2500 words essay on How does global capitalism shape a politics of video games and live-streaming due in 70 hrs

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Chapter 3: Risking Play

Introduction

In chapter 2 I argued that there is a pervasive consumer media culture that is preserved

and continues to operate through the circulation of a distressing regime of images. Some gamers

learn under this regime to internalize dangerous race and gender-based pedagogies as they

display a lack of ability to critically engage and/or disrupt oppressive stereotypes. In light of this

analysis, video games are apparently both meaningful and highly effective at reproducing

hegemonic ideology (see Jenkins, 2006); moreover, the particular meanings and actual effects

seem to indicate that they are also (and already) quite “serious” – an interesting contrast to

Appelman’s definition of ‘Serious Games’ (see Appelman, 2007). I claimed in this regard that

we have a responsibility to confront video games in whatever capacity we can in order to build

better game play experiences together. This chapter explores the experiential spaces of video

games in relation to classroom space with the goal of exposing how game play might be

repurposed for learning on social justice. The chapter ends with a paradigm example from the

video game Mass Effect to illustrate the design potential of video games.

Classroom Spaces

One way to disrupt the social injustices that are perpetuated through consumer media

culture (of which video games ‘play’ primary roles) is to engage a critical pedagogy in

classrooms. Some hope that this can be achieved to a greater or lesser degree in any grade level

and for any target group regardless of socio-economic status. Ontario policy makers, for

example, maintain that race equity concerns may be solved through inclusion practices in

education, that is to say that racial “barriers” and racial “biases” (what others might simply call

racism) can be corrected using “transparency”, “leadership”, and “policy” to ensure equality for

all students (Ontario Government, 2009). Critical race scholars and teachers might staunchly

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disagree claiming instead that issues of race and racism are historical, institutional and systemic

– sometimes a product of the policies designed to ‘treat’ them – thus they require continuous and

unrelenting critical discussions on power relations in the educational process. A far more

beneficial pedagogical pursuit, on this view, would be to establish communities of practice that

promote social justice through ongoing strategic development and dialogue 13

. Regardless of our

approach, the struggle to educate on race and racism among other social injustices has proven

one thing above all else, which is that practicing critical pedagogy is not simply a matter of

building “critical thinkers”, despite arguments which allude to the contrary (P. Norris, 1992, E.

McPeck, 1981); rather, it is about creating space that is dedicated to encountering subjectivities.

Race and racism are deeply entrenched historically and personally similar to other social

signifiers. Addressing them in classrooms, though absolutely necessary, is always dangerous

and unpredictable (Pratt 1991, Levinson 1997, Boler 1999, 2004).

Increasingly in North America, we see classroom spaces being established as forums for

building critical consciousness of race, gender and sexuality with emphasis on how these social

signifiers are maintained through mechanisms of power (Sears et al. 2004). Though these

classrooms were first created for graduate university students, they have expanded to include

undergraduates and secondary school students in what has broadly been termed ‘social studies’

(Sears et al. 2004). Has this trend translated into action and/or change for issues of racism,

sexism or homophobia? Is it enough that more people are discussing systemic oppression and

violence or that they are momentarily questioning the politics of social identity? Some may

answer that the increasing number of classrooms dedicated to engaging issues of social justice is

a positive trend which should be heralded as a victory for ongoing struggles. Others might find

13

see: http://www.freireproject.org/

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that while academic institutions have acquiesced to requests (or demands) for more critical

attentiveness to said issues, this is merely a deliberate response as a part of a larger strategy of

encirclement. In any case, those of us who have been in attendance will undoubtedly remember

that sometimes students (and even instructors) learn to see and think in terms which ultimately

lead to personal and/or group action, but we will also recall that other times – perhaps more often

than we would have liked – students are filled with anger and incomprehension which lead to a

great deal of pain and finally resignation.

The reality is that whenever we are in a classroom, or any space for that matter, where

confrontations across difference are integral to generating critical dialogue we are located in

what Mary Louise Pratt calls a “contact zone” (Pratt, 1991):

Contact zones “refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each

other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism,

slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today (Pratt,

1991, p.34).

The socially fraught tensions inside classrooms in particular reflect similar tensions at many

other cultural crossroads in a given society. Some readers may be reminded here of another

famous concept regarding cultural differences and relations of power, namely Huntington’s

“clash of civilizations” (Huntington, 1996), but we should quickly set aside this first impression.

