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The Dilemma of Games: Moral choice in a Digital World
== Editing The Dilemma of Games: Moral Choice in a Digital World ==
Session Organizers: Gene Koo, Shenja van der Graaf


Today's "digital natives" are also a generation of gamers. While all ages enjoy computer and online games, they are particularly meaningful to youth culture. Although some advocates argue that games depicting violence might promote aggressive behaviors in children and have called for more regulation of the industry, games as a medium also have the potential to advance pro-social values and behaviors. After all, games offer choices, but few of these choices invoke ethical, civic, or moral dilemmas. How can games promote such values such as compassion, charity, or sacrifice? Can they marry these values to the kind of "systems thinking" that games promote and which are becoming more vital in an increasingly complex and interdependent world? Perhaps more importantly, how can such values cross the boundaries of the medium into the real world?
[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/berkmanat10/agenda Friday, May 16]


---
3:15-4:45
(This session will extend into coffee hour)


[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/berkmanat10/registration Registration]


Take 1:
How can video games -- which rely so heavily on giving users meaningful choices -- promote pro-values such as responsibility, charity, or sacrifice? Can video marry these values to the kind of "systems thinking" at which they're particularly good and which are becoming more vital in our networked world? WGBH, the renowned public television station, is launching a transmedia TV show and game that tackles these questions head-on. In this workshop, you'll help have a chance to shape this project that aims to teach children about environmental systems and their own choices within that system.


The generation of "digital natives" are also a generation of gamers. Games have become a widespread medium for people of all ages, but particularly for youth -- and largely at the expense of television. Some advocates have fretted that the violent content of some games might promote aggressive behaviors in children and have called for more regulation of the industry. But what about the potential of the medium to advance pro-social values and behaviors?
'''What you'll brainstorm in this workshop'''


As a medium, games uniquely offer players choices that they make themselves. While some games have delved into the possibilities that choice offers, only a small handful have examined the moral dimensions of choice in a sophisticated manner.
WGBH is proposing a transmedia TV show set within a game as well as video games to give children ages 9-12 an understanding of the environment as a complex system and their ability as individuals and engaged members of society to affect that system. Ultimately, the goal of the program is not just to advance scientific understanding, but also deepen participants' concern for the Earth.


Perhaps most promising among the possibilities of games is the way in which they can network large groups of geographically dispersed people into functional teams of players. In this way, the "guilds" that exist in Massively Multiplayer Online Games may actually function like the bowling leagues that Robert Putnam frets about in his work on social capital. If games are generating social capital, are they the kind of capital that translate into civic capital as well? Can they be designed explicitly to emphasize particular values, e.g. conflict resolution, mutual sacrifice, compassion?
In this workshop, we will have the chance to develop game concepts related to one unit of the underlying curriculum.


----
'''What you'll do in this workshop'''


Take 2:
After project leads from WGBH present the basic goals of the show, we will be breaking up into small teams to brainstorm game designs that will advance the presented goals. We'll reconvene to hear these ideas and give each other feedback. We'll then break up a second time to hash out the ideas further, and present our final suggestions.


In the evolution of media, games mark a substantial break from predecessors. While books, for example, capture thoughts and ideas, games enable the capture and conveyance of systems. While many commercial games have concentrated on such systems as physics (enabling "shooter" games), some games have approached other kinds of systems such as urban development (SimCity), economics (the "Tycoon" series), and, perhaps most lucratively, teamwork (World of Warcraft and other "MMOs").
Each group will develop gameplay with special attention to a different issue:


Few games explicitly or intentionally address moral issues, even though most presume basic values or principles. Yet society has reached a stage where understanding the moral dimensions of systems is becoming a critical "literacy."
* Evaluation: How do we know that players are learning the intended knowledge, skill, or values objectives?
* Affect: How can the design deepen moral, spiritual, personal, or other values-based commitment to environmental protection? (Or, alternatively, raise the question in a meaningful way?)
* Motivation: What are the incentives for youth to play this unit?
* Safety: How does WGBH ensure the safety of the participants while also encouraging maximum engagement and openness?
* Transmedia opportunities: What opportunities arise because the game will run alongside a TV show?
* Engagement: How does the program resolve the apparent tension between a show that encourages engagement with nature and a medium (video games) that's often tied to an indoor computer or console?
* Participation gaps: How can the game ensure that significant gaps do not open up across genders, class, rural/urban, or other social divisions?
* Business model: Can this game be financially sustainable? Profitable?


