The study of expertise is difficult to do in a laboratory environment due to the challenge of finding people at different skill levels and the lack of time for participants to acquire mastery. In this paper, we report on two studies that analyze naturalistic gameplay data using cohort analysis to better understand how skill relates to practice and habit. Two cohorts are analyzed, each from two different games. Our work follows skill progression through 7 months of Halo matches for (...) a holistic perspective, but also explores low-level in-game habits when controlling game units in StarCraft 2. Players who played moderately frequently without long breaks were able to gain skill the most efficiently. What set the highest performers apart was their ability to gain skill more rapidly and without dips compared to other players. At the beginning of matches, top players habitually warmed up by selecting and re-selecting groups of units repeatedly in a meaningless cycle. They exhibited unique routines during their play that aided them when under pressure. (shrink)

How computer games can be designed to create ethically relevant experiences for players. Today's blockbuster video games—and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots—provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films—including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver—filled theaters but also treated their audiences (...) as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection. Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State and Utopia Robert Nozick criticizes a broad range of theories of distributive justice using a thought experiment that involves the financial incentives for playing basketball. In this paper, I defend the so-called “patterning” conceptions of justice that are the targets of Nozick’s “Wilt Chamberlain” argument, via the development of an extended analogy between the distribution of politically relevant resources and the playing of games, as this latter activity is characterized by Bernard Suits in his influential book on (...) the subject, The Grasshopper. I argue that the plausibility of this analogy makes possible a more decisive refutation of Nozick’s argument than those suggested by Thomas Nagel and G.A. Cohen. I also briefly speculate about the implications of my game analogy for how philosophers should think about particular types of economic utopianism, especially those that involve conjectures about what human life would be like in a post-scarcity environment. (shrink)

The eco-weird is not only a genre but an aesthetic experience. It names the feeling of ‘being ecological’ (Morton, Being Ecological. London: Penguin Random House, 2018) and offers a way of understanding the ambiguous human experience of being radically separated from, but deeply embedded within and dependent upon, ‘nature’. Tabletop games generate eco-weird experiences even if they are not about anything ‘weird’. Games are weird because they emerge from an entanglement of more-than-human subjectivities and, so, make plain the fallacy of (...) human exceptionalism upon which our perceived separation from ‘nature’ is founded. Games are co-created performances that conjure temporary worlds through which players experiment with alternative forms of being and relating, and with different ways of dwelling. Here, dwelling describes our ‘becoming with’ the environment, an echo of its use in philosophy to denote ‘staying within’, ‘housing’, and the home. These ‘homely’ aspects of subjectivity are precisely what the play of board games disrupts, despite construction in the popular imagination of games as a cosy activity. This chapter offers a method for paying attention to how we play, giving reflective and analytical space to the eco-weird experiences that can arise across the tabletop and to moments of discomfort and strangeness that emerge in gaming. (shrink)

Detroit Become Human (DBH) offers a stunningly visual gameplay experience that both tells a philosophical story and stimulates the moral reasoning process in players. The game features a futuristic world where highly intelligent androids are bought and sold as workers who take on menial labor tasks for humans. In this chapter, we explore three dimensions of moral reasoning: accounts of moral agency, ethical theories or frameworks, and accounts of moral patiency. We then explore how DBH addresses all of these (...) philosophical issues in its narrative and gameplay scenarios. Issues of moral agency are explored through some of the androids gaining consciousness and autonomy. Ethical theory is explored through various ethical dilemmas that emerge in the gameplay. Moral patiency is explored by questioning if the androids, conscious and unconscious, are worthy of moral concern and why. We then show how the gameplay structure offers a unique interactive opportunity for players to engage in the moral reasoning process. Additionally, through the questions it raises and scenarios it poses, DBH makes an implicit anti-speciesist argument regarding moral patiency. Additionally, it makes a secondary argument that suffering and struggle are necessary to develop the possibility of second-order desires and true freedom and agency. The interactive structure of the game, in which players’ choices have more weight than in many gameplay experiences, makes DBH a unique work of contemporary philosophical pop culture. (shrink)

In this article, I consider Alkis Kontos’ and Allan Bäck’s critiques to Suits that his theory of games and good living lack ontological grounds or rests on the wrong foundations. Taking these criti...