The ‘contact zone’ is not intended as an essentializing concept designed to reify cultures as

forces interlocked in predestined conflict; rather, it is a notion designed to dispel the centuries

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old myth of community 14

within the academy which operates to conceal hierarchical power

domination, socio-economic disadvantage and historical violence:

The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that

underlie much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture that gets done

in the academy (Pratt, 1991, p.37).

Pratt rightly points out by using the contrasting notion ‘contact zone’ that there is a predominant

liberal democratic ideology holding sway deep within our institutions and notably inside

classrooms which decrees that, despite any conflict that may be taking place elsewhere outside

our schools or even across our borders, persons in classrooms are all equal players with equal

rights and equal voice in discussion. We ought not to be fooled by this logic any longer since it

should be clear that a great many factors exist both to impose and preserve a social and symbolic

order in class (Boler 2004, Li 2004, Houston 2004).

So, how do we guard against anger, pain and resignation in classrooms? How can we

stay committed to our educational goals amidst the siege where ideas and identities are at stake?

Another educational philosopher, Natasha Levinson, argues that this is not an easy task in the

slightest and this is largely due to what she terms the “paradox of natality”. Building on Hannah

Arendt’s scholarship where ‘natality’ “refers to the fact that humans are constantly born into the

world, and are continually in need of introduction to the world and to one another (Levinson,

1997, p.436)”, Levinson argues that students are faced with the troubling double responsibility as

subjects who are “new” on the scene (that is to say young and relatively sheltered from macro

level politics) and as inheritors of a social history which also constitutes who they are:

14

See also: Ellsworth, Elizabeth (2010). “Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Repressive

Myths of Critical Pedagogy”. In Harvard Educational Review. 59.3. pp.297-325

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The resulting social identities position us in relation to one another, to the past and to the

future in particular ways, putting us in the difficult position of being simultaneously heirs

to a specific history and new to it. As a result, we experience ourselves as “belated” even

though we are newcomers (Levinson, 1997, p.437)

The paradox of natality, in short, is an encounter with positionality as subjects in relation to

others and the past; it is a struggle to come to terms with identity and a sense of agency in our

factional world of asymmetrical power relations; finally, it is experienced as a feeling of

belatedness. The paradox in operation can result in a number of outcomes in the classroom, but

perhaps most visible in recent years are outcomes on issues of race and racism. Take for

example this student’s testimony:

Every year we have a bunch of forums to discuss racism and yet we never seem to make

any progress in race relations on this campus. Every time the subject of racism comes up

in class, I have to listen to the same white voice protesting their innocence. I’m sick of it

(Levinson QTD Anzaldua, 1997, p.435).

Indeed, it is easy to understand this student’s frustration. The nature of a classroom is that each

year (or perhaps semester) new students will walk through the door and each time bringing with

them the same feelings of belatedness. This would appear to ensure the continuation of the

paradox of natality as students continue to ask ‘how can I take responsibility for the past before I

was born while also being responsible for my actions in the present?’ It is difficult to see what

pedagogical strategies might help alleviate the tension and begin to answer this difficult question,

but this is the primary challenge which all teachers must meet.

Since classroom discussions on issues of social justice and especially issues of race

remain challenging and even harmful for students (in particular for those who are all too familiar

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with their positionality or for those who are unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge it), teacher

aid resources such as pictures, videos and books continue to provide the foundations for learning

– The Color of Fear directed by Lee Mun Wah stands out, for example 15

. Alternatively, what if

video games were to provide this kind of support? When might video games be an appropriate

medium for learning about race and racism, or for encountering power, or for challenging

essentialist epistemologies? I suggest that video games which appropriately use the feature I call

the “morality system” may yet prove useful in this regard.

Morality Systems

I am cognizant of the fact that some readers may never have seen a video game that

utilizes a “morality system” nor perhaps played one; therefore, I strongly recommend either

browsing an online demonstration 16

, or following the screenshot “playthrough” that is provided

bellow.

