The PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Community is a Mess
The Ethical Dilemmas of the Gaming Industry
A video game that goes by the name of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) has been growing in popularity fast! Developed and published by the PUBG corporation themselves, the game now boasts around eight million players and is consistently in the top five games on Steam — a gaming software (McKeand, 2017). Unfortunately, as the game grows in popularity the community has become less well mannered.
Games that involve immoral acts such as killing, raping or stealing from people have been debated upon for quite sometime. PUBG, one of the most popular games today can be considered a less harmful game in comparison to its battle royal genre partners such as: GTA, Fortnight, and many others. PUBG is, however, a virtually realistic game that contains both verbal and visual harmful behavior.
From the violent images such as blood splattering across the screen as you kill another player, to the horrible racist and sexist comments that can be heard coming from real individuals during an intense match; gamers have been using the virtual reality of PUBG to express real violence and discrimination.
The game takes place in an online community; each match consisting of 99 players you are expected to find and kill. Your only task is to be the last man or woman standing. Individuals are expected to survive by any means necessary. In a lot of ways, the game is a remake of the movie the Hunger Games. Everyone is for themselves, a mentality present from the lobby — the opening arena in the game. Individuals are then thrown from a plane into different areas of a map, where they are able to loot, kill and ambush whomever or whatever gets in their way.
The game has grown to be so popular for several reasons, one being the “freedom of survival factor, matched with just enough structure that drives matches forward” (Hornshaw, 2018). This idea has to do with the fact that individuals are able to steal, kill and do what it takes for their survival, but still face permanent death (in this case, a loss of all gaming progress) while playing. It’s the high stakes feeling of i don’t want to loose my progress and die or i have to jump right back into a new match, that builds the popularity and addiction to the game. J Weiss of the Boston Globe says “This is what technology has given us: a way to shrink the distance between the part of us that wants to break rules and the good sense that keeps us in line” (Reynolds, 2002).
However, it has been frequently criticized for “the insane amount of racism and profanity that occurs in the loading zone and on the plane” (Sottek, 2017). It is games like PUBG that challenge the freedom of ones speech and behavior. If individuals are unable to control their harmful slurs during the simple act of playing a game, how should we expect freedom of speech as concept to work in the real world. The same idea goes for ones behavior. If killing, looting/ stealing and mocking a person for competitive purposes is what happens in a made up world, it is through games like these that we are able to get a terrifying glimpse of what could happen to the real world without rules and boundaries. Thus, challenging our current ideas regarding the limitations that should be imposed on the designers of these games, regarding the freedom of artistic expression.
With regards to the social harm individuals take part in when playing this game; these gamers are forgetting that the people behind the avatars in a game are real humans and can get offended in person. Subsequently, children playing these games can and will develop terrifying social skills including racial and sexist slurs they might have not been aware of before playing the game. Like it or not the kinds of movies and games we play and watch can shape our ideas about the world. Which brings me to the conclusion that certain responsibilities regarding gaming ethics and morality should undeniably fall upon the game developers.
These ethical responsibility include, but are not limited too:
Game designers should be aware of the choices they are allowing the players of the game to make. The more freedom the players are given, the greater the opportunity will be for immorality to exist (such as killing, stealing, etc…). Additionally, they should revise the reward/punishment system applied within the game (Zagal, 2012).
For example: PUBG follows a point system they refer to as “Battle Points” (Battle Point, n.d.). These points are rewarded to an individual at the end of each match and are given to the individual based on: (1) how long the player lasted, (2) how many people he/ she killed (3) the total amount of damage the player outputs during a match. It is highly the responsibility of the game designer to consider the rewards system before revealing it to a large community of people whose non virtual reality morals may very well be influenced by the rewards system he or she follows within the game. With that having been said, the designers should find a way to deliver their content to audiences who have the mental capacity to be able to differentiate between in-game morality and ethics of the real world (Zagal, 2012). Children should not fall into this category and therefore should be restricted from playing games with such violence before having a particular understanding of ethics and the law.
Many of these ethical responsibilities have been translated into gaming laws that have built restrictions with regards to racism, violence and unethical behavior portrayed in certain video games. In addition, some countries have banned video games for reasons as the ones states above.
In Lebanon, the terms of reference enforced on the audiovisual media is that they must “refrain from broadcasting anything which may encourage society, and particularly children, to physical and psychological violence, moral deviance, terrorism and racial or religious discrimination.” (Saghieh, Saghieh & Geagea, n.d.)
On the other hand, as can be seen in PUBG, it is not simply up to the game designers to design a proper set of rules to keep the gamers in order. In fact, it is up to the gamers to withhold their ethical and moral standards even in these virtual realities. This is has to do with the fact that everyone has their own opinion towards what is or isn’t ethical. Therefore, they are expected to be able to abide by their own code in addition to the existing conduct as presented by the game designers. As for the children who develop ethical or moral ideas through aggressive games as such, it should be up to the parents to regulate what a child is or is not watching.
With the understanding that PUBG is generally played by individuals ranging from ages as young as 13 to 18 years old, the ability to curse and verbally abuse a person online can teach and impact these young children terrible social skills for the real world (such as racist and sexist slurs they may have not been aware of before). Although PUBG claims to not allow children under the age of 18 to use the game without parental consent, “in order to protect privacy interests of younger internet users”, It has never been clearly stated on how much violent and abusive language is used throughout the gaming experience (PUBG, 2018). A parent who may buy this game for their son or daughter would never be aware of the harsh language unless they tested it out for themselves. For that reason, it is extremely important that gaming companies clarify certain saftey percautions not only for morality reasoning, but also for the fact that they are influencing children as young as 13 years old!
From abusive language to potentially harmful images, games like PUBG can have a real negative impact on the individuals playing these games. Although many would make the claim “it’s just a game”, a lot the time people don’t realize gaming, like ideas brought to us by our favorite movies, impact us off screen as well. Due to the fact that most companies refuse to talk about the abuse and harm that takes place within these virtual realities, things will only get worse if they continue this way. Especially with the understanding that children as young as 13 years old are being influenced by the negative morals and social skills they may develop by taking part in these multiplayer platforms. As long as the gaming companies follow a certain code of ethics, freedom of ones speech and actions should be allowed for and still be able to keep a healthy competitive factor with it. However, it is not only up to the companies, but also the individuals in keeping a certain moral behavior when given the freedom to do as they wish.
Resources:
Hornshaw, P. (2018, November 10). The History of Battle Royale: From Mod to Worldwide Phenomenon. Retrieved from https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/history-of-battle-royale-games/
McKeand, K. (2017). The PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds community is a mess, and it’s getting worse. Retrieved from https://www.pcgamesn.com/playerunknowns-battlegrounds/pubg-community
Privacy Policy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://pgi.playbattlegrounds.com/privacy
Reynolds, R. (2002). Playing a “Good” Game: A Philosophical Approach to Understanding the Morality of Games. Retrieved from https://elearn.lau.edu.lb/bbcswebdav/pid-275666-dt-content-rid-829201_1/courses/JSC_419_11_201910/Reynolds_A Philosophical Approach to the Morality of Games.pdf
Sottek, T. (2017, August 04). The first rule of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds says a lot: Stop the racial harassment. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/3/16093190/playerunkown-battlegrounds-harassment
Zagal, J. P. (2012). The Videogame Ethics Reader. Retrieved from https://elearn.lau.edu.lb/bbcswebdav/pid-275664-dt-content-rid-829100_1/courses/JSC_419_11_201910/Ethics of Computer Games _2.pdf