‘Aesthetics and the semblance of the real in terroristic gameplay’ explores the recreation of terrorism and terrorist role-playing in gaming in a post 9/11 context. Drawing examples from contemporary games like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, ARMA 3: Takistan, Insurgency: Sandstorm and SQUAD, games provide for surprisingly subjective explorations of terrorist role-playing and image-making. What does it mean to recreate these images of terrorism, so closely associated with propaganda from the War on Terror? This article looks at the (...) phenomenon through the Lacanian notion of the real; that which cannot be reduced to the symbolic or semiotic. In particular, it looks at the aesthetic appeal of terroristic images and how these lead to their recreation. The article suggests that the virtual world of gaming provides a risk-free space to explore the taboo of terrorism while participating in the recreation of aesthetic media tropes. It further explores the idea of terrorism as the return of the Lacanian real and how terrorist gameplay can be understood as the re-enactment of the semblance of the real. This article draws from the author’s 2019 short film, Aim Down Sights. (shrink)

Studying how gaming experiences are encoded is important to understand the effects of gaming on the brain. Although studies have investigated neural correlates of gaming experiences, the brain patterns related to the full range of subjective experiences across different types of games are yet to be identified. The present study used three custom-made, immersive driving games with different input dynamics (controlling a car, a boat, or a spaceship) and different mechanics to assess subjective gaming experiences in a magnetic resonance imaging (...) scanner. A correlational analysis identified several brain networks associated with different subjective gaming experiences, including visual and attentional processing networks. The contributions of these networks were further validated using meta-analysis-based functional term decoding. The results of the present study point to a range of perceptual, motivational, and control networks that are engaged during active gameplay. (shrink)

This paper offers an analytical description of the ethics of game design and its influence in the ethical challenges computer games present. The paper proposes a set of game design suggestions based on the Information Ethics concept of Levels of Abstraction which can be applied to formalise ethical challenges into gameplay mechanics; thus allowing game designers to incorporate ethics as part of the experience of their games. The goal of this paper is twofold: to address some of the reasons (...) why computer games present ethical challenges, and to exploit the informational nature of games to suggest how to develop games with ethics at the core of their gameplay. (shrink)

Watching other people play videogames —a.k.a. ‘spectator gaming’— is a widespread practice. Yet, it is considered by some as an inadequate form of engagement with games. In this paper, I show that the strongest objection to spectator gaming relies on the claim that some properties of videogames are better, if not exclusively, accessible to the player. After that, I propose two replies to this challenge. The first is that ‘secondary players’, i.e., individuals who indirectly take part in the game, can (...) access the relevant properties. The second reply is that even paradigmatic spectators may engage in simulated play, and therefore, access these properties as well. (shrink)

The mental rotation ability is an essential spatial reasoning skill in human cognition and has proven to be an essential predictor of mathematical and STEM skills, critical and computational thinking. Despite its importance, little is known about when and how mental rotation processes are activated in games explicitly targeting spatial reasoning tasks. In particular, the relationship between spatial abilities and TetrisTM has been analysed several times in the literature. However, these analyses have shown contrasting results between the effectiveness of Tetris-based (...) training activities to improve mental rotation skills. In this work, we studied whether, and under what conditions, such ability is used in the TetrisTM game by explicitly modelling mental rotation via an ACT-R based cognitive model controlling a virtual agent. The obtained results show meaningful insights into the activation of mental rotation during game dynamics. The study suggests the necessity to adapt game dynamics in order to force the activation of this process and, therefore, can be of inspiration to design learning activities based on TetrisTM or re-design the game itself to improve its educational effectiveness. (shrink)

In this paper I present an in-class game designed to simulate the dynamics of the state of nature. I first explain the mechanics of the game, and how to administer it in the classroom. Then I address how the game can help introduce students to a number of important topics in political philosophy. In broad terms, the game serves to generate discussion regarding to main questions. (1) How does civil society come about? (2) Is the state of nature and the (...) arrangement which arises from it fair? In so doing I suggest how the game can further student understanding of figures such as Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Marx, and Rawls. (shrink)

Bernard Suits’ groundbreaking work, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, has profoundly shaped the philosophy of sport. Its sequel, Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure, and the Good Life in the Third Millennium, released in October 2022, enriches scholarly understandings of Suits’ views on games, emphasizing the normative aspects of gameplay and its impact on people’s pursuit of the good life. In this book symposium, world-leading Suits scholars analyze the Suitsian conception of gameplay and its relevance to his (...) views on Utopia outlined in the sequel, covering a wide range of topics. Filip Kobiela explores counterfactual situations in Suits’ oeuvre. Christopher Bartel and Gwen Bradford scrutinize the ethical nature and ramifications of Suits’ claim that life is an unconscious game. R. Scott Kretchmar and John S. Russell present thoughtful critiques of Suits’ musings on Utopia. William J. Morgan’s contribution integrates contemporary work studies to illuminate Suits’ utopia. The symposium concludes with the editors, Francisco Javier Lopez Frias and Christopher Yorke, offering their perspectives on Suitsian Utopia, ethics, and metaethics. (shrink)

