Welcome to the Ethics and Video Games Podcast, Resource Center, and YouTube channel.
I’ve been very interested in both the ethical and moral issues that arise from the wide world of video gaming and also in how video games can be a vehicle for getting us to think about ethics (I also think that video games are often more interesting when they do that).
I’ve been teaching a class on Ethics and Video Games at the New York Film Academy, Los Angeles every semester for the past 5 years to game design students and other creatives interested in video games. As far as I know, the class which focuses on social issues, the responsibltiies of game designers, and how to create ethical reflection in game development, is one of only two classes on the topic in the world.
It’s been an incredibly interesting journey that I plan to continue for a long time to come. I’ve written a book on the moral issues around the world of gaming, plan to write a follow up about techniques for incorporating ethics in games, and have set up the Ethics and Video Games podcast, and the Ethics and Video Games Resource Center to help spread the conversations on these fascinating topics.
Shlomo Sher, Ph.D.
I currently have a dual appointment in the Letters, Arts, and Sciences and Game Design departments at the New York Film Academy, Los Angeles. I’ve also been teaching in the Philosophy Dept of Cal State University, Fullerton for the past 11 years.
I earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from USC, where I focused on Ethics. I also had an amazing experience there working for their innovative Experiential Learning Center at the Marshall School of Business, where I developed a series of business ethics workshops. Later I expanded one of these workshops to a full-blown Corporate Social Responsibility ethics game. Not many of those around! You can find it here. I was also a fellow at the USC Levan Institute of Humanities and Ethics (2009-2011).
Besides my current academic homes, I’ve also taught courses at USC, CSU Los Angeles, Mt. St. Mary’s University, CSU Dominguez Hills, Beijing Normal University, and East China Normal University.
My all time favorite game is the Civilization series. It’s so good it scares me. I’ve bought and deleted it several times throughout my life, because I find it so damn addictive!
I share my life with my wife Carmen Elena Mitchell, who also produces this podcast, and our son Elan who’s now my Civilization student and schools me in return in Rocket League!
You can contact me at shlomo@ethicsandvideogames.com
Andrew Ashcraft
Andy Ashcraft has been playing and designing game experiences since he discovered D&D in the early 80s. He got his first professional game-design gig in 1994 after running a 60+ player LARP based on the ‘Sandman’ comic books for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Club at UCLA, where he had earned a BA in Design (at the time focused on graphics and animation). He’s been a professional game designer ever since.
Andy also holds a dual appointment at NYFA in their Game Design and Screenwriting departments. In addition, he’s one of a group of game designers who teaches a 2-day hands-on Game Design Workshop at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) each year.
Besides teaching game design and interactive writing at NYFA, he owns a freelance game design business called Giantsdance Games that has a focus on casual mobile games, educational games, and online tournaments. You can see a full list of credits by following this link: www.giantsdancegames.com
He lives with his very funny wife Jackie Kashian and their doggo Gordy.
He knows very little about Ethics, but that didn’t stop him from co-writing a paper on ethical monetization in games that you can find here: https://www.projecthorseshoe.com/reports/featured/ph17r4.htm