[Release Date: December 20, 2022] When a player steps into a game, often that game will have a political structure and the player’s choices in that structure may respond to their sense of justice. That sense of justice can also connect us as groups or factions in games. Can these factions engage in unethical in-game political action? Can players in massive multi-player games be considered citizens of those gameworlds in some sense? If so, can those worlds be tyrannical or benign dictatorships? Does justice demand giving players in such games democratic representation?
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: All right, Everybody we’re here with James pigeon fielder to be known from this point on as Pigeon,
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Shlomo Sher: a Phd. Who’s a um colorado state university political scientist who researchers into personal trust and emerging political processes, through cyber-based interaction, and to a tabletop and live action, gaming his natural experiments, he’s, also the chief operating officer for role-playing company mobius worlds publishing and consults and organizational war, gaming crisis, response exercises and scenario planning pigeon does a whole lot, and we are excited to have
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James Fielder: to the show pigeon sweet
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James Fielder: happy to be here.
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Shlomo Sher: All right.
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Shlomo Sher: Let’s see um. So we talked a little bit before the show about how this is definitely not a topic that we thought we’d be covering before right. The the politics inside. Ah, you know, in inside a game. Um, you know. So this idea talk about the ethics of politics, right it. It really might seem like a weird topic to a lot of people if if we were talking about ethics in real world politics, it really wouldn’t be that confusing right? I mean,
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Shlomo Sher: we could talk about political corruption, potential conflicts of interest for the people in the government responsibilities that the Government has to the people responsibilities. Political parties have to voters, issues, and political advertising. There’s a lot of stuff, but
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Shlomo Sher: all that stuff is real. Video Games are fictional worlds where things are really different. So when you talk about politics and video games, pigeon, what do you have in mind?
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James Fielder: All right? I have two thoughts. There is first
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James Fielder: the individual player as a political actor,
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James Fielder: so giving themselves into the game, embodying a character in their game, and then behaving ah! Politically carrying out their agency inside of this world. It could be done to the dragons to go kill the fuzel. It can be in Eve online, or they’re part of a larger corporation. But so it’s individual
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James Fielder: and most common finding I found, and this ties into dovetails, if you will, with um sociology, showing that players will emerge from the game more confident, and then more likely to interact with real life
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James Fielder: organizations. So I would say, to behave politically. So that’s one angle. Second angle, is then literally, how do players form governing bodies inside of games? So maybe a tabletop game where they build a a country, they build a
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James Fielder: ah non-government organization, like a fighter’s guild or whatnot, or in a video game where they’ll form a corporation on the Eve online or form their own guild inside of a World warcraft.
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James Fielder: And so there you see how committed players are to the group, and how they conform to what that institution stands for, and they will project. Quite a bit of
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James Fielder: individual has to say
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James Fielder: it’s.
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James Fielder: They will dedicate themselves quite powerfully and quite strongly to these institutions, and, in fact, I just had a paper published in simulation and gaming on the Battle of B. Five, Rb. And Eve online. It just came up in one.
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James Fielder: When was it. April of two thousand and twenty two was published this year, seeing how players all over the world dropped everything they were doing,
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James Fielder: called and sick to work
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James Fielder: uh didn’t go to class, stay up all night
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James Fielder: to be part of their corporation in the game to fight the other corporation, and it’s
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James Fielder: that’s a level of a.
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James Fielder: It’s on
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James Fielder: motivation and drive. I’d like to see in the real world
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James Fielder: that okay? So yeah, they basically individual activity. And then for the
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those are the two kind of ankles
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James Fielder: that was that huge battle in Eve, right like the biggest battle ever right? So what that?
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James Fielder: Yes, at the time It was the most players in the biggest battle, and i’m pretty positive they’ve had larger ones since.
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James Fielder: Ah, that was still unique in that. It was the largest f ever in any game online, and it was the first one to have measurable economic damage.
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James Fielder: Oh, right in the real world economic damage, not in-game or economic damage, because Eve online has also had issues with in-game economic problems caused by this kind of
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James Fielder: stuff, too. But they’re talking about like like this is where it affects the real economy, because people aren’t going to work right? That’s amazing and measurable, which means it’s. It’s not just a handful of people doing stuff.
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James Fielder: Yes, yeah, that’s amazing.
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Shlomo Sher: Ah,
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Shlomo Sher: Pigeon, you know It’s kind of weird to Ah, you know you’re talking about groups. Um, you know it’s easy to understand to be a political actor in a game. Right? You can go into a game. You can have a you know, a politics of various ah powerful groups in the game that you might have to to deal with. Um! What is the organizations like the example you just gave us about Eve? Right? You join an organization, and you have a commitment
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Shlomo Sher: motivation to it. What does that have to do with what we call politics?
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James Fielder: So, generally speaking, if politics are about how governments form, or how people build political institutions
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James Fielder: that includes not just states, but also non-government organizations so a corporation both in the real world and in an in-game parlance, is a non-government organization, an organization founded by people private citizens to carry out some sort of objective
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James Fielder: real-world. You know amazon’s Forum to sell all us a whole bunch of chotsky’s or amnesty international forms to protect human rights in the game, it would be to advance the cause,
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James Fielder: the the cause of the organization, and it can be something as simple as we’re here to get loot and make sure we enrich ourselves.
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Right,
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sir.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, um cool. So.
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Shlomo Sher: Um. I want to spend most of our time today talking about multiplayer games right, because that’s where we’re going to get these groups and everything. But let’s at least start a little bit by focusing on the single-player experience. Uh, it seems to me that a single player in the world like let’s say Skyra right can react to the political situation of that world. So you you get an option right? You’re going to be the Empire or the rebels right? Um. And then in a game like the game Orwell, where essentially the Government hires you to quote unquote help, fight terrorism,
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Shlomo Sher: or maybe spy on your own people depending on how you look at it. You get some choices in the game where you’ve got to decide how much to help the Government with the sicker surveillance, or maybe how much to help people be free from the Government. There you’re obviously, you know, playing in kind of political situation.
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Shlomo Sher: When I talked about justice a couple of weeks ago with one of my classes, and one of my students said,
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Shlomo Sher: I wouldn’t care at all about justice in a video game. It’s just a game, Right? Um. Obviously, this is not how a lot of players feel about justice, even in a world where they’re You know where it’s a single player experience. Do you know anything about how players approach decisions like this like there’s Empire or rebels in in single-play world?
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James Fielder: Right? Yeah. So you will have a certain players who are able to very well separate themselves from This is a game, and i’m not present in the game. I’m. This is a character, and they will engage with the narrative without any sense of a a remorse, or joy, or whatever.
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James Fielder: Then you’ll have other players who will have a visceral response to Do I join the storm cloaks, or do I do an empire? What do they stand for?