Since Sigmund Freud developed and popularized psychoanalysis, this psychological theory has significantly influenced contemporary thinking, particularly in philosophical disciplines focused on understanding human behavior and addressing social problems. Take the examples of political philosophy, race theory, and feminist thought, among many others. However, although sport philosophy qualifies as one such discipline, scholars in this field have given little to no attention to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical theorists. Remarkably, psychoanalytical notions, especially those of Eric Berne and Norman O. Brown, significantly shaped Bernard (...) Suits’ pioneering thoughts on games. Nevertheless, sport philosophers have largely overlooked the importance of psychoanalysis in Suits’ examinations of games and, more broadly speaking, rarely attempted to apply psychoanalytical concepts to their analyses of sport. In this paper, I explain the psychoanalytical roots of Suits’ theory of games and explore how much of his theory of games is indebted to psychoanalysis. Specifically, I first compare Suits’ analysis of unconscious gameplay to psychoanalytic concepts of repression and neurosis. Subsequently, I explore the alignment between Suits’ views on gameplay and psychoanalytic accounts of play and pleasure. To conclude, I examine the therapeutic and emancipatory character of Suits’ proposal, drawing parallels between his philosophical corpus and critical theorists whose critical analyses of modern society are heavily indebted to Freud. (shrink)

On Bernard Suits’ Philosophy situates Suits’ work within philosophy, play and leisure studies, as well as the philosophy of sport. It introduces his core ideas and offers a comprehensive interpretation, presenting Suits as a thinker who explores gameplay to ask how one can live well. -/- This book offers readers a clear and comprehensive introduction to Suits’ philosophy and its significance across philosophy, game and leisure studies, and the philosophy of sport. By situating Suits’ work within broader intellectual debates, (...) the book helps readers grasp how his exploration of gameplay illuminates enduring philosophical questions, such as those concerning the nature of definitions and the good life. Its approach combines careful interpretation of both published and unpublished manuscripts, historical reception, and contemporary engagement to reveal the unity of Suits’ philosophical project. In doing so, it delivers the benefit of offering the first systematic and accessible framework for understanding Suits’ ideas, connecting The Grasshopper and Return of the Grasshopper as parts of a coherent philosophical project. -/- On Bernard Suits’ Philosophy is intended for scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in philosophy, sport studies, and leisure or game studies. It also appeals to readers in related fields—such as political theory, work studies, and existential philosophy—and to general readers interested in perennial philosophical questions, especially those concerning how to live well. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the comic potential that originates in the way players of digital games take on the dual position of being at once a played self that is internal to the gameworld and a playing self that perceives this world from the outside. I first describe the comic attitude as it is defined within philosophy: as an attitude of distanced and dispassionate reflection towards an incongruity. I then show how the dual position of players during gameplay not only (...) is characterized by incongruities, such as contradictions between the apparent seriousness and the ultimate triviality of in-game actions, but also allows players to dispassionately reflect on these incongruities. I thus argue that digital gameplay entails the inherent possibility of turning players into both a comic object and a laughing subject. (shrink)

Athletes often report that training and competition, especially under acute fatigue, cease to feel like play and begin to resemble work. Yet discussions in the philosophy of sport have rarely examined how fatigue transforms gameplay from the player’s own perspective. This paper offers a phenomenological account of fatigue’s normative significance for play. Drawing on Bernard Suits and C. Thi Nguyen, the author argues that gameplay depends on what he calls a readiness-to-play: a horizon of immediate possibilities that organizes (...) autotelic action. Acute fatigue, he argues, progressively contracts this horizon through the negative actuality of non-actuality and the constrained anticipation of the dichotomous alternatives of continuing or stopping. Ultimately, fatigue reveals how gameplay may persist formally even as the experiential conditions of play recede. (shrink)

Among the goddesses of the Mesopotamian world, two female figures stand out: the sisters Ištar et Ereškigal. Ištar’s spheres of activity are love and especially battle. She takes part in battle as if playing "with a skipping rope". Ereškigal reigns over the world of the dead: she is the one "who has never known girls’ games". This article is based on written documents (hymns, mythological narratives) in cuneiform (Sumerian – Akkadian and bilingual texts) of the second and first millennium BCE. (...) It takes as its angle of approach the conflicting relations between these great goddesses in order better to understand their respective relationships to gameplaying: where and when do they play? What do they play at and with whom? What information can be drawn from this relating to human women and girls? Various issues are addressed in the light of gender studies: those of intergenerational and inter-familial relationships, the definition of private-public spaces, seduction and eroticism. (shrink)

BioShock Infinite begins with the question of “founding.” One enters Columbia for the first time on “Secession Day,” the anniversary of Columbia's secession from the United States in 1902, and the commemoration of the founding of Columbia as the “New Eden.” Racial difference is one of the major antagonisms in BioShock Infinite. BioShock Infinite exemplifies Carl Schmitt's concept of the political, as grounded on fundamental antagonisms that express the will of “the people” of Columbia. Sovereignty is the power to decide (...) what one will do outside of any rules or laws. The questions of decision and responsibility play a key role in the story and gameplay of BioShock Infinite. Players are forced to make a number of decisions throughout BioShock Infinite, without any way of knowing what the outcomes of these decisions will be. It turns out that none of these decisions has any real impact on the game. (shrink)

