Volume 2, Issue 2: June 2024

As video games have moved to the mainstream of entertainment and popular culture, they also have given rise to new media fears.

Celia Hodent, Francine Blumberg, Sebastian Deterding

To explore ‘what good looks like’ for children’s play in a digital world,the Digital Futures Commission consulted children, companies, policy makers, regulators and academics.

Angela Colvert, Kruakae Pothong, Sonia Livingstone

We argue that games can become agents for promoting education, reconciliation, and healing.

Stefania Stamou, Kostas Apostolakis, Stavroula Ntoa, George Margetis, Constantine Stephanidis

This short viewpoint piece poses the question, ‘what are the ethical implications of designing video games that address the societal causes of mental illness rather than an individual’s symptoms?’

Emma Reay

we conducted focus groups with professionals across the game industry to facilitate discussions about the solutions and barriers they see in addressing the challenges associated with hate harassment and extremist ideologies in gaming spaces.

Elizabeth Kilmer, Zeynep Aslan, Rachel Kowert

As a part of the broader investigation into the social dynamics within game cheating communities, this study sheds light on the risks faced by users that surpass the conventional boundaries of gaming environments.

Selina Cho, Jonathan Lusthaus, Ivan Flechais

This article applies the framework of Friedman and Resnick, “The Social Cost of Cheap Pseudonyms”, to address the reputational and repetition cost of online pseudonyms in the niche environment of video game toxicity.

Sarah Chen

We leverage small language models to reliably detect toxicity, achieving an average precision of 0.95. Analyzing eight months of chat data from two Ubisoft games, we uncover patterns and trends in toxic behavior.

Zachary Yang, Nicolas Grenen-Godbout, Raihaneh Rabbany

What is nowadays taught to the game creators of tomorrow in terms of ethics? The current study addresses this question by focusing on 11 higher education and continuous vocational training programs for aspiring game developers taught in Belgium.

Maarten Denoo, Bruno Dupont, Bieke Zaman

Game design has an impact on health and well-being. Due to their evolving capacities, young people and children are especially sensitive to the negative and positive impacts of media design choices.

Max Birk, Simone Van Der Hof, Antonius Van Rooij

Incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into the development, operation, and servicing of video games adds new issues to an already-complex landscape of ethical concerns.

Cansu Canca, Laura Haaber Ilhle, Annika Marie Schoene

Player-centric principles as guidelines for ethical microtransactions.

Elena Gordon-Petrovskaya

How can we institute good ethical practice in the games industry, safeguarding the welfare of players and employees alike?

Francine Blumberg