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James Fielder: So, um? Speaking for myself, I know i’m an anecdotal example. I have a very visceral distaste in Skyrim to playing the Empire. I always play
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James Fielder: side with the store cloaks,
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James Fielder: because for me it actually matters, but
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James Fielder: and that’s actually a key point right there. Um
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James Fielder: single-player games we at Orwell be it papers please be a jalopy, or this war of mine
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James Fielder: players have to know that their choices matter. That’s what’s the kicker. They that’s when they walk away from the game, feeling like they’ve learned something, or they’ve engaged emotionally with a narrative. I dare say. What do I say? You don’t want them to be railroaded?
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James Fielder: Pigeon holds
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James Fielder: actually just this very morning a student of mine came up to talk to me, and was talking about playing cyberpunk two thousand and seventy seven,
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James Fielder: and he said,
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James Fielder: playing through all the choices up to one of the ends
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James Fielder: i’m not going to, if you i’m not going to have spoilers here, and he told me what ending he played to, and he said he walked away with it. It’s still haunting him. He won it two weeks ago, and he’s still thinking about all the choices he made. What could he have done? Different?
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James Fielder: And all the choices leading to that point mattered.
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James Fielder: Right? Yeah. And that’s just That’s just juicy goodness, right? Because not only is that is that really interesting to happen in the real time like that’s ah, that’s that engagement that we’re trying to get in all of our games, but it also leads him back to playing it again potentially. Yes, or telling his friends to play it, or you know otherwise you know re-engaging with the game,
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A Ashcraft: which is great.
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James Fielder: Yes, I will cite two specific single-player examples that in a way violate this rule, like they somewhat
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James Fielder: railroad players that do a certain outcome, but I think they’re emotionally powerful enough that it still matters. One being speck ups the line where the player follows the dissent into madness of a character in the game,
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James Fielder: right? And that’s intentional. They do have some agency, but it’s intentional, so they approach the game, knowing that the
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James Fielder: another. This is just a one of the set pieces in college duty, Modern warfare two which was called the No Russian setting. And that’s where you actually played through a mass killing inside of a new airport.
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James Fielder: And you remember a soldier killing the civilians so yes, they played through it. I mean, this is very controversial. A lot of country censored this out. Um, but the designers said um, and actually I can’t remember the fellow’s name was said
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James Fielder: said that that was intentional. If you wanted to sense of having a visceral experience, seeing what your opponents did. So when you come. Play the good guy, if you will,
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James Fielder: you know it’s not just narrative. You know exactly what happened, because you did it right right? You were there. Yes, you
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James Fielder: you know it’s interesting with Ah, you you know, when you said I never thought of playing, you know, as the Empire. Ah, you know it’s! Ah! I wonder if this is part of the political bias of. Let’s say, you know, living in a society where the word empire is a dirty word,
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James Fielder: you know. I mean, you know we are. So. We are freedom. Love in society. Empire means the control Empire means oppression, right? And so, yeah, I I never remotely thought of, but of joining the Empire in that game. But of course, you know, I mean empire means order. Empire means stability,
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Shlomo Sher: you know. Right? I I sort of feel like that. The negative connotation on on Empire has come about in our lifetimes.
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James Fielder: Yeah, and and probably, you know, got a big kick by Star Wars.
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Shlomo Sher: Ah, interest, I think, before us, I mean we were talking about the Soviet Empire, I think, before that. But I think Star Wars really nails it. I mean, that’s yeah. Most people, young People’s image of the Empire at this point is, you know, the evil empire, but at the same time structures and right, you know, faceless enemies. And yeah,
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James Fielder: at the same time I think of like, you know, when the Roman Empire fails. Not a good thing, for you know, for most people right? Ah, you know. Ah, in that area. That’s a good point. That is a very good point, because I I can approach it as a political scientist
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James Fielder: having a personal visceral response to being a member of the Empire.
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James Fielder: I do know. Yeah, you’re right. The um.
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James Fielder: The Empire
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James Fielder: stable has a strong economy. Everyone’s cooperating to ensure that everyone’s safe to secure, and it’s like who doesn’t want that side. Note I, when I apply to teach at the Air Force Academy
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James Fielder: part of my I compared the Security National Security policy of Iran
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James Fielder: with the national Security policy of the Empire from Star Wars the
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James Fielder: and to make a lot of contrast. But one of them was who doesn’t like order like the Empire. Just so to the films. Looks like I mean, they got a four, one K plan. The economy’s good. I mean gi Bill, I mean everything’s good
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James Fielder: right without the films overlook the other, like Orwellian aspects of being in the Empire. But looking at it just from the outside surface inspection.
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James Fielder: It doesn’t seem like there’s anything more with it,
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James Fielder: and i’m not
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James Fielder: that hegemon does provide that security to ensure. People are have good jobs. Gas is good, has a good price, that sort of thing.
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A Ashcraft: It’s a
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Shlomo Sher: So so to go back to this choice that we, as the single player have to make right. I mean, we’re we’re taking sides here on, You know we have a vision of how, let’s say political society is supposed to be, or how we want it to be. And let’s say, even if we recognize on some level, you know, Yeah, the Empire really built stability.
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Shlomo Sher: We’re going to get a lot more meaning if we’re involved in ah in the game in a way that Ah, Ah connects us to the way power is. Ah! The way we would like power to to operate in our world is Is that the idea?
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James Fielder: Yes,
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James Fielder: yes, absolutely. You have. That normative sense of this is of the way I think things ought to be.
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James Fielder: Yep, in this world.
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James Fielder: Um, okay. Ah, let’s move on to multiplayer games, because I figured I think that leads us very neatly into like. How do then, do we then band together to
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Shlomo Sher: to bring these normative ideas into our games?
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Shlomo Sher: Right? Right? We we we come into a game ah! Or already bringing our normal of ideas. And now we’ve got a bunch of people with different ideas in in a world where we have different functions. So what are some of the ways that politics can become a factor, so in any way in multiplayer games.
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James Fielder: But the the big one is, it could be water Warcraft where the Eulo governs, how the world works all the way into Nelson. We’ve online. It’s just you give players the opportunity to form groups, and those groups are allowed to be persistent that right there is a government institution in Petri dish for,
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James Fielder: and that’s a basically it.
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James Fielder: Um, i’m going to throw it here a term that Ian bogas coined in two thousand and seven and persuasive game, which he called procedural rhetoric It applies to single-player games, too, but in a multiplier it’s a sense of how then, players as a group were to navigate. I’m sorry let me back up
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James Fielder: how the rules from the designers govern what the players can do. But then, in turn, how the players try to press the boundaries about. Well, what can we get away with inside of this procedure? Rhetoric or
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James Fielder: the you know, developing this narrative as they go within the confines of a design structure?