Abstract: Gameplay and the associated attitudes are important for establishing epistemic permissibility in a range of cases. Or so I argue. I make this argument by comparing pseudo-intellectual communities to what I call Epistemic LARPing communities (examples include Model UN and Ethics Bowl). These two kinds of communities share many structural features, as well as providing community members with similar epistemic and prudential benefits. The epistemically relevant difference is that Epistemic LARPing communities are engaged in gameplay, whereas other (...) kinds of pseudo-intellectual communities are not. The attitudes involved in gameplay make it epistemically permissible to join Epistemic LARPing groups. I give an account of how this works. (shrink)

Dead people can take part in gameplay. These playful possibilities reflect two broad trends in the social perception of human finitude: death acceptance and death denial. Some of the playful practices discussed in this article align with perspectives that regard mortality as a foundational -- and even affirmative -- aspect of human existence. These are games and videogames designed to sustain a sense of continuity and familiarity with the departed. Other games adopt a more antagonistic stance toward the dead, (...) trivializing and commodifying their personal and historical significance. Among the latter, this article devotes particular attention to a family of playful practices known as “dead pool games,” playful folk phenomena that have thus far been overlooked within game studies. -/- Foregrounding the representational and ethical stakes of playing with the dead, the second half of the article traces the historical development of dead pool games and examines the ethically contentious design decisions that shape this genre. The inquiry culminates in an ethics-oriented analysis of the gameplay and design of Fantamorto -- a popular contemporary Italian instantiation of the dead pool game formula, with particular attention to how its rules frame death and human suffering as ludic resources within a competitive game economy. (shrink)

What are the identity and persistence conditions of videogames? This paper surveys the contemporary philosophical literature on this topic. Specifically, I discuss various views which attempt to ground the identity of videogame works in their rules, in their algorithmic structure, in their source code, or in contextual parameters surrounding gameplay. While these proposals all have merits of their own, I argue that none of them are satisfactory. My conclusion is therefore negative: we still lack an adequate theoretical model to (...) account for the identity and persistence conditions of videogames. (shrink)

Despite the emergence of computer games as a dominant cultural industry (and the accompanying emergence of computer games as the subject of scholarly research), we know little or nothing about the ethics of computer games. Considerations of the morality of computer games seldom go beyond intermittent portrayals of them in the mass media as training devices for teenage serial killers. In this first scholarly exploration of the subject, Miguel Sicart addresses broader issues about the ethics of games, the ethics of (...) playing the games, and the ethical responsibilities of game designers. He argues that computer games are ethical objects, that computer game players are ethical agents, and that the ethics of computer games should be seen as a complex network of responsibilities and moral duties. Players should not be considered passive amoral creatures; they reflect, relate, and create with ethical minds. The games they play are ethical systems, with rules that create gameworlds with values at play. Drawing on concepts from philosophy and game studies, Sicart proposes a framework for analyzing the ethics of computer games as both designed objects and player experiences. After presenting his core theoretical arguments and offering a general theory for understanding computer game ethics, Sicart offers case studies examining single-player games (using Bioshock as an example), multiplayer games (illustrated by Defcon), and online gameworlds (illustrated by World of Warcraft) from an ethical perspective. He explores issues raised by unethical content in computer games and its possible effect on players and offers a synthesis of design theory and ethics that could be used as both analytical tool and inspiration in the creation of ethical gameplay. (shrink)

The gamer’s dilemma, initially proposed by Luck (Ethics and Information Technology 11(1):31–36, 2009) posits a moral comparison between in-game acts of murder and in-game acts of paedophilia within single-player videogames. Despite each activity lacking the obvious harms of their real-world equivalents, common intuitions suggest an important difference between them. Some responses to the dilemma suggest that intuitive responses to the two cases are based on important differences between the acts themselves or their social meaning. Others challenge the fundamental assumptions of (...) the dilemma. In this paper, we identify and explore key imaginative and emotional differences in how certain types of in-game violence are experienced by players, consider how these differences factor into the moral lives of players, and use these insights to resolve the dilemma. The view we develop is that the key moral emotion in offensive video gameplay is self-repugnance. This is not repugnance of the act one directs a game character to perform in the game, nor repugnance of the character one plays. It is repugnance of oneself in playing the game. If self-repugnance is a fitting emotional response to playing a videogame, then this is prima facie grounds for thinking it is wrong to play the videogame. Our approach to the gamer’s dilemma is to distinguish the fittingness conditions of self-repugnance from the fittingness conditions of other moral emotions as they pertain to playing videogames. We argue that because of the virtual character of the actions performed in video games, self-repugnance is a fitting response to particular kinds of offensive gameplay. On the other hand, in-game murder is not invariably a fitting ground for self-repugnance. We argue that this difference is grounded in imaginative responses to the harm of death and the harms of profound suffering. Our task is to explain and justify this difference in fittingness conditions and use this to resolve the gamer’s dilemma. (shrink)