A morality system for video games is a user-generated ethical subroutine which

determines how non-player characters will interact with human player characters or avatars. The

system continually takes shape according to gamer inputs which include the personal history,

actions and interactions of a chosen avatar. Although it is the gamer who makes the final input

choice, it is the software designer who offers a myriad of “paths” that combine to constitute the

morality system in which the player plays. For instance, at the start of the role-play game Mass

Effect the player is prompted to input details about his chosen avatar’s history, physical

appearance, name and profession (see screenshots 2-6). As the player brings his avatar to “life”

by adventuring and completing segments of the main narrative, more details are accumulated by

15

I refer to The Color of Fear here to provide one of the most popular and well known examples, however, I do not

necessarily believe that it, nor any of the many other resources created, can serve as a “catch-all” solution. Videos

like this are also often problematic on both a fundamental and practical level. 16

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL1Gnoob8ck

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the morality system, which in turn generates a unique story – one which even the video game

developers cannot fully anticipate. The player makes conversation choices which in turn

establish the avatar’s unique personality, moral integrity, and relationship with known characters

(see screenshot 17-19). In screenshot 17, I decided to instruct my avatar to be firm with the non-

player characters by choosing to put an end to their idle banter. My choice was recorded in

video game memory and I was given 2 “renegade points” towards my personality (see screenshot

20). Although the display interface where the gamer can track his or her avatar’s evolving

character only displays points on a spectrum of “renegade” or “paragon” (see screenshot 21), a

number of hidden consequences for making choices are recorded by the morality system. That is

to say, the non-player characters with whom the gamer engages remember conversation choices

leading to greater or lesser willingness on their behalf to communicate in the future, unlocked

side stories, or even alternative video game endings. These make for diverse simulated social

possibilities of friendship, romance, rivalries and even bitter feuds that all depend on the

dynamics of the morality system, which takes shape according conversation choices. In order to

elaborate further on how this particular game feature provides affordances for education on

issues of social justice, I will outline in more detail the two sub-features that are combined to

make a morality system like that in Mass Effect: character creation and conversations.

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The Playthrough:

Screenshot 1:

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Screenshot 2:

Screenshot 3:

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Screenshot 4:

Screenshot 5:

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Screenshot 6:

Screenshot 7:

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Screenshot 8:

Screenshot 9:

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Screenshot 10:

Screenshot 11:

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Screenshot 12:

Screenshot 13:

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Screenshot 14:

Screenshot 15:

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Screenshot 16:

Screenshot 17:

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Screenshot 18:

Screenshot 19:

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Screenshot 20:

Screenshot 21:

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Character Creation

Character creation has evolved significantly over the past decade, but some core stages

within the process have remained the same for video games that depend on morality systems.

When a gamer first enters a new game she is asked to identify her avatar by providing a name.

Following this there are usually choices for gender, body dimensions and clothing style/colours.

In more recent video games new options for race and historical background have been made

available and in some cases gamers can even choose to play virtually as themselves (see figure1).

Figure 1.

Adapted from:

http://thenewgamer.com/content/archives/mass_effect:_playing_through_ugly

http://tiagocabaco.com/tigerwoods10/pgf.html

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The boundaries between self and avatar have become blurred to the extent that critical

interpretations of gameplay as transformative learning experiences are difficult to compile.

Perhaps our avatars will act virtuously, but will we model our own behaviour likewise?

Conversely, our avatars might carry out the most atrocious acts imaginable. Will we become

copy-cat criminals, mass murders or rapists as a result of media effects (see Chapter 2 “the

regime of images”)? The outcomes of any given gameplay experience, either cognitive or

affective, likely vary just as broadly as do avatars. This makes pronouncements about gender-

exclusivity (Pickard, 2003), gender injustice (Jenson et al, 2008), racialization (Chan, 2003), or

politicization (Dyer-Witheford et al, 2009) problematic and should invoke at the least some

renewed scepticism or critical inquiry in readers (my own chapter 2 of this thesis included). That

being the case, scholars from the multi-faceted postmodern tradition have convincingly argued

that there are sometimes important benefits to adopting an “ambiguous self” or embodying

“fractured identities” as these ways of being rightly reject the fiction of essences and allow for a

more responsible epistemology (Boler 1999, Bryson et al. 1998, Code 1989). Character creation

produces avatars that are much more than anti-aliased high textured pixels on a screen. They are

signs and signifiers and expressions of our invisible cyborg consciousness (Haraway 1991,

Saussure, 1960); moreover, their performances for morality systems often go more than “skin-

deep”.