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James Fielder: Um, can we get some some examples of that? Let’s see. Ah, you know, So is the whole thing, the politics of the game, or is the way that the players are reacting to the structure. That’s the politics of the game, right? It’s a bit of both, and it’s. I would say it depends on the game.
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James Fielder: So something like world of Warcraft, where,
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James Fielder: yes, the world might change in some way based on what your character does, but it’s largely scripted like Blizzard says this is how the game will behave, and there’s not much you as individual players can do about it.
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James Fielder: Um!
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James Fielder: That case, then, in the absence of agency against the game. You could see them guilt for
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James Fielder: to carry out political activity against each other instead, like raids against a guilds in Pvp format. I remember that big raid in what your was it?
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James Fielder: Where a a funeral in-game funeral for a real person in real life was overrun by a guilt, because they saw it as being free, like you didn’t protect yourself. Sorry about that.
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James Fielder: In contrast to again my favorite null sec. And you online where you
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James Fielder: there is no limits like as long as players know unders know how to play the game. But the developer does not step in in any way to tell the players What they can do
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James Fielder: right? No null suck. And even Ah, online is is is zero security. It’s an area of the game in which there are there. The police, the the in-game police do not do not go.
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James Fielder: So it’s a wild West, it’s the wild west of Eve online. Yes, the only procedural rhetoric. There really is the limits on what type of ships are available, like user interface, the kind of like how the game functions, but otherwise no restriction on
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how you can play otherwise.
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James Fielder: I have. I actually have an interesting um. I’m: sorry. Did you have a technical issue?
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James Fielder: No, not a technical issue. Okay, I had a question. But i’ll say that I have an I have an interesting story from A, from from the mid-unknowns. I was involved in a in a an ongoing vampire lark. And yeah, you’re my people. I know you.
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James Fielder: Oh,
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A Ashcraft: and we had decided that that
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A Ashcraft: and this, this, this world, this this fictional world that this takes place is, we’re all playing vampires, and there’s this, this this hidden society, and it’s all very political. And there’s all these different factions, and there’s factions within the factions. And so it’s it’s It’s super political. But we had decided as players that we didn’t like the rule system.
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A Ashcraft: As it was. I mean, we needed a rule system that didn’t require so much Gm. Intervention. And so we we. We got together out of character with all these different players, and we started working on these these rules, and
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A Ashcraft: and we found we realized we we kept having these like we kept coming up like against each other on on certain rules, and we realized that there was some of us had come into this
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A Ashcraft: setting our characters aside, and some of us had not.
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A Ashcraft: Some of us had had had come in with the assumption that this was in character, or at least partially in character, and that we should be working to
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A Ashcraft: to tweak the rules to advantage our faction.
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Shlomo Sher: Oh, I see. So you’re crying circle there.
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, yeah. And so it was very strange when we realized that we weren’t, we didn’t we weren’t all in the same page
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A Ashcraft: about what we were doing.
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Shlomo Sher: And so yeah, So that’s where like this is where this this you know, the as as players we were. We were then changing the rules.
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A Ashcraft: Some of us, were we’re thinking about the way. This would affect our players, our characters.
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Shlomo Sher: I’m. Oh, sweet,
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Shlomo Sher: let let me ask this So when we think about the ethics of politicivity or political activity in real life. Right. Ah, it’s, you know. It’s kind of obvious. I’ve already kind of mentioned a bunch of issues that come up that are ethical issues, right? Ah, what would be questionable behavior or potentially unethical behavior of political groups in a game like Wow!
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Shlomo Sher: Can you know, Is this just a game, or there things that are really morally questionable for one group in wow to do to another.
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James Fielder: Okay. So this is where I’m. Going to ner out again. And apologies. If this term has come up before, and I have listened
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James Fielder: the so it on top of I see that Sloma talked about the magic circle that’s great. So i’m going to extend that to presence which is specific to video games where
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James Fielder: mit ctl. And in the magic circle what you’re doing is you’re projecting your identity onto your avatar inside the screen. It can be anything from a squiggly line in door fortress to a fully articulated character in a world of warcraft or whatnot two hundred and fifty.
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James Fielder: What problem is in when you’re a present in the game like that? Anything that happens to your character as is that is, it is as if it’s actually happened to you personally. So let’s say individual level. If somebody
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oh,
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James Fielder: assaults somebody else in the game,
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James Fielder: the the player is going to feel like they’ve been assaulted.
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James Fielder: And there have been
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James Fielder: arose
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James Fielder: cases of of virtual sexual assault.
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James Fielder: It’s
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James Fielder: mit ctl. And oh, yeah, people might. But it’s just a game. It is not for the participants, for the person who has been assaulted sexually assaulted in the game, psychologically and emotionally, it has actually happened to them. That’s there’s plenty of cases that happening, and where people now have to be counseled in real life, because it happened to them one hundred and fifty.
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James Fielder: Now fast forward to a whole group, let’s say, an actual group is formed entirely by white Nationalists, or entirely by then entirely by women, entirely by a certain effort group.
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James Fielder: If that guild
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James Fielder: starts attacking another player. Other players, another guild, entirely based on their real or perceived background,
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James Fielder: that is, as if they are being actually assaulted in real life.
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James Fielder: Um, that’s bad news. That is bad news.
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Shlomo Sher: So yeah, the the comparison
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Shlomo Sher: obviously here is going to raise the eyebrows right well, and and I think it’s also fair to say that different people experiences slightly differently like how much or how much of their identity they’ve put into this this token, this, this, this avatar token of themselves. Ah! Varies from person to person. Some people can play wow, and not have a lot of their own emotional investment in that
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Shlomo Sher: right? So I I can imagine I can see it so, you know.
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Shlomo Sher: Ah, let’s say this was a what? This was straightforwardly, very explicitly. You know a racist attack in the game right against, you know. Base base on grounds, you know. I might not feel like I was, you know, a victim of a you know, of a racist
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Shlomo Sher: crime or attack in the game. But I might feel like, Oh, my God, this is! It’s just so tragic that racism is even in these games, right? And i’m sure there’s lots of people, you know, in in between that
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A Ashcraft: Maybe
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Shlomo Sher: I’m, assuming sexism would be another one kind of anything like this, any any group a group identity
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Shlomo Sher: besides straight-up group identity,
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James Fielder: right? So this is you this is one group trying to disenfranchise another group simply because of their identity. And i’m assuming their identity is not being an Orc. Or I think it’s. I think it’s because of real world identities. I don’t think that that
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A Ashcraft: the fictional identities are not that are as important as the real world identities.
