Routledge The Dark Side of Game Play - Controversial Issues in Games

This Routledge academic work examines how contemporary games present players with complex ethical and moral dilemmas across all genres. Games provide unique spaces where players can explore contentious subject positions, values and choices through role-play and experimentation in ways impossible outside the game sphere. The volume investigates how modern games handle problematic topics including war, disasters, human decay, post-apocalyptic scenarios, cruelty and betrayal, whilst allowing players to adopt antagonistic roles and experiment with behaviours that would be offensive, illegal or immoral in reality. Part of the Routledge Advances in Game Studies series, this book offers critical analysis of how playful environments engage with serious moral and ethical questions, making it essential reading for game scholars, developers and students interested in the intersection of gaming, philosophy and ethics.