Like “cyborgs”, our avatars have enabled contestations of meaning, power and pleasure

during times of political and ideological turmoil in the self. Donna Haraway wrote in the 1980s

about her “cyborg”: “So my cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and

dangerous possibilities which progressive people might explore as one part of needed political

work” (Haraway p.154, 1991). It was precisely because Haraway articulated her cyborg as a

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myth that so many readers either abandoned all hope of comprehension or misinterpreted it as a

literal description. Importantly, Haraway’s cyborg is and was constructed as a rhetorical device

for political change though she plays with language in such a way that indicates something both

artificial and natural, a product of human evolution, or the “illegitimate offspring of militarism

and patriarchal capitalism” (Haraway p.152, 1991). The ‘cyborg’ for Haraway is much like the

‘sign’ for Baudriliard; both are stories about post-modern existence and the blending of

epistemology with ontology. I wish to highlight, however, that cyborgs are also essentially (and

ironically) about identity from a time when essence qua essence was rendered virtually

meaningless and “identity” was in crisis. It is telling that Haraway stated “who cyborgs will be

is a radical question; the answers are a matter of survival” (Haraway p.153, 1991). We 17

all

possess cyborg consciousness that is structured by techno-material reality and transformed by

imagination in times of distress. Current day avatars have advanced in design in recent years but

their manifestation in video games recalls the much older need for the cyborg to aid us in

challenging the limits of our existence and find meaning in our troubled worlds.

For example, avatars were introduced in video games to satisfy a need to play with

identity in first world urban centers where affluent but physically limited (in terms of leisure

space) youth were increasingly feeling disenchanted by their urban lifestyles (Jenkins, 1998).

Video game studios and their marketing teams knew the state of affairs well and sought to

channel social unhappiness into digital fulfillment and desire to play. This is evinced by some of

the early advertisements in the 1980s for video games where young people could find virtual

power, pleasure and identity, sometimes through extensions of the “normal”, as in playing the

17

I wish to re-emphasize that my use of ‘we’ refers to the gamer community generally and in this case people from

the vastly privileged and mostly West (Japan is the notable exception).

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role of a paperboy (see figure 2), or in adventures among the supernatural, as in playing as a

fireball throwing super-hero (see figure 3).

(Figure 2) (Figure 3)

It was here that the meaning of play took on an emancipatory role according to some game

scholars – providing “Complete Freedom of Movement”, a “never tiring playmate”, or “magic

circle” to play with (Jenkins 1997, Jenkins QTD Feinstein p.263 1997, Harvey 2006). Whether

gamers were playing their avatars as a means for fulfilment or escape, their ranks quickly grew

as did their age demographic. Today, adults and children alike find solace not only in playing

their avatars, but also in creating them. We should question the socio-cultural and political

lessons that our avatars teach, as I suggest in chapter 2, but we must also decide who our avatars

will become in order live ethically and justly in our worlds both virtual and actual.

Conversations

One key method we use to decide who our avatars will become is the video game

conversation. A conversation normally consists of two or more interlocutors, one of which is an

avatar and the rest are non-player characters. To be clear, all video game conversations which

are relevant to morality systems are between avatars and non-player characters and consist of

optional responses for gamers to choose. Sometimes these are conveyed verbatim in the form of

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a list resembling the earlier “choose your own adventure” style books (see figure 4), or they are

represented in the form of thoughts on a conversation wheel as was illustrated in the example

from Mass Effect (see screenshot 17). It is increasingly possible to engage in conversations with

other gamers during multiplayer online, and these have yielded a wide variety of socially

unexpected phenomena that are deeply unsettling, as in cases of verbal abuse, and intriguing, as

in cases of video game festivals, dating and marriages, but avatar interactions where gamers

communicate online with other gamers much as they would over the phone or in a web chat are

unpredictable and notoriously difficult to trace for analysis (T. Bullen et al. 2007). More

importantly, gamer on gamer interactions are not components of the morality system; i.e., they

have no bearing on the unfolding video game narratives or virtual relationships in the game

world.

(Figure 4)

The morality system logs player conversation choices in video game memory (saved files), and

the outcomes determine the shape and depth of relationships. In figure 4 above (see figure 4), I

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might decide to be kind to young Bryan by breaking the unfortunate news of his father’s death

softly and perhaps offering subsequent words of comfort. Contrarily, I could be terribly cruel

and adopt a more lackadaisical stance by mocking his father’s demise. As it would happen, I

elected to be the former during my ‘playthrough’. This choice proved very useful since the boy

later volunteered important information and helped me/my avatar to obtain key items for the

remainder of my video game mission. All this was possible because the morality system

recorded my conversation choice and awarded me points in the boy’s favour. I find that my

conversation choices often lead my avatars to forge strong alliances among a diverse population

of non-player characters, since I most often prefer to be a paragon rather than a renegade;

however, it is sometimes possible to achieve success through co-operation and consolidation or

treachery and deceit, and I have explored the less noble options on occasion. In fact, some more

successful video game titles are so engrossing that gamers decide to play a second or third time

simply to experience the consequences of different exchanges. My avatar Syra from the Mass