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James Fielder: Right? So let’s what do you think about that pigeon? Yeah. So is this only in reference to real world identity. So if there’s a you know, yeah, a bunch of ah, you know people in a d and d type game or a high medieval. Ah, you know fantasy game, and you’re ah attacking a group because you just don’t like elves. Right? Um, You know that I’m assuming would be very different,
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James Fielder: you know. Then attacking a group because uh they’re Latinos in in what you think in real life right? If you had asked me that same question,
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James Fielder: maybe as recently as three years ago,
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James Fielder: nobody said yes. In that context most players on my air quoted here would say, i’m just attacking Orcs because they don’t like course, or i’m attacking councils. But I don’t like else.
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James Fielder: But there has been a lot more discourse in, certainly in tabletop gaming, and some that i’m aware of in world of Warcraft. Where does it have been? A movement? A way of characterizing certain races in the game as evil, and while others are good,
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James Fielder: based on the kernel of that um
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James Fielder: they’re sentient. They’re sentient beings, and there’s a history of associating the evil darker side with people of color, the beautiful white side, the elves
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James Fielder: right on, and as recently as this is a within the last month, seeing a
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James Fielder: policy solicitors, I can’t remember the name of the race in Spell Jammer. The
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James Fielder: there were a lot of the artwork. The description matched.
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James Fielder: It’s
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James Fielder: overcoming slavery in the United States in a very uncanny fashion. Now to be Fair World Wizard of the Coast fixed it overnight when they notice that.
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James Fielder: But you’ll There’s a lot of pushback now in the Tabletop gaming committee against these hardcore
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James Fielder: absolutes like, Why can’t an or could be good? Why can’t and that they they
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Shlomo Sher: right, and i’ll be evil
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James Fielder: right inside World Warcraft. Same thing the sense of
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James Fielder: I’m.
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James Fielder: Why is the horde evil like? Why are they evil. The game says, because this players are saying we don’t like that anymore.
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James Fielder: One’s three different.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, it’s interesting. So what is the wrong with that? So is the wrong with that that we’re essentially ah perpetuating norms that Ah attach. Ah, goodness or evil, to to a group simply because of, not to a group. But let’s say to um to to to a race here, right or to anybody with certain natural-born characteristics I don’t know how far to to expand this to
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James Fielder: broad in the category.
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James Fielder: Right? I’ve actually struggled with this, both emotionally and academically. And how to overcome this, because I mean I grew up with guns and dragons and the various electronic formats,
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James Fielder: you know, electronic fantasy games, I mean, i’m a happy Gen. Xer. And all that
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James Fielder: where I remember, you know, Orcs existed primarily because people needed something to kill, and they wanted to be able to and emotionally separate themselves from it.
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James Fielder: That’s getting more difficult, And I could see this wedge in the tabletop Community of
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James Fielder: Orcs are evil, and we need that foozle. We need that bad guy. We want a very clear cut, bad guy. Therefore it is Orc’s Kamal’s with the other group, saying,
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James Fielder: that’s problematic, because you’re, I mean, have you ever thought about
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James Fielder: like what makes them evil? What makes a sentient being pure evil,
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A Ashcraft: right? One:
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James Fielder: Yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, it’s interesting because because D and D started drifting away from this, they started. They started separating this stuff out twenty five years ago, with with their three rules, they started saying, All right.
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A Ashcraft: This this whole good, evil chaos law thing is is more complicated than that, and and easier to to resolve. And they started saying, you you that there weren’t things that automatically, just by
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A Ashcraft: by a dint of the game design itself made you good or made you evil right, and it’s, you know, and it’s been a gradual push into to the situation. Now where people are saying. Oh, look! There can’t be entire races that are just evil races, because you need somebody that you can kill on site
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A Ashcraft: without thinking about the moral ramifications of it.
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James Fielder: Yes, I i’m just kind of curious. So how do zombies fit in here?
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James Fielder: Right? Ah, because it’s right. Zombies and wrote right? So these are. These are kind of our current replacement. They throw Nazis in there. I guess you got it, and if you get an Orc or Nazi, you know that might be worse. Right? Ah, right. So this this idea that Ah, you know the these kind of groups are Um, I mean the Nazis. We just kind of accept. Okay, they’re evil, which is interesting. I mean, yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: First of all, I guess before we get to these groups, Yeah, how do Nazis fit in. Here are Nazis. Essentially, they’re not a group. They’re or they’re a group that have chosen their membership.
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Shlomo Sher: So their membership is. Oh, you know it’s It’s okay to use them as our evil enemy, because membership has been chosen, even though, of course, we ignore that. That is not particularly the case historically.
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James Fielder: Oh, man, here’s another having one. So as a player. I appreciate that. You know the idea of the Nazi ideology. So if you have a archetype in the game that represents a Nazi ideology,
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James Fielder: a persona of the ideology. I I won’t, I won’t, shoot him, and cut him up, and all that. But you’re right. I mean, I teach a course called Comparative Authoritarianism at Csu, and talking about Hannah Arendt’s origins of totalitarianism. You would have a lot of people in Germany
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James Fielder: who were not evil.
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James Fielder: They were not evil, but they didn’t have a They didn’t have a way to escape the
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James Fielder: the br of what was going around them, and they they would find themselves engaging in activities They would not normally engage in activities
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James Fielder: right as a person they were still good,
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James Fielder: but as a group.
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James Fielder: It’s
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James Fielder: when you take them to see the ah, the gas chambers or the crematoriums, as ah as individuals, they realize the horror of it, but they couldn’t separate themselves from the group.
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James Fielder: So so what do we do with things like that? So notice right? We have kind of our in-game groups, right? And right. So yeah, it’s. It’s interesting, because, mind you, I mean with the unlike the real world, it seems to me that
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James Fielder: games do give you a lot of choices about which factions to join, what groups to set up right. I mean in the real world. If you, if you were in Germany and you were the right age, and everybody around you is adopting, and you know, a certain view of the reality of life and bandwagon effect kicks in, and all your psychological, your cognitive biases. It’s easy to just kind of adopt that view of the world in a video game you have a choice and some and and okay. So we
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Shlomo Sher: we. We got to the point where it’s wrong to essentially label some groups as evil. But ah! For what they are. But if we’re talking about, they’re defined by ideology. Then it seems that that wouldn’t be necessarily so bad,
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A Ashcraft: right? Or what if what about you know going back to world of Warcraft. You have these two factions that are meant to be in competition to one another, and so, choosing a faction,
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A Ashcraft: puts you in opposition to these other players,
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A Ashcraft: and it’s easily They’re easily labeled. You can. You can easily see who is and who isn’t.
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A Ashcraft: Ah part of your faction in the case of world of Warcraft. I think they do it by race. In fact, you’re You’re in character, class or in character race. There’s certain races that are one faction and a certain races that are the other factions. So it’s really visually apparent.
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James Fielder: Yes,
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James Fielder: yes, very much so. Um.
