Ethics, Gaming and Altruism

In your reading for today, Noah Barron discussed the ethics of online communities seen through his eyes with the help of a USC researcher. The USC researcher seems rather pessimistic regarding online games such as WOW as teaching tools when he states, "Games can't necessarily work as teaching tools, but they can teach ethics and civic engagement," We'll see that he is wrong on his first point tomorrow. While he downplays games as educational resources he does state they are useful for teaching "ethics and civic engagement".

I would definitely agree with the second part of the researchers findings regarding ethics and disagree with the first. My response comes from ten years of experience as an educator, and a lifetime of gaming. While not terribly well written, the article highlights the issue of creating ethical communities in a virtual world where we must leave out bodies behind. This creates the opportunity for some interesting comparisons. Consider the game developers and in game monitors (GMs)as a policing agency capable of enforcing egregious transgressions. Then consider how people behave in light of the knowledge that actions have consequences.

Later in the article, the author of the article, not the researcher, contradicts the research findings by stating "In the end though, none of these attributes amount to altruism or actual ethics, which are the ingredients to real social world-building."
What is real social world building though? What constitutes ethical behavior? I'm not sure the author was wise to contradict the research on this one. Take a look at this brief definition of Ethics from Santa Clara University and compare it to the guild web page i had you review for homework. If you read closely you will see a lot of similarities pop up.

Blizzard Entertainment, the parent company of WOW, does have rules and regulations regarding behavior which can be punishable by banishment from the game but many of these rules and regulations go far beyond that.

In addition, online worlds are actually full of people who regularly commit acts of random kindness. As a player of WOW I've received help from players of the opposing faction when i was overwhelmed with enemies, I've had people give me money and items they no longer needed or didn't want, and often higher level folks will donate time to run lower level folks through tough dungeons. The perpetrators of these acts have no remuneration other than the satisfaction of knowing they have done the right thing. How often during the day do strangers give you money or help you out when you are down? I know the argument is that these things are not "real", but the time invested in acquiring them is, and so is the time they invest is helping strangers. To me, that is ethical and altruistic because time is how we measure the span of our lives on Earth. Minutes and hours of our lives are more precious than dollars because we can't ever make more.

For Wed: This article on Games as learning tools

Also look at this site which a is a resource for teachers. Take a moment and look at some of the lesson plans. Many of them are quite impressive.