Effect ‘playthrough’, for example, found negative social consequences because of my

conversation choice to shut down the crew chatter (see screenshot 17); however, the video game

designers for Mass Effect provided two alternatives which I felt compelled to explore on a

second and third ‘playthrough’, both of which led to scripts where I could build friendships

where none had previously been available. Regardless of the conversation outcomes, we may

reload and reshape our avatars differently through dialogue.

Video Game Spaces

The morality system is certainly distinct from literary and audio visual devices used in

more traditional mediums. Classroom discussions along with other live and unscripted

exchanges stand in sharp contrast to video game conversations. Although gamers may have a

variety of conversation choices to choose from for their avatars, and these may even align

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seamlessly with their thoughts as human beings behind game controllers, game dialogue is

always scripted. I can never make my avatar sing with excitement when I find a virtual item of

great value nor weep in sadness at the loss of a virtual friend, unless these responses are

provided for me by the game designer. Actualities within the classroom are quite different.

No amount of lesson planning will ever decide the outcome of a discussion on any topic,

especially not on issues of race, gender, class or sexuality. Overlooking the somewhat

opportunistic play on words, I would suggest that “game over” is a far greater risk in a classroom

than it is in a video game during instances of conversations. Unlike video games, we will

definitely find that classroom discussions cannot be so easily reset.

Mine is not the first work to suggest that classroom spaces differ from video game

spaces, nor is it the first to point out that classroom discussion can lead to critical failure whereas

video games may not. James Paul Gee characterized some video game spaces as “affinity

spaces” in order to comment on classroom shortcomings for new generations who find

themselves deeply affiliated with social media:

If we compare the eleven features of an affinity group to most classrooms today, we

usually find that the classroom either does not have a given feature or has it much more

weakly than a prototypical affinity space. In classrooms, the common endeavour (that

which they are supposed to have affinity with) is often unclear (e.g., “science”, “doing

school”, “school-science”, etc) to the students, and race, class gender and disability are

often much more foregrounded than they are in an affinity space. Furthermore, race,

class, gender and disability are often much less flexible in classrooms and serve much

less as resources students can use strategically for their own purposes (Gee p.27, 2009B).

It is not primarily important to provide an interpretation of all eleven features which Gee

conceived as definitive of “affinity spaces”. Suffice it to say that an affinity space is first and

foremost a space where those who interact within it are committed to certain practices and goals,

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or where a number of people can “affiliate around their common cause”, as Gee explicated (Gee

p.26, 2009B). Affinity spaces are thus fundamentally and, perhaps, totally about feelings of

belonging that are generated through a positive sense of agency and epistemological self-

importance. In a video game, our goals and how we are equipped to achieve them are clear;

moreover, other gamers feel the same way – we have a “common endeavour”. Simply put, in

video games I feel that my knowledge is valuable and my actions are useful towards

accomplishing what I perceive to be clear and worthy objectives, and I can share those feelings

with other gamers. Classroom spaces, Gee argues, may be organized in similar ways; however,

they are usually not, partly due to no common endeavour and individual difference as shaped by

race, class, gender or disability (Gee p.27 2009B). We may choose to argue Gee’s point further

by asserting that it is never “simply” a lack of interest or “simply” a problem of social

categorization which bar classrooms from qualifying as affinity spaces; rather, it is a complex

problem of asymmetrical power, racism, classism, sexism and/or ableism – points of clarification

which we might excuse Gee for overlooking due to lack of ‘space’ in his paper. We should not,

on the other hand, fail to notice that Gee did not acknowledge that video game spaces as well can

be inflexible for some players, notably for girls and women (see Chapter 2). Ultimately I am in

favour of Gee’s comparison. As I myself and many other gamers will attest, video games can do

a much better job at making some of us ‘feel at home’ than classrooms. Some of us continue to

learn much more from our virtual lives than we do in school, though the positive value of these

lessons is not always clear (see Chapter 2). Gee’s work on video games as affinity spaces does

succeed in drawing attention to video game spaces as different from classrooms and conducive to

a kind of learning (see Chapter 1).

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In contrast to Gee, I