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James Fielder: I mean. I have an idea of how to get around this, but that one Warcraft example makes it problematic. My idea is like, How do you move away from, You know, Are all orks evil or all else good. It’s about motivation. Create the narrative around their motivation like, What do they want?
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James Fielder: Yeah, you know they are. You are at odds. You You have cross motivations, sort of like how a good villain sees themselves as the good guy
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James Fielder: like, because they have a strong motivation, and why they’re trying to do what they’re trying to do. So let me take them
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James Fielder: hopefully. I don’t mischaracterize it, because that my son is always talking to me about guild wars, too.
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James Fielder: I haven’t played it yet, he said that
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James Fielder: it apparently is a very rich political narrative, very rich political narrative, so I imagine what I do play it, even though it’s a multi-pluser game. I’ll probably do a lot of writing on what the narrative is, but in that case, maybe world of Warcraft Ii. It’s guided by the procedural rhetoric of the developer, like if the developer says,
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James Fielder: Yes, we are all these players. But we’re going to create this narrative in the game based around ideologies and motivations, not race.
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James Fielder: Then it becomes easier for people, I think, to take some sort of moral stand against like. I don’t care what that person’s at work, but I do care that
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James Fielder: they are aggressive. Dan of thieves that are trying to kill us,
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James Fielder: because that’s a pretty powerful motive to protect yourself
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James Fielder: in a in a pure sandbox game like Eve online. And then it’s just a matter, or the at least the nulls like region. Excuse me,
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James Fielder: it’s still
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James Fielder: it depends on the motivations of the players, like the players generating their own narrative. All right, actually, in a way, though now you think about it, a sandbox game makes it slightly easier because it’s all kind of based on motives
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James Fielder: like, Yeah, you know, after Eve online is really interesting, because it’s not clear when you run up against another player. What they who’s like there there. Aren’t. Clear factions in the game There, aren’t. There are guilds, and there are factions in the game, but they’re all player created and not created by the structure of the game itself.
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Yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: And so there isn’t any obvious thing about anybody?
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James Fielder: And can people still backstab each other even within their own gills? So so this brings me back to my question of. Ah, you know the the question of the the ethics of the politics that happens here. Yeah. Ah, it’s interesting, but I I guess before that I want to go back to, because I I see the possibility of, like, you know, choosing factions based on,
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James Fielder: you know. Ah! Based on the story of what their motivation is right as a group, or based on their political ideology. Right? Like Screw those libertarians right? Ah, you know, or you know the or you know, or the people that want a strong centralized government right? We all all our avatars have to live together in the world, and every player can choose a
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Shlomo Sher: to join a faction that matches uh something close to their real world sense of justice, right of what would make for just society. So I I you know I I to me that sounds like a really two possible solutions that would fit,
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Shlomo Sher: you know, different possibilities. But to go to go back to the Eve online thing now, right and really kind of to expand the question. Okay, we got one thing out of the way, right? This idea of
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Shlomo Sher: treating people as groups that are evil right now. What else can you do? That is ah a political action in a game that would be ah immoral or morally questionable, and we could either talk about backstabbing in Eve online, or we could go back to other things that you might do in. Let’s say world of Warcraft, I mean crashing someone’s funeral.
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James Fielder: Really, that seems wrong to me. But you know what I mean,
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Shlomo Sher: Right? You know. I mean some of some like that. Yeah.
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James Fielder: Um. Well, I should go back um to what uh
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James Fielder: you said earlier about like actual theft taking place in games like creating. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Yes, here it is, creating trust with another player,
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James Fielder: and that’s another positive negative aspect of of presence is, People trust things where they can see a face, or they can see of the identity of some identity of the other person once they see that they will. Emily, trust that person,
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James Fielder: that young avatar female avatar wearing a skimpy outfit, could be a seventy year old
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James Fielder: dude in Seattle somewhere. You,
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James Fielder: the player sees that and takes it at face value that is actually a young woman. So,
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James Fielder: and let’s expand that. So now players learn to trust each other, or they think they trust each other in the game.
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James Fielder: There’s the record is replete with players knowing how to game of that trust. Pardon the pun.
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James Fielder: Real objects of value from other players. Escape. Then go sell it for real money. So
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James Fielder: that’s like so actual theft of things of value that can be converted into a real world currency. That would be a big one.
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James Fielder: So it’s interesting, right? I mean, in in a game like Eve online, right that we usually see that as part of the game itself. Yes, and yeah, Eve online, I I would like to say, at least in Mel. Sec. The players know what they’re getting like. They have signed up for that
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James Fielder: right they might be in for a first. I can’t believe that just happened to me, but it’s what is in other games where that type of anarchy doesn’t exist
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James Fielder: like all right. It’s like something like a guild wars or um uh how come? I can’t think of more examples. This is crazy.
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James Fielder: Um,
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James Fielder: You have Gillboards world of war crafts, maybe Diablo three back when they had an actual auction house that you could sell for real things.
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James Fielder: Basically Think of a game of an where an object can be converted into an assets
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James Fielder: right real world asset,
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A Ashcraft: and there aren’t many a Cs go counter. Strike.
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, as has that there aren’t many games that can do this, though
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James Fielder: most of it keeps they most games, keep their economy contained. They don’t want people
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A Ashcraft: cashing out, basically
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James Fielder: Yeah, So do I. I think I think really what the point is that that seems to come out is that it’s not necessarily what you’re doing to the other group but what you’re doing in the context of what is expected, you know.
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Shlomo Sher: Ah, ah accepted behavior right so. Ah, you know, in a normal context, you know, stealing somebody’s assets. Right is considered really wrong. Stealing a group session is considered wrong. You know that when you are getting it to Eve online.
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Shlomo Sher: You know it’s not considered wrong, Right? You know that you’re going into a world where the the norms are different. What do you do when
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Shlomo Sher: you know the idea that the norms can be different in different worlds and games are, you know, each a different world. Are there any general rules about what we
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Shlomo Sher: can or can’t do uh with one group to another group. But you know, can I go with my group around World Warcraft and pick on much weaker groups, for example, and decide to, you know. Decimate them for fun.
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James Fielder: Right? So um
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James Fielder: two schools of thought here one is yes, that you will have. Ah, the developers will have mules in place to say, Hey, if you’re harassing other players, you’re griefing them. You’re ah basically finding ways to ruin your play experience and you get excess
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James Fielder: uh reports on your behavior. You could be banned from the game.
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James Fielder: Okay? And then you just go find another Ip to start up.
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James Fielder: By the way, Ula is end-user license agreement.
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James Fielder: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yep. That’s in there. But it’s weird because I totally read that thing, and I never saw it. Yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: yeah, yeah.
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James Fielder: The other school of thought, though. And this is where it becomes problematic is lacking. Any type of punishment structure.