As artefacts, the worlds of digital games are designed and developed to fulfil certain expressive, functional, and experiential objectives. During play, players infer these purposes and aspirations from various aspects of their engagement with the gameworld. Influenced by their sociocultural backgrounds, sensitivities, gameplay preferences, and familiarity with game conventions, players construct a subjective interpretation of the intentions with which they believe the digital game in question was created. By analogy with the narratological notion of the implied author, we call (...) the figure to which players ascribe these intentions ‘the implied designer’. In this article, we introduce the notion of the implied designer and present an initial account of how appreciators ascribe meaning to interactive, fictional gameworlds and act within them based on what they perceive to be the designer’s intentions. (shrink)

In the modern world, many important tasks have become too complex for a single unaided individual to manage. Teams conduct some safety-critical tasks to improve task performance and minimize the risk of error. These teams have traditionally consisted of human operators, yet, nowadays, artificial intelligence and machine systems are incorporated into team environments to improve performance and capacity. We used a computerized task modeled after a classic arcade game to investigate the performance of human–machine and human–human teams. We manipulated the (...) group conditions between team members; sometimes, they were instructed to collaborate, compete, or work separately. We evaluated players' performance in the main task (gameplay) and, in post hoc analyses, participant behavioral patterns to inform group strategies. We compared game performance between team types (human–human vs. human–machine) and group conditions (competitive, collaborative, independent). Adapting workload capacity analysis to human–machine teams, we found performance under both team types and all group conditions suffered a performance efficiency cost. However, we observed a reduced cost in collaborative over competitive teams within human–human pairings, but this effect was diminished when playing with a machine partner. The implications of workload capacity analysis as a powerful tool for human–machine team performance measurement are discussed. (shrink)

This paper expands Rami Ali’s dissolution of the gamer’s dilemma (Ethics Inf Technol 17:267-274, 2015). Morgan Luck’s gamer’s dilemma (Ethics Inf Technol 11(1):31-36, 2009) rests on our having diverging intuition when considering virtual murder and virtual child molestation in video games. Virtual murder is seemingly permissible, when virtual child molestation is not and there is no obvious morally relevant difference between the two. Ali argues that virtual murder and virtual child molestation are equally permissible/impermissible when considered under different modes of (...) engagement. To this end, Ali distinguishes between story-telling gameplay and simulation games, discussing both in depth. I build on the dissolution by looking into competitive gameplay in order to consider what the morally relevant difference between virtual murder and virtual child molestation might be when competing in a video game. I argue that when competitors consent to participate in a competition, the rules of the competition supersede everyday moral intuitions. As such, virtual competitions ought to represent such consent from virtual characters. Virtual children cannot be represented as giving consent to be molested because (1) children cannot be represented as giving sexual consent, and (2) consent to be possibly molested cannot be given. This creates a morally relevant difference between murder and molestation. By fully addressing competitive gameplay, I answer Luck’s worry that Ali’s dissolution is incomplete (Ethics Inf Technol 20:157-162, 2018). (shrink)

Inferentialists about scientific representation hold that an apparatus’s representing a target system consists in the apparatus allowing “surrogative inferences” about the target. I argue that a serious problem for inferentialism arises from the fact that many scientific theories and models contain internal inconsistencies. Inferentialism, left unamended, implies that inconsistent scientific models have unlimited representational power, since an inconsistency permits any conclusion to be inferred. I consider a number of ways that inferentialists can respond to this challenge before suggesting my own (...) solution. I develop an analogy to exploitable glitches in a game. Even though inconsistent representational apparatuses may in some sense allow for contradictions to be generated within them, doing so violates the intended function of the apparatus’s parts and hence violates representational “gameplay.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Videogames and Interactive FictionGrant TavinorIIn the third-person crime simulator Grand Theft Auto 3, the fictional performing of all sorts of criminal nuisance is a possibility. (Squeamish readers, or those that are adamant videogames are playing a decisive role in the moral degeneration of modern society might want to turn away now!) Here is one possibility for players of the game: while driving around in the rundown red-light district of (...) Portland Island, try stopping beside one of the women dressed in leather dresses and knee-high stockings who say things like "Have you ever been down south?" The fictional woman will bend down to the car window and eventually hop in. Now drive to a secluded area, stop the car, and wait. What happens? The car begins to rock up and down, slowly at first, and then more quickly, squeaking all the while. As it does, your health meter increases and the cash meter decreases. Eventually, after the car has stopped rocking, the prostitute exits and walks away. This is all obviously of questionable taste. But the really horrible part is that it is possible to mug the prostitute and take back your money!Though I am reluctant to tell you this, the first time I discovered the trick, I felt a sort of sadistic joy at my reprehensible behavior. Friends in the room at the time thought the whole incident hilarious; except for one who thought it extremely revolting. Perhaps now though, I feel guilty for what I did to the prostitute. (Hence my reluctance to let you know of my sinister fictional activities!) Of course, this episode raises a host of ethical questions; I will not attempt to answer them here. What I am interested in is the possibility of fictional interaction itself. The important point is that this fictive episode seems to show that it is possible in the case of videogames to feel guilty or ashamed for what one [End Page 24] does in a fictional world. But how is this possible? What does interacting with a videogame amount to that it allows for this intimate (and dubious) emotional connection?There is a wide and impressive literature in the analytic philosophy of the arts concerning the nature of fiction and the practice that surrounds it; this literature gives us an ideal theoretical basis from which to explore the topic of videogames. But also, videogames will allow us to return our attention to the theory, perhaps perceiving areas in which it can be improved, so as to become more generally applicable. I begin this paper by setting out some initial descriptive examples of the ways in which videogames are interactive fictions. After discussing an ambiguity in the notion of what it is to interact with a fiction, I deal with two prominent aspects of that interaction; that focused on fictive props, and the apparent interaction players have with fictional worlds. Next, I argue that the interactive nature of videogames alters the character of our interest in them. Rather than a focus on interpretive and sympathetic engagement with narratives, videogames involve their appreciators in an active engagement with the problem spaces or kinetic narratives of gameplay. Finally, I argue that because action and emotion are close cognitive bedfellows, and because emotion plays an important role in the psychology of fictive practice, that the emotions experienced by videogame players will be distinctive to that fictive form.IIVideogames provide their players with a variety of opportunities for interactive engagement. The last ten years have seen significant development in the extent of the fictive interactivity of videogames, especially with the advent of the "next generation" consoles such as Playstation 2 and X-Box, and the burgeoning genre of PC gaming. With the intention of providing some descriptive substance for the following theoretical discussions, in this section I present some examples of the ways in which modern videogames are interactive fictions, and how they differ to more traditional fictive forms in this respect.Many videogames involve exploring an environment. In Grand Theft Auto 3, the player, in the guise of a criminal protagonist, is able to explore the streets of Liberty City. Completing the objectives of the... (shrink)

