Understanding Censorship: Law, Morality, and Science

To understand censorship issues around violent or sexually themed games requires an understanding of three different topics: Law, Morality, and Science. Unfortunately, policy makers, journalists, and others often provide an incomplete picture by focusing on only one of these aspects.

For a more thorough explanation, I strongly recommend Daniel Linz et. al's paper "Civil Liberties and Research on Effects of Pornography."

Basically, the authors argue that the role of psychology is to present findings on human behavior, but not necessarily propose actions based on those findings. For example, if a psychology experiment discovers that a particular book causes 1 in 10,000 people to kill themselves, it is not up to the psychologists to determine whether the book should be banned. Do the values of free speech outweigh the potential deaths? That is up to the law and morality to decide.

The authors further argue that the law does not represent blind justice or some objective attempt to weigh the relative psychological effects of legislation. Rather, law is influenced by history and the guiding ideals of the founders of the laws. For example, in America, free speech is of paramount importance. However, in Canada, free speech is equally as important as "equal protection under the law and equal benefit of the law." Thus each country weighs the values of various liberties differently.

But the law does not simply judge the relative effects of laws based on psychological evidence. Rather, the law also takes morality into account. Morality is a societal standard that judges actions based not on their ability to harm or hinder others, but on the belief that actions or speech may be inherently harmful to onself and society.

Fascinatingly, Linz argues that certain types of psychological evidence can support the idea of morality. For example, psychological experiments show that certain types of pornography can lead to certain attitudes towards women and rape, even if these attitudes are NOT acted on. These changes in attitude, but not necessarily behavior, can be seen as a change in morals of the subject and, if one is so inclined, psychological evidence can be used to show changes in morality.

Games That Can't Be Won Or Lost

I Lose, Therefore I Think
In this interesting article, Lee discusses a some examples of games which the user cannot win. The inevitable loss defies the gamer's expectations and forces them to think about the situation. Why is this situation unwinnable? These games force the gamer to shift focus from mindless victory to thought provoking understanding of the game situation.

I feel that Lee's article is a little bit short-sighted. His basic premise is that these unwinnable games use the gamers' expectations as a foil to encourage deep thought. However, as more and more games defy gamers' expectations, the gamers' expectations will change and such a technique will no longer work.

However, even in the absence of the "gamers' expectations" foil, these types of unwinnable games will still be effective. Just think of them as tragedies, in which, no matter what the protagonist does tragic events befall her. The protagonist cannot win, much as the gamer cannot win. The point of the game is no longer to win, but to understand tragedy and desparation.

But an "unwinnable game" does not necessarily have to mean that the gamer must lose in order to be effective. Rather, in an unwinnable game, the gamer need only not obviously win or lose. This is a proper reflection of life, in which we make many tough decisions, none of which are immediately rewarded with a "You Win!" or "You Lose!" screen.

 

Games Don't Have to be Fun, Just Interesting

Want to make a game that's truly innovative and revolutionary? Why not make a game that is NOT fun? What if your gameplay made people cry or made people angry or made people think deeply about the war in Iraq? That would be truly something differernt, wouldn't it?

It is sad that a thought-provoking or emotional game is considered innovative. Sure, there have been thought-provoking or emotional titles in the past, but few have actually used interactivity to trigger these deeper thoughts.

The essential culprit that keeps games, and gameplay specifically, from being a deeper intellectual experience is the ingrained mantra of "Make games fun!" It is a successful formula, but it's overly simplistic and surpresses innovation. Imagine if the literature community imposed such a draconian mantra upon novels: "All novels must be fun!" Certainly, sales to a particular market of readers would become stronger, but at the expense of losing sales to a wider, more diverse market who enjoy thought provoking or serious ideas. Not only would sales drop, but books would also be taken less seriously.

Games are in this very situation -- we're focused on a simple type of fun, which works, but does not necessarily appeal to the larger audience. Next post, I'll talk about how games can be interesting without being "fun."