Experts project that by the end of 2025, gaming will be a $250 billion industry annually, with growth above $500 billion by the end of the decade. With such magnitude comes the responsibility for developers to pay closer attention to ethical concerns. Diversity, healthy gameplay patterns, player well-being, and responsible innovation are just a few of the factors for creators to consider. Fostering healthy interactions, avoiding exploitative monetization, and protecting the youngest gamers from harmful content or dangerous individuals are all critical. Responsible gaming will create a space where players and the industry can continue to thrive.
The Evolution Of Gaming
Once thought—perhaps unfairly—to be the exclusive domain of young men and adolescents, gaming has exploded in popularity across various demographics and age groups. In 2022, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reported that 48 percent of gamers worldwide are women, while the average age of game players is 33 years old. Meanwhile, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) offer a new world of immersive experiences to gamers, young, old, and in between. Pokemon Go, an AR game for smartphones, became a worldwide sensation in 2016 and has been downloaded more than one billion times since it launched.
Manufacturers are altering their business models as well. Whereas gamers once went to the store and bought a single game to play on a specific system, cloud gaming platforms and subscription services allow users to access their games across numerous devices. Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming are just a few platforms that helped the cloud gaming industry exceed $1 billion in 2022 and are projected to reach $6.5 billion by the end of this decade.
Core Ethical Principles Of Gaming
With the gaming industry growing exponentially, diversity and influence, as well as ethical principles of responsible game design and development shape the entertainment landscape. These are factors that go far beyond specific gameplay mechanics to ensure manufacturers create and maintain games that respect players and their broader environments. These principles include:
- Transparency. It’s essential to provide transparent information about game mechanics, monetization strategies, and data usage and avoid misleading players about game features or content. Ubisoft, makers of Assassin’s Creed and other prominent games, aims to address this by publishing accessibility articles at least a month ahead of a game’s launch.
- Inclusivity/diversity. Ensuring diversity in characters, stories, and settings that reflect a wide range of demographics is critical. Design games to be accessible to players with disabilities. The Last of Us Part II received extensive praise in 2020 for its groundbreaking inclusivity of LGBTQ+ storylines.
- Fairness. Avoid exploitative practices in monetization, specifically “pay-to-win” mechanics where a player’s chances of success are directly connected to the money spent on in-game purchases.
Upon its release, Fortnite received criticism for its monetization practices, but it has since made strides in the implementation of parental controls and clarity on in-game purchases. Safety, social and environmental responsibility, and community engagement are additional ethical considerations for game makers when responsibly interacting with consumers.
Player Well-Being
The holistic health and happiness of players encompasses physical, mental, social, and emotional aspects of life. In the digital gaming context, it requires ensuring that gaming experiences do not adversely affect any of these elements.
Mental health
In 2019, the World Health Organization recognized gaming disorder as a mental health condition while highlighting the need to balance gameplay with other activities. In 2022, an Oxford study reinforced that highlight with a study noting the differencedifference between those who play “because they want to” and those who play “because they feel they have to.”
Physical health
The proliferation of video game play is often cited as a factor in deteriorating physical conditioning among youths, but games like Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure encourage physical fitness with running, squatting, stretching, and other movements involved to advance through the game.
Social health
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft allow players to collaborate and build meaningful connections, leading to a sense of belonging and a positive contribution to social health.
Emotional health
In the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched and received credit for allowing players a virtual way to interact with friends and loved ones while encouraging relaxing activities such as fishing and gardening via their virtual islands.
The prioritization of player well-being promotes healthy habits across all areas of an individual’s health, encouraging positive emotional and social experiences while reducing stress, supporting mental health, and taking steps to avoid gaming addiction.
Addressing Microtransactions and Loot Boxes
The other element of ethical game design is monetization. Many games offer numerous opportunities for additional purchases (known as microtransactions) that allow players to buy virtual goods or enhancements to help them advance through the game. For example, players can earn or purchase loot boxes at various points throughout gameplay. These boxes contain outfits, weapons, or other accessories as a surprise reward for players.
Unfortunately, these transactions can add up, leading to problematic spending habits, particularly for young players. Loot boxes generate about $15 billion per year for gaming companies, but the problem was clarified when a Harvard study found that up to 70 percent of those revenues come from just 1 to 2 percent of total players. Those gamers are known as “whales” in industry parlance.
Experts compare the whales’ tendency to open one loot box after another to a gambler at a slot machine. Receiving a particularly valuable or rare item via a loot box triggers the same rush as a jackpot victory in the casino. The Harvard study found that for the whales, advancing or prevailing in the video game made up only a small portion of their motivation for purchasing loot boxes. For a much larger segment of players, succeeding in the game was the predominant motivation for their occasional purchases.
Considering the implications of these behaviors for each group makes regulation particularly challenging. Do game developers remove or mitigate the purchase of loot boxes, protecting the whales from themselves at the expense of other players? In Belgium, the answer is yes, as that country has banned the purchase of loot boxes. The Netherlands followed suit with a partial ban, identifying the purchases as games of chance akin to gambling. China requires game creators to disclose to players the odds they face of finding specific items within a loot box before the player makes a purchase.
The Harvard study authors Tomomichi Amano and Andrey Simonov ran simulations based on a complete ban on loot boxes. They found a near-25 percent loss of enjoyment for the average player, coupled with a plummet in gaming company revenue. Spending caps set at $500 per player preserved most of the satisfaction for whales while allowing the manufacturer to retain 85 percent of revenue.
The gaming industry is thriving like never before, with more features, greater diversity of opportunities, and far-reaching social interaction for gamers. To continue the industry’s momentum, considering ethical factors becomes paramount as demographics change and include a more socially aware, conscientious generation. In the future, the most successful gaming entities will incorporate these considerations and foster a safe, inclusive, non-exploitative environment for players.
About the Author:
Rohit Kumar is a development manager at Riot Games. He has more than 13 years of experience in business process refinement, program and portfolio management, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), product strategy, data analytics, and visualization. Rohit has a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in information technology from Pune University, India. Connect with Rohit on LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: The author is completely responsible for the content of this article. The opinions expressed are their own and do not represent IEEE’s position nor that of the Computer Society nor its Leadership.
