Apr 11, 2023
How do players morally engage with games? What can user experience research and moral psychology tell us about how players experience and think about ethical decisions in games? We chat with philosopher Paul Formosa and Game Designer Malcolm Ryan about their collaborative ongoing research exploring these questions.
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Our guest for this episode are:
Paul Formosa is a Professor of Philosophy, Head of the Department of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Paul has published widely on topics in moral and political philosophy, with a recent focus on the ethical issues raised by new technologies such as video games and AI. He also collaborates regularly with colleagues from a range of different disciplines outside of philosophy, one of whom is our other guest today, Malcolm Ryan!
Malcolm
Ryan
is Course Director of the Game Design and Development program in
the School of Computing at Macquarie University in Sydney,
Australia. Malcolm has published in game design, virtual reality
and artificial intelligence. His current research focuses on how
players make ethical decisions in video games, in collaboration
with colleagues from philosophy, psychology and creative writing.
He blogs about video game ethics research at
MoralityPlay.org.
Their research together (which is what we’ll be talking about today) is founded in moral psychology and user experience (UX) research. They’re interested in how players engage morally with games, how they exercise their ethical thinking to make decisions in games and how they experience these kinds of decisions. The hope is that this research will lead to richer, more engaging ethical content in games both for entertainment and education.
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Hosted by Shlomo Sher, Ph.D. and Andy Ashcraft
Production by Carmen Elena Mitchell
Music and graphics by Daniel Sher