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James Fielder: Players can just keep getting away with it.
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James Fielder: But even in a world whether it’s not supposed to happen where you have this ideal state that players should behave this way
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James Fielder: per procedural rhetoric
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James Fielder: players that try to find ways to push the boundaries of the game to fit it to what their play style and they realize i’m not getting punished for my behavior
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A Ashcraft: or or just prevented from doing the thing.
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James Fielder: Yeah, or for doing the thing they’ll do it.
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James Fielder: Um.
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James Fielder: This is what I talked about this in previous episodes where I’ve said, you know, if it’s not, if it’s not banned,
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A Ashcraft: if it becomes required.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah. And in a competitive situation. If it’s not outright banned and disallowed in some way, then it becomes required; so that if if you’re if we’re in this highly competitive situation like on Eve online,
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James Fielder: you know, going out into nulls, and you know no no security areas and and hunting down other players and taking their stuff. That’s the game. That is the game.
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Yeah,
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James Fielder: I don’t. Yeah, and I don’t. I don’t know if I agree with you on. I know that I think I might be a very, you know special case. I think there’s plenty of competitive situations where sportsmanship, you know, is is really important, and but it’s interesting a part of that really can be, Andy. What What is the game?
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A Ashcraft: Yeah. But I mean, think about all these rules like, let’s think about sports, with with sportsmanship rules, they are enforced,
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Shlomo Sher: and if they weren’t, and if they weren’t enforced, what would happen?
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Shlomo Sher: Well, you could still have sportsmanship without rules that are enforcing it, and sportsmanship might still require you to go beyond these the stated rules.
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James Fielder: Let’s let’s, maybe I don’t know, so I mean,
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Shlomo Sher: let’s let’s let’s not get off our topic, sure. So let’s let’s get back to this. Ah, Pigeon, let let me let me ask you, and Ah, let me ask you this. So we’ve been talking a lot about World of Warcraft, and I remember reading a book by Ah Miguel. Ah, gam! Ah, Scholar Miguel Sitecard! He had Ah! A book! Ah, I think in the mid two thousand S. Called The Ethics of Computer Games. Ah, and essentially part of what he wrote is he called Ward of Warcraft.
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Shlomo Sher: Ah, tyrannical government! Right? So the idea was that you have all these people that spent a big part of their lives in this world, and at the time I mean World War. I was really big, right? And we’re talking about people spending, you know, an average of like thirty hours a week, you know, in the game. Ah, but they have no way, No say in the way that society is structured right. Instead, the lizard owns the game makes all the the scissors the players just have to accept them or move on to another game,
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Shlomo Sher: and he argued that more just game worlds really required greater representation. So, in a very political sense, then
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Shlomo Sher: Ah, for the game to be for the game world to be a just world! The players voices really needed to be heard and needed to be. The players needed to be a part decision making through more democratic institutions. What do you think about that claim that game worlds that are entirely controlled by the company are tyrannical and unjust.
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James Fielder: Um. They are tyrannical in the sense that yes, the procedural rhetoric of The developer then basically determines what the gameplay experience is for the characters. And if they could make a change in a game that fundamentally alters the play style for everybody,
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James Fielder: fifty percent Sure, This anecdote comes from my life as a night elf priest by Bonnie Nardi, or it could be from um. I can’t remember the the author’s name
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James Fielder: values that play in digital games, and I apologize. I can’t remember the name of time. Hand example of keep sticking the world of Warcraft, but this is a great one. They’re used to the ah, the The old travel system in the game would encourage players to gather at certain points where you had to travel,
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James Fielder: so that if they wanted to engage in any type of cooperative activity that want to organize events, they wanted to trade goods. They knew if they went to these certain areas in the game
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James Fielder: that they could always find people.
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James Fielder: Well, then, when the game added more mounts, and we we don’t need to gather these places anymore. Now you go to the same landmarks in the game, and they’re desolate. There’s nobody there. And that was driven by the the developer.
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James Fielder: So they basically fundamentally destroyed a form of communication inside the game.
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James Fielder: But by by adding a feature that everybody otherwise wanted.
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James Fielder: Yeah, Yeah,
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James Fielder: yeah, um.
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James Fielder: There are. Now. There are games like If let me back up. If the company of the developers is said, you are going to play our vision of the game and nothing else.
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James Fielder: Then either play a stay or a player’s exit and say, You know what? Then? I’ll find something else. But you will have developers who will actively listen to player feedback and make changes.
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James Fielder: The risk, of course they take is that you’re going to have
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James Fielder: vocal minorities. And actually it could be a very sizable minority. You were like that change sucks that changed. I can’t believe you did that in the game.
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James Fielder: Um. So even by taking player feedback
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James Fielder: and acting on it in good faith, they could still be fundamentally changing the gameplay experience for everybody in such a way and in such a way. They don’t even forecast what have happened without all these players exploring it.
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James Fielder: Um! And because of that, that squeaky wheel syndrome, you know, they could be doing, they could be making a change that is, on its face. Unjust, because most people don’t want it, but they just not the squeaky wheel.
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Shlomo Sher: Wait what
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James Fielder: well like, you know I mean the squeaky wheel part, the the squeaky wheel gets the grease, it’s the complainers. Ah, the the people who are vocal about something, are really really like, like, you know, and and in the developers hear about it all the time. They’re the ones that are providing feedback, and they could be with the ones they could. They could want something that is on its face unjust for other players. Right? I see her go in there, because the the way I presented it was kind of an ideal state where there was in the field
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James Fielder: back, based on the broad player base. But yes, absolutely. You can get a very ambivalent player base that ends up being governed by changes demanded by a smaller vocal player. Base. Right?
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Shlomo Sher: What What about the you know It’s interesting because you said. On the one hand, there is a sort of tyrannical relationship going on here, and, on the other hand,
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Shlomo Sher: you know that relationship existed when the world was created. Let’s say right, and you have, and you you bought into it, and you, you know, if you, if you live like in the tyrannical Society. Normally, you can’t leave right. I mean here you you can leave. You can join another one. On the other hand right, I mean
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Shlomo Sher: when you spend a thousand hours in a game, and you’ve invested so much right. Is there a sense where
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Shlomo Sher: you know um?
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Shlomo Sher: It’s unjust to treat you just as
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Shlomo Sher: a sort of visitor that can leave,
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James Fielder: and that you’ve earned yourself some sort of naturalization process as someone who should have a voice in how things are run. I’m: trying to use these analogies. Yeah, right? Well, I want to throw on the example of games that
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James Fielder: are taken offline like games that fail like people invest. And then I try. I show you all Segue into the sense of being a digital citizen in this world.