"Robert Brandom" is one of the most significant philosophers writing today, yet paradoxically philosophers have found it difficult to get to grips with the details and implications of his work. This book aims to facilitate critical engagement with Brandom's ideas by providing an accessible overview of Brandom's project and the context for an initial assessment. Jeremy Wanderer's examination focuses on Brandom's inferentialist conception of rationality, and the core part of this conception that aims to specify the structure that a set (...) of performances within a social practice must have for the participants to count as sapient beings by virtue of their participation in the practice, and for the performances within the practice to have objective semantic content by virtue of their featuring within the practice. Wanderer's exploration of these two goals forms the structure to the book. It Includes: Part I that provides a structural model of linguistic practice and considers various groups of potential participants in terms of their relationships to this practice; and, Part II that examines the meaning of the performances that are caught up in this gameplaying practice. Brandom's approach to semantics is outlined and the challenge such an approach has in allowing for a representational dimension of language and thought is explored. Wanderer offers readers a valuable framework for understanding the Brandomian system and helps situate Brandom's systematic theorizing within contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. This book will be a sought after aid to reading Brandom for advanced students and philosophers engaging with his challenging body of work. (shrink)

Kingmaking occurs when a board game participant who can no longer win attempts to change the winner without improving their own position. This phenomenon often elicits strong negative reactions and is widely regarded as a breach of two normative expectations in gameplay: the Meritocratic Norm, which holds that the most skilled or deserving player ought to win, and the Striving Norm, which demands that all players continue to try to win even when victory is unattainable. While both norms are (...) prominent in player discourse, we argue that they fail to capture what is morally significant about kingmaking. We contend that kingmaking is morally objectionable only when it constitutes a failure to abide by the Lusory Impartiality principle, according to which players must bracket extra-game allegiances and treat each other as equals qua individuals. This norm speaks in favor of a form of Moderate Moralism about games: while many in-game actions are not apt targets of moral evaluation, some—like kingmaking—can have genuine moral import when they express interpersonal disrespect. One upshot is that kingmaking that doesn’t express such disrespect isn’t wrong—and that its salience can even be valuable in some contexts. When motivated by in-game reciprocity, strategic deterrence, or aesthetic storytelling, kingmaking can be justified and may enhance the strategic and narrative value of play. (shrink)

In Games: Agency as Art, Thi Nguyen has given us a deep and compelling picture of agency as much more layered, volatile, environment-dependent and discontinuous than it appears in most philosophical accounts. Games ‘inscribe … forms of agency into artifactual vessels’.1 1 When we play a game, we take up a form of agency, including a set of motivations, values and goals, which has been artificially provided by the game. Our purpose in playing, in the kinds of gameplay that (...) interest Nguyen, is to have the aesthetic experience of first-personally exercising the kind of agency sculpted by the game. As we move in and out of gameplay, we take up and drop values, motives, and goals that are provided to us by the game. Games can expand our autonomy and the richness of life by allowing us to practice different forms of agency, taking on different ends for the aesthetic experience of striving to meet them. While I am on board with these central moves of Nguyen’s book, in this essay I will argue that the situation is substantially messier than Nguyen portrays it as being. Game play, I will claim, is inextricably embedded and entangled in its larger social, material and cultural context. Conversely, I will argue, everyday life is routinely sculpted in ways Nguyen claims are distinctive of games. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAn essential and yet often neglected motivation of Bernard Suits’ elevation of gameplay to the ideal of human existence is his account of capacities along perfectionist lines and the function of games in eliciting them. In his work Suits treats the expression of these capacities as implicitly good and the purest expression of the human telos. Although it is a possible interpretation to take Suits’ utopian vision to mean that gameplay in his future utopia must consist of the (...) logically inevitable replaying of activities we conduct in the present for instrumental reasons, because gameplay for Suits is identical with the expression of sets of capacities specifically elicited by game rules, it is much more likely that he intends utopian gameplay to be an endless series of carefully crafted opportunities for the elicitation of special capacities, and thus embody his ideal of existence. This article therefore provides a new lens for understanding both... (shrink)

