’t work well.
478
01:11:18.810 –> 01:11:26.970
Rob Cover: Right so much time, but they were important spaces for engagement for myself and my friends.
479
01:11:28.560 –> 01:11:40.320
Rob Cover: So you know just just to see if any of those Games as as that played out, so I can see them in a museum that’s of game design, but you know, and I might even be able to play it there.
480
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Rob Cover: But Mr effect is that something that’s important should we do more to make sure that these stay ever available right.
481
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A Ashcraft: Right, I mean there’s there’s film like UCLA here in Los Angeles, has the big film archive and you know they felt they spend a lot of money to make sure that.
482
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A Ashcraft: that the old films are preserved for for future generations, but we haven’t really got that for games and I think that’s a great idea.
483
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Shlomo Sher: We really not have a game archive is that really nothing I.
484
01:12:08.070 –> 01:12:13.080
Shlomo Sher: mean I need I need my 1985 Summer Games and Summer Games, too, so I could do.
485
01:12:13.260 –> 01:12:19.410
Shlomo Sher: diving you know I That was my favorite that 1985 I want that back kilometer 128.
486
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Shlomo Sher: All right, rob yeah it’s been a pleasure chatting with you.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Thank you so much is there, can you tell our listeners is there anywhere that that you want to be found on the entire Web.
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Rob Cover: um yeah Google search and you know there’s bits and pieces of me around the place.
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Shlomo Sher: Alright cool uh rob we end our podcast if you want to join us with a GP good podcasts and all right good good podcast guys.
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A Ashcraft: Good podcast GP.
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Shlomo Sher: play nice everyone.