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James Fielder: Um. A players invest all this time and energy into a game that ultimately fails, and it’s like having a death. It’s like watching a world destroy itself, you know, and they’ll all gather on the last hour to the last minute to the last second of the game, all to be there
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James Fielder: when it goes to you have been disconnected from the server. That’s beautiful.
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James Fielder: Yeah, it’s very tragic. Um Read about these kind of vents like in um what I would call it. Tabula Ross. It happened in um. Oh, my goodness, it’s on the tip of my tongue.
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James Fielder: It’s the second game in a series that was released. The first game lived, but the second game failed.
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James Fielder: It’s
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James Fielder: Everyone stirred me in comfortably. Moment, Charlie. Why, I try to think of it,
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James Fielder: i’m sure a reader will come it and say, Oh, i’m
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James Fielder: I
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James Fielder: we’re looking up.
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James Fielder: Fortunately. Pigeon. I can edit. I can edit you out so that it makes it same as if you just immediately thought about it.
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James Fielder: I think it was um
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James Fielder: dark age of Camelot.
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James Fielder: There was part one in part two and part two failed.
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James Fielder: I’m pretty sure was that.
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James Fielder: But anyway, regardless of example, there there have been a number of occasions, workings of built online, and the people that were digital citizens.
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James Fielder: It feel betrayed by the company.
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James Fielder: I trade by the company.
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James Fielder: Do they have a Do you have a right to? I mean It’s weird, this idea of this digital citizenship right that we know that
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Shlomo Sher: we know that the game will last as long as the game lasts. We know that this probably is not forever. Eventually, I mean, who knows? Maybe you know. Wow, we’ll probably may make it to the mediverse and
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James Fielder: you know, live for live on for years potentially right. It’s it’s possible. Right? Um! But it’s easy to think it’s It’s pretty easy, I think, to people think of people who invested years into a game as
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James Fielder: really caring about that world. So I go back to to that question, right? And I think it really your example really illustrates how much people can care. Is there something that unjust? If they don’t have a say in the direction of that world,
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James Fielder: you know, without some sort of more democratic institution on on paper. What’s unfortunate is? Yes, I would agree with that position. Even games that have become so popular. They actually hold conventions where players will gather in real life.
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James Fielder: But to the end of the day it is only as democratic as what the developer grants the
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James Fielder: you can be there for one thousand two thousand. You can get married there. You can get this set in the other, and you can build a business
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James Fielder: at the end of the day. Your Your voice is only as valuable as granted by the company.
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A Ashcraft: But don’t don’t we all sort of wish that we lived in a benign dictatorship.
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James Fielder: There’s a lot to say, for a but nine dictatorship. It’s the best. And but in some ways games games offer this opportunity
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Shlomo Sher: right,
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James Fielder: because game designers, you know, to a certain degree. We’re trying to create a world where everybody is having their fun Equally
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A Ashcraft: everybody is treated equally. And and so in some ways we are these benign dictators.
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James Fielder: I love it. That’s great, especially if you know gain online games that have instances. So yes, there’s this overall all the you know, thousands of players, but each individual has their own narrative that they can basically becomes a solo game that they play through.
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James Fielder: And if that player feels like that, their choices matter and something to them change in the game. Then I can see that. Then the benign Dictator had that power to make sure that everybody’s reality kind of matched. What choices they made
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James Fielder: now that someone might stand on a ladder and look in the other side of that person. Go, wait! You’re different. You’re you don’t have the same experience that I am, and it can actually bring down the facade.
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James Fielder: But yeah, I think that’s the the way around. It is having that sense that individual choices matter to that individual’s player experience
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right
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Shlomo Sher: um to put a little cynical twist on the, you know benign dictators because I like that, I you know. I mean there’s a lot of sense in that right. The game is essentially designed by an all-powerful.
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Shlomo Sher: You know a dictator that is that wants people to enjoy the game, because that’s how they make their money right now. Ultimately,
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Shlomo Sher: you know, the the second of those is really the primary aim, often right right sure right, but but supposedly they,
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Shlomo Sher: you know. I I want to be a little bit cynical, but because of how we’re getting the money part, because it’s because it’s so competitive.
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A Ashcraft: The more fun, the more the more engaged, the more the more happy our players are, the better we’re going to do because we’re in a competitive market vying for these players. There’s always another game that they can go play.
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Shlomo Sher: I want to point out to. If we were to go back to like a You know the world of Warcraft example and think about,
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Shlomo Sher: you know. Let’s say the players can, because you know a war like that is scripted right? So there’s a storyline right, and the company develops the store line. If the players start like having democratic institutions, Possibly they can vote on storylines, but possibly they can create chaos which will not make a good storyline possible
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James Fielder: and make things worse for everybody because mobs, you know. Yeah of You know, democracy itself has a mob mentality that could turn bad.
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James Fielder: There’s actually a term for this that I use in comparative authoritarianism. It’s called feckless pluralism. It
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James Fielder: This is a fancy way of saying it’s not It’s not an authoritarian regime. But there’s so much churn in the democratic process that nothing happens. It’s like um. It’s a form of gridlock that is caused by the voters
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James Fielder: putting people in office and not by the people in office themselves. It causes a lot of cynicism, you know. Okay, Nothing’s getting done. So the yeah, I think the example you’re presenting there is. You have now all these competing agendas, all these competing
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James Fielder: um actors in the game. And I want to say, actor, i’m talking about not just the individual players, but the groups themselves, all trying to present different ideas of way things. They ought to be in the game, and at the end of the day, then it ends up rotating the playing experience for everybody.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, I I should point out that that
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James Fielder: that that vampire game that I was in, that I talked about earlier collapsed pretty quickly after this,
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A Ashcraft: Us trying to rewrite the rules on the fly.
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Shlomo Sher: Hmm. Yeah, it’s interesting. So for for things to work with, you know, a lot of times. We need stability, right? I mean without stability societies, you know. Disintegrate.
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James Fielder: I’m: here.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, let me let me move on here to to this.
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Shlomo Sher: Let’s move on now to more like the real world.
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Shlomo Sher: Some games like uh Jesus strikes back. Are you familiar with Jesus? Strikes back.
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James Fielder: I’ll be honest. I had. I thought my repertoire is pretty good.
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James Fielder: I have not. I have not heard of it. This I I heard about it from one of our guests. It’s a fun one. It’s a essentially. You go around killing Liberals, immigrants, Lgbtq. People, feminists, and you can play as either Jesus or Trump. Right?
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Shlomo Sher: Ah, so you know a A game like that, you know, brings real-world politics into the game world. And another example of a positive example Really, in my opinion, would be the game peacemaker
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Shlomo Sher: right, which simulates the Israeli-palestinian conflict and I think it’s just a fantastic game. Educates players on really both sides. It puts you we’ve talked about in this program before put you in the position of the Palestinian President or or Israeli Prime Minister. Um, Are there ways that you think games like this can use real world politics unethically
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James Fielder: acknowledged.