A key element of J.S. Russell’s intellectual oeuvre is his concern with perfectionism, the philosophical position which holds that the expression of uniquely human capacities is the source of moral value. One of the main axes of criticism of perfectionism is its inherent elitism: not all humans are equally efficacious or efficient capacity catalyzers, and thus on perfectionist grounds it makes sense to identify those who are unable to express a large range or depth of capacities as less valuable (in (...) this specific sense of value) than those who are not. I take one of the main themes of Russell’s philosophical output to be a gentle and steady movement toward redressing perfectionist’s elitist bent through broadening what we count as virtues, and thereby democratizing the perfectionist position by making it more inclusive and accessible. I trace this development of Russell’s interest from his valorization of self-actualization through partaking in dangerous sport (accessible to very few of us), to his valorization of striving through gameplay and sport (accessible to the majority of us), and finally to his valorization of idleness (accessible to almost everyone). I assess whether Russell’s overall project succeeds in its apparent aim to rehabilitate perfectionism upon democratic lines. (shrink)

Digital games can be considered as composed of two main components: the props, i.e. visual, textual, and aural elements such as codes, 3D models and animations; and the form, specially the interaction between players and games, the act of playing itself. This dichotomy thus begs the question whether digital games are indeed games if nobody plays them, and ultimately: who is the owner of the gameplay and any by-product of the interaction between the game and the players? This paper (...) explores the copyright status of content created by users with digital games, such as gameplay videos and images, for example art based on digital game assets, namely virtual photography; as well as customized in-game objects. Many modern digital games offer considerable freedom to players, in terms of how the action on screen evolves and the visual outcomes that the game can produce. Scholars have asserted that digital games avatars, the characters created in games, should be considered a joint work between players and the game developers and some game companies allow the commercial use of videos created from their games. Conversely, other companies expressly prohibit such use, and issue DMCA takedown notices to infringers. Attention will be devoted to specific games as authorial tools, such as _SpaceEngine_ and _Townscaper_, where there are neither objectives nor challenges, but they are rather tools that enable players’ creativity. (shrink)

The first book-length study devoted to FromSoftware games, On Soulsring Worlds explores how the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring are able to reconcile extreme difficulty in both gameplay and narrative with broad appeal. Arguing that the games are strategically positioned in relation to contemporary audiences and designed to tap into the new forms of interpretation afforded by digital media, the author situates the games vis-à-vis a number of current debates, including the posthuman and the ethics of gameplay. (...) The book delivers an object lesson on the value of narrative (and) complexity in digital play and in the interpretive practices it gives rise to. Cross-fertilizing narrative theory, game studies, and nonhuman-oriented philosophy, this book will appeal to students and scholars of game studies, media studies, narratology and video game ethnography. (shrink)

Misinformation about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a pressing societal challenge. Across two studies, one preregistered (n1 = 1771 and n2 = 1777), we assess the efficacy of two ‘prebunking’ interventions aimed at improving people’s ability to spot manipulation techniques commonly used in COVID-19 misinformation across three different languages (English, French and German). We find that Go Viral!, a novel five-minute browser game, (a) increases the perceived manipulativeness of misinformation about COVID-19, (b) improves people’s attitudinal certainty (confidence) in their ability (...) to spot misinformation and (c) reduces self-reported willingness to share misinformation with others. The first two effects remain significant for at least one week after gameplay. We also find that reading real-world infographics from UNESCO improves people’s ability and confidence in spotting COVID-19 misinformation (albeit with descriptively smaller effect sizes than the game). Limitations and implications for fake news interventions are discussed. (shrink)

In this study, we predict the different levels of performance in a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Tetris session based on the score and the number of matches played by the players. Using the first 45 seconds of gameplay, a Random Forest Classifier was trained on the five keys used in the game obtaining a ROC_AUC score of 0.80. Further analysis revealed that the number of down keys (forced drop) and the number of left keys (left translation) are the most (...) relevant keys in this task, showing that by merely including the data from these two keys our Random Forest Classifier reached a ROC_AUC score of 0.83.We conclude that the keylogger data during the early phases of a game session can be successfully used to predict performance in longer sessions of Tetris. (shrink)

