{"title":"Many faces, many names? Ethics in Belgian game development education","authors":"Maarten Denoo, Bruno Dupont, Bieke Zaman","doi":"10.1145/3675804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3675804","url":null,"abstract":"What is nowadays taught to the game creators of tomorrow in terms of ethics? The current study addresses this question by focusing on 11 higher education (HE) and continuous vocational training (C-VET) programs for aspiring game developers taught in Belgium. We conducted textual analyses of institutional materials and semi-structured interviews with nine educators. By combining these sources of data, this study identifies three key categories of ethical considerations that are taught to students: content and design impact, workplace standards, and diversity in gaming culture. This study also underscores educators’ proactivity in addressing gaps between curricular content, industry expectations and student concerns. It is our hope that this study elucidates the critical potential of teaching ethics, providing actionable recommendations for educational institutions to help prepare creators navigate complex moral issues in today's gaming landscape.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":" 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141677645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cansu Canca, Laura Haaber Ihle, Annika Marie Schoene
{"title":"Why the Gaming Industry Needs Responsible AI","authors":"Cansu Canca, Laura Haaber Ihle, Annika Marie Schoene","doi":"10.1145/3675803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3675803","url":null,"abstract":"Incorporating AI into the development, operation, and servicing of video games adds new issues to an already-complex landscape of ethical concerns. Practices, tools, and governance structures developed in responsible AI can offer effective ways to navigate this complexity.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":" 35","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141679331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
David E. Millard, Heather Packer, James Jordan, Sarah Hewitt, Y. Malinov, Neil Rogers
{"title":"The Ethics of Mixed Reality Games","authors":"David E. Millard, Heather Packer, James Jordan, Sarah Hewitt, Y. Malinov, Neil Rogers","doi":"10.1145/3675806","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3675806","url":null,"abstract":"Mixed Reality (MR) Games integrate digital elements with real world places. In doing so they change those places, with important ethical implications. We present a synthesis of 8 existing frameworks on MR Ethics to establish a set of ethical issues for MR Games, and a qualitative analysis of interviews with 17 MR Game Designers to define the strategic approaches they use to address them. We identify 26 ethical issues over 5 dimensions: Claim Rights, Duty of Care, Social Justice, Privacy, and Control; and 59 separate tactics forming 13 strategic approaches over three areas: Design, Participant Management, and Logistics. Mapping these to codes of ethics from the ACM and IEEE we show that the strategies can be seen as methods for behaving ethically within the context of MR Game development, although many strategies rest on the virtues of individual designers and their critical engagement with an ongoing ethical process.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":" 35","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141677594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Max V. Birk, Simone van der Hof, Antonius J. van Rooij
{"title":"Behavioral design in video games","authors":"Max V. Birk, Simone van der Hof, Antonius J. van Rooij","doi":"10.1145/3672088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3672088","url":null,"abstract":"Game design has an impact on health and well-being. Due to their evolving capacities, young people and children are especially sensitive to the negative and positive impact of media design choices. To protect vulnerable people, ethical and responsible game design practices are necessary. But what constitutes ‘ethical’ and responsible game design? Defining ‘behavioral design’ as video game design decisions which elicit, either accidentally or purposefully, self-negative or self-beneficial behavior in the gamer. We draw from expertise in public health, game design, and legal scholarship to analyze current game design practices. Our work illustrates the centrality of changing business models with game design and the resulting tension within games. In practice, monetization strategies regularly guide decision-making in game design, facilitating risks for gamer welfare and finances.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":"141 37","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141350773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"You've (Not) Been Warned: Developer Best Practices for Content Warnings and Why Compassion Matters","authors":"Kelli N. Dunlap","doi":"10.1145/3638287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3638287","url":null,"abstract":"Content warnings are an essential accessibility feature in games with distressing and traumatic content. With mixed research findings and even more mixed public opinion, there are very few resources available to support developers who want to have content warnings in their games. The following paper provides a brief historical overview and current research on the use of content warnings, case examples games that have successfully utilized content warnings, and best practice guidelines for content warning language and implementation.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":"28 14","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139534294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Observations and Reflections on the Gaming Landscape in Southeast Asia","authors":"Siddhartha Paul Tiwari, Lindsay D. Grace","doi":"10.1145/3632286","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3632286","url":null,"abstract":"Discussion of the Asian Video Game market, particularly when focused on digital gamer production, often focus on China, Japan and South Korea. However, communities of Southeast Asia based game makers are emerging. Drawing from first-hand discussion and interview with more than 400 game developers, 50 post-secondary academic faculty and 15 academic organizations and universities, the authors offer perspectives, insights and expected challenges for the region. The findings indicate that a combination of intellectual and creative energy as well as regional political and economic support have helped develop fertile ground for global attention. Most notably the researchers observed a regional interest in shifting toward exploring innovative, original content and increasing educational capacities to explore creative practice in game design. These findings coincide with other reflections of the region's digital economy's development.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":"22 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138592779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Individual Control over Exposure to Combat Toxicity in Games","authors":"Julian Frommel, R. Mandryk","doi":"10.1145/3633768","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3633768","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":"107 1","pages":"1 - 0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139303663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"You are What you Play: The Risks of Identity Fusion in Toxic Gamer Cultures","authors":"Rachel Kowert, Alexis Martel, W. Swann","doi":"10.1145/3604402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3604402","url":null,"abstract":"There has long been concern about the potential negative uses and effects of digital games. While these discussions have historically focused on the role of game content, it is the social environment of games that poses a more immediate concern. Specifically, the normalization of hateful behavior in gamer cultures. While “gamer cultures” originally developed as an identity to unite a group of so-called misfits who spent their time in shared physical, gaming spaces, today gamer cultures have come to be more associated with exclusion more than inclusion. In this piece we explore game cultures through the lens of identity fusion to explore the nature and influence of these identities.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130043367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Games May Host the First Rightful AI Citizens","authors":"Kenny Mitchell","doi":"10.1145/3606834","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3606834","url":null,"abstract":"GAMES creatively take place in imaginative worlds informed by, but often not limited by, real-world challenges, and this advantageously provides an accelerated environment for innovation, where concepts and ideas can be explored unencumbered by physical or conventional restrictions. This editorial considers the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in GAMES in the context of emerging systems seemingly beginning to exhibit artificial general intelligence (AGI) and where there is much fertile ground to be found in synthetic constrained worlds to explore, understand, and prepare for its increasing presence in our lives.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121560893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Games That Let Go: Thriving in a Decentralized Future","authors":"E. D. Kajioka, Google Llc","doi":"10.1145/3600235","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3600235","url":null,"abstract":"In the early years of video games – arcade and home console – a given player could reasonably play every video game of note released in year and still have time for other hobbies. In 2022,10,963 games were released on the Steam platform alone. The scale of video games that enter the market in a given year now radically outstrip the ability of organized, monolithic gaming media to keep up with them. This “viewpoint” essay addresses how content creators can approach the decentralization of gaming culture through the lens of identity and authenticity, while reviewing incoming technologies that support this transition. Communication protocols for trustworthy digital certification, AI-assisted content creation tools, cloud technologies, and a transition from content moderation to user-centered governance – all will play a part in the coming transition to collective sense-making of these now highly complex game markets. Finally, the essay considers new audiences that will support a greater diversity of perspectives in independent game companies who can directly reach and engage players who share their specific experiences and interests.","PeriodicalId":311089,"journal":{"name":"ACM Games: Research and Practice","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132433694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}