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James Fielder: Yes, if particularly if it affects how they behave in the real world. So take what was that Jesus was able to give me. Jesus strikes back. Jesus strikes back so somebody who is already
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James Fielder: no value judgment to listeners here. But some Q. An on tea party like I hate this set in the other
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James Fielder: um has act. It can actually carry out their anger inside this game,
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and it makes them feel good,
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James Fielder: and it reinforces their ideas of how things ought to be. There is that latent risk, and then they come out, and it reinforces their actual hate and rage and their political activity outside of the game
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James Fielder: um
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James Fielder: as would as would any other form of entertainment that also reinforced their ideas
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James Fielder: right or specifically value value systems, right? So we’re not talking about something. We’re not. So talking about something a keen to let’s say the violence issues right? Right? That’s true. Yeah,
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James Fielder: Yeah, I did that. Yeah, let me let me clarify. I I am on the side of academia that says, video games do not necessarily lead to violence
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James Fielder: right? It’s because someone kills. You know thousands of of creatures in a game or plays call of duty doesn’t make them any more likely outside of the game.
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James Fielder: But if now, what i’m getting at is to if the game, the narrative of the game is designed around the idea of reinforcing something,
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James Fielder: let’s call it the serious games and persuasive games like there have been purposely designed to tasks to
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James Fielder: bring people into specific echo chambers and bring them into specific sure.
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James Fielder: And So there’s some games that are that have been that have been made purely for entertainment purposes. That also do this. I was thinking there was a swat game. There was a game that you played, you know. You swat police officers in some sort of, you know, fictionalized inner city
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A Ashcraft: where you know it was just you were. You were the law, and you could do whatever you wanted, and you were ah sent on missions and busting down doors and and shooting people in the street, and all of that was was part and part of a parcel of the game.
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Shlomo Sher: That’s none. They didn’t mean that they didn’t. I’m sure they didn’t make that game to make a political point. Oh, I see
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Shlomo Sher: the same America’s army might be in that same genre, although in that case they were they were using.
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James Fielder: We got pretty cool, right,
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James Fielder: but it’s a recording quote that essentially gives you um that enhances a certain perspective of what’s important in the world. And you know the military is supposed to play a really important role in society. Right?
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James Fielder: So yeah, that persuasive divide or or not persuasive
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James Fielder: rhetorical which um
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James Fielder: um
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James Fielder: come on, Pigeon, I can think of the word purposeful that that purposeful design, like explicit design that’s where it can lead to unethical behavior,
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James Fielder: or at least reinforce it if it already exists.
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James Fielder: Right. So so in this case, where we’re looking at anything that essentially supports norms that are bad for us. Bad for bad for society at least.
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, although i’m not sure why we should be separating intentional and unintentional.
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James Fielder: Yeah, I I didn’t. I didn’t have the the intentional in there. But but but but Pigeon, you did a pigeon did. Yeah,
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James Fielder: yeah, I So yeah, I would agree like there’s an actual another there’s another um swat game that just came out
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James Fielder: over the summer
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James Fielder: of swat style game,
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James Fielder: Mm-hmm that if I could see the box image on my head. But I can’t think of the name.
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, I can. I can see the trailer in my head on the other one. I can’t think of what it what it was called
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James Fielder: right. Oh, anyway, that there was when it was first released there was a lot of um
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James Fielder: push back on it, some controversy in that at face value it did appear like, Yes, you were just playing professionally trained police going into these very difficult situations, except some of these difficult situations were like
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James Fielder: going into a a gay bar, and actually having the images of a gay bar everywhere. And it was seen as the
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James Fielder: and attack, you know gay bashing and a tech and homosexuals
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James Fielder: right where your attacks on prostitutes attacks on like? Yes, your this it could be a violent crime. But what about all these other drug addicts. They’re laying around. Are you going to kill them? Are you not going to?
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James Fielder: What are you? That’s it ready or not? That’s the name. Okay, you’re not Um. I think my understanding is as they’ve gone on development. They’ve actually thought about these things like we wanted to be when it comes to intentional design, they do want to have have a sense of being more emotionally charged than
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James Fielder: You’re just going through another pattern of rescuing a hostage. They want you to think you’re looking around you and going What’s
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James Fielder: societal effects around these? But I don’t. I don’t know them. Has a you
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James Fielder: political message in the same way that I,
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James Fielder: Jesus game, might have that’s designed around. I really want to make you think a certain way
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A Ashcraft: right right?
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A Ashcraft: Oh, By the way, we’re we’re at about an hour.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, I was. I was about to ask you. But um, um, I was. I was just at the end. Ah, anyhow, Ah, do you have anything else, Andy? Because, okay, hang on just second. I’ve got to let a dog out.
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Shlomo Sher: Let the dog out. Um,
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James Fielder: Yeah, it’s. I don’t want to start saying anything pigeon until he comes back. Okay, I By the way, I still think that it’s really important to recognize with any of these games that touch on, you know, important,
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Shlomo Sher: socially important groups like the police, you know. Ah! Like the military, that it seems to me that if you are presenting those groups ethically, you really are thinking about the social impact, that
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Shlomo Sher: of that you could have in terms of the values that you are promoting.
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James Fielder: Yeah, actually, it’s something I appreciate about America’s army That, I think is overlooked is, you know, other some viewers might look at and go. Oh, that’s just propaganda for the ghost military. You actually play it. It teaches you that
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James Fielder: you This is for real you get. This is not call of duty, or you get revived at the end you die. You die
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this,
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James Fielder: Mm-hmm so it’s showing the kind of really stark clarity of this is what you’re getting into. If you do this,
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she’s
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Shlomo Sher: to some extent.
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James Fielder: Ah, you know I mean It’s still taking very much a pro-american view. You know the argument. Yeah, Yeah, right. But but it is interesting right? That Yeah, There, there is a step of responsibility there to ah, to at least not mischaracterize. Ah, you know what? What is what is going on there? Um, All right. Ah Pigeon last question. Um! What do you want to live for? Leave our listeners with,
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Shlomo Sher: and if you can. If you could keep this down to like, maybe a minute, something like that,
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James Fielder: i’m going to step away from ethics and just say something I said in class this morning. Cool, I think the two worst words, the worst phrase in the English languages grow up,
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James Fielder: so I like don’t take away anytime play. Games and creativity are taken away, we become less human.
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James Fielder: So go out there and play a game right now. Go play skyrum, go play World war, icraft. It matters to humanity.
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Yes,
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Shlomo Sher: right. It matters to humanity. I love it
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James Fielder: all right. Good podcast guys. Sweet thanks for being on the show pigeon.
