The Determinants of the Professional Ethics of Game Developers

Abstract

With the progress of digital game technology and the expansion of the game user age group, the contents and expressions of games have diversified in recent years. The purpose of this study is to clarify the determinants of the professional ethics of game developers by conducting semi-structured interview surveys with 11 game developers. The results show that the professional ethics of game developers are influenced by three considerations: individual factors, organizational factors, and industrial factors. The individual factors include six subcategories: (1) interactions with other game developers, (2) ethics guideline sharing within the company, (3) the pursuit of expression within various constraints, (4) work experience with game localization, (5) relationships with children, and (6) interest in society. The organizational factors consist of three departments that check the games from a legal and ethical point of view: the intellectual property department, the legal department, and the quality assurance (QA) department at the game publisher companies. Finally, the industrial factors relating to professional ethics consist of the ethics regulations of their platforms and the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO) code of ethics.