In what ways do games already offer a means to understand systems critically? In what ways must they further evolve to reach that point?
'''Workshop moderators'''
 
* Gene Koo, Berkman Fellow
* Shenja van der Graaf, Berkman Fellow
* Marisa Wolsky, Executive Producer, WGBH
* Blyth Lord, Project Director, Children's Programming, WGBH
* Gary Goldberger, VP and Director, Fablevision
* Dr. Doris Rusch, MIT-Singapore GAMBIT Gambit Game Labs
* Dr. Jaroslav Svelch, Fulbright Scholar, MIT-Singapore GAMBIT Gambit Game Labs
* Peter Rauch, MIT Comparative Media Studies '07
* Josh Diaz, developer, MIT Comparative Media Studies '09
 
'''Confirmed participants'''
 
(Please add your name to this list)
 
* Prof. Helen Haste, University of Bath, Harvard Graduate School of Education
* Prof. Barry Fishman, University of Michigan, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Revision as of 18:25, 6 May 2008

Editing The Dilemma of Games: Moral Choice in a Digital World

Friday, May 16

3:15-4:45 (This session will extend into coffee hour)

Registration

How can video games -- which rely so heavily on giving users meaningful choices -- promote pro-values such as responsibility, charity, or sacrifice? Can video marry these values to the kind of "systems thinking" at which they're particularly good and which are becoming more vital in our networked world? WGBH, the renowned public television station, is launching a transmedia TV show and game that tackles these questions head-on. In this workshop, you'll help have a chance to shape this project that aims to teach children about environmental systems and their own choices within that system.

What you'll brainstorm in this workshop

WGBH is proposing a transmedia TV show set within a game as well as video games to give children ages 9-12 an understanding of the environment as a complex system and their ability as individuals and engaged members of society to affect that system. Ultimately, the goal of the program is not just to advance scientific understanding, but also deepen participants' concern for the Earth.

In this workshop, we will have the chance to develop game concepts related to one unit of the underlying curriculum.

What you'll do in this workshop

After project leads from WGBH present the basic goals of the show, we will be breaking up into small teams to brainstorm game designs that will advance the presented goals. We'll reconvene to hear these ideas and give each other feedback. We'll then break up a second time to hash out the ideas further, and present our final suggestions.

Each group will develop gameplay with special attention to a different issue:

  • Evaluation: How do we know that players are learning the intended knowledge, skill, or values objectives?
  • Affect: How can the design deepen moral, spiritual, personal, or other values-based commitment to environmental protection? (Or, alternatively, raise the question in a meaningful way?)
  • Motivation: What are the incentives for youth to play this unit?
  • Safety: How does WGBH ensure the safety of the participants while also encouraging maximum engagement and openness?
  • Transmedia opportunities: What opportunities arise because the game will run alongside a TV show?
  • Engagement: How does the program resolve the apparent tension between a show that encourages engagement with nature and a medium (video games) that's often tied to an indoor computer or console?
  • Participation gaps: How can the game ensure that significant gaps do not open up across genders, class, rural/urban, or other social divisions?
  • Business model: Can this game be financially sustainable? Profitable?

Workshop moderators

  • Gene Koo, Berkman Fellow
  • Shenja van der Graaf, Berkman Fellow
  • Marisa Wolsky, Executive Producer, WGBH
  • Blyth Lord, Project Director, Children's Programming, WGBH
  • Gary Goldberger, VP and Director, Fablevision
  • Dr. Doris Rusch, MIT-Singapore GAMBIT Gambit Game Labs
  • Dr. Jaroslav Svelch, Fulbright Scholar, MIT-Singapore GAMBIT Gambit Game Labs
  • Peter Rauch, MIT Comparative Media Studies '07
  • Josh Diaz, developer, MIT Comparative Media Studies '09

Confirmed participants

(Please add your name to this list)

  • Prof. Helen Haste, University of Bath, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  • Prof. Barry Fishman, University of Michigan, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Retrieved from "http://cyber.harvard.edu/berkmanat10/?title=Pro-social_Games&oldid=2050"