This study investigates the factors contributing to perceived difficulty in video games, integrating user scores, cognitive requirements, novelty, and structural complexity. Using a dataset of 100 video games across multiple genres, we performed logistic regression analyses to identify the relative contributions of various gameplay and cognitive factors to player-perceived difficulty. Our findings indicate that task complexity and cognitive load are primary predictors of perceived difficulty, whereas narrative novelty and kinetic demands exert secondary but meaningful influences. This framework provides a (...) quantitative approach for evaluating and predicting game difficulty in both design and research contexts. (shrink)

Many gamers complain about “cheap” or “cheesy” tactics in competitive play. I give an account of these complaints as moral claims expressing a negative evaluation of players’ actions and/or character. After a brief history of cheap tactics, I survey existing definitions of cheapness, arguing none are adequate. I then offer my own definition, arguing that it avoids the shortcomings of existing definitions, captures the essence of cheapness, explains the moral grounds for complaints about cheapness, and distinguishes cheapness from cheating and (...) toxicity. In closing, I reflect on what can be done about cheapness in competitive gameplay. (shrink)

The use of smart mouthguards in contact sports like rugby aims to enhance player safety by providing real-time data on head impacts. These devices, equipped with sensors, measure collision force and frequency, potentially identifying concussions that might go unnoticed during gameplay. The idea is that such enhanced monitoring will enable teams, physicians and other stakeholders to better protect players from the effects of on-pitch injury through immediate detection of head trauma and the long-term provision of player data. While we (...) welcome the move towards a better understanding of the potential harm that contact sports athletes may experience, introducing a new avenue through which information about player performance and health can be collected brings several areas of ethical concern absent from traditional mouthguards. In this paper, we consider four noteworthy areas: device and data efficacy, player choice, the inherent issues of such data’s existence and the harmful consequences of this data’s usage and exposure. We argue that failing to identify and address the risks associated with smart mouthguards’ employment in the elite sporting sphere not only risks the mistreatment and misapplication of player data but may also jeopardise the acceptability of a novel health monitoring method that has the potential to prevent long-term debilitating diseases. (shrink)

Players of videogames describe their gameplay in the first person, e.g. “I took cover behind a barricade.” Such descriptions of gameplay experiences are commonplace, but also puzzling because players are actually just pushing buttons, not engaging in the activities described by their first-person reports. According to a view defended by Robson and Meskin (2016), which we call the fictional identity view, this puzzle is solved by claiming that the player is fictionally identical with the player character. Hence, on (...) this view, if the player-character fictionally performs an action then, fictionally, the player performs that action. However, we argue that the fictional identity view does not make sense of players' gameplay experiences and their descriptions of them. We develop an alternative account of the relationship between the player and player-character on which the player-character serves as the player's fictional proxy, and argue that this account makes better sense of the nature of videogames as interactive fictions. (shrink)

Historically the focus of moral decision-making in games has been narrow, mostly confined to challenges of moral judgement (deciding right and wrong). In this paper, we look to moral psychology to get a broader view of the skills involved in ethical behaviour and how these skills can be employed in games. Following the Four Component Model of Rest and colleagues, we identify four “lenses” – perspectives for considering moral gameplay in terms of focus, sensitivity, judgement and action – and (...) describe the design problems raised by each. To conclude, we analyse two recent games, The Walking Dead and Papers, Please, and show how the lenses give us insight into important design differences between these games. (shrink)

In the ever-evolving landscape of video game development, mythology serves as a rich source of inspiration, providing developers with a wellspring of narratives, characters, and themes that resonate with players. This article, "Gaming the Gods: How Mythology Inspires Game Development," explores the intricate relationship between ancient myths and contemporary gaming. By examining various titles that draw upon mythological elements—from the pantheons of Greek and Norse mythology to the folklore of diverse cultures—we uncover how these stories enhance gameplay, deepen character (...) development, and create immersive worlds. The article also discusses the challenges and responsibilities developers face when adapting these age-old tales, including cultural sensitivity and authenticity. Through case studies of popular games, we illustrate how mythology not only enriches storytelling but also fosters a deeper connection between players and the narratives they engage with. Ultimately, this exploration highlights the enduring power of myth in shaping the future of interactive entertainment, inviting both players and creators to embark on epic journeys through the realms of legend and lore. (shrink)

Historically the focus of moral decision-making in games has been narrow, mostly confined to challenges of moral judgement (deciding right and wrong). In this paper, we look to moral psychology to get a broader view of the skills involved in ethical behaviour and how they may be employed in games. Following the Four Component Model of Rest and colleagues, we identify four “lenses” – perspectives for considering moral gameplay in terms of focus, sensitivity, judgement and action – and describe (...) the design problems raised by each. To conclude, we analyse two recent games, The Walking Dead and Papers, Please, and show how the lenses give us insight into important design differences between them. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI argue that the apparently exclusive choice between Suits’ utopia of gameplay and death by suicide is a false dilemma, one which obscures a ‘third way’ of positive boredom. Further, I offe...