Contents |
Morals are the distinction between right and wrong.
There is no fundamental set of morals by which everyone chooses to live. People from different backgrounds such as race, ethnicity and religion will always have different standards of what is morally acceptable. However, despite individual attitudes and reasoning, society will always dictate what considered is right and wrong.
Societies are born from groups of individual people and consequently, different upbringings and backgrounds shape the way societies live and think. Generally, most societies consider murder, theft and assault as morally unacceptable.
While these crimes are considered immoral in the real world it would appear that crime and violence in computer games is morally acceptable. The differences that most game players would argue is that computer games are graphically unrealistic and therefore does not constitute a person acting against his/her moral reasoning.
However, the game play experience has become somewhat more realistic since the first games began to emerge. Technology has rapidly increased providing more realistic imagery and sound. What was once nothing more than a blocky/grainy image has now become more almost photo realistic.
Custer’s Revenge, which was released in 1982, depicted a naked man raping an Indian woman tied to a pole. Although the graphics was blocky and heavily pixilated, it is still questionable about whether or not this game should be accepted as a form of entertainment.
The progression of computer technology is providing more realistic imagery, scenarios and sound. As a society, people have become used to the excessive depictions of violence in the media and are therefore becoming indifferent to witnessing murders, theft and assault on television.
The main difference between television and computer games is that computer games possess a level of interactivity that the television can not. The problem with interactivity is that when a game becomes so realistic that players can see, hear and feel, and perhaps smell the “person�? on the monitor as they gun them down, does it become immoral? (Rathus, 1999).
The question of morals in computer games is an ongoing debate, however, speculation suggests that as game development progresses further, players may need to ask themselves as to whether or not killing or assaulting a character in a computer game is any less immoral as doing so in real life.
Computer Games - Ethics
Computer Games - Ethics: Effects of Media Violence
Computer Games - Ethics: Reflexes and Behaviours
Computer Games - Ethics: Case Study: Manhunt
Computer Games - Ethics: Case Study: F.E.A.R.
Wikipedia, (2005), Morals, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morals, retrieved 25 October 2005.
Wikipedia, (2005), Society, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society,retrieved 25 October 2005.
Wikipedia, (2005), Custers Revenge, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custers_revenge, retrieved 25 October 2005.
Sarah Harper 20:01, 27 Oct 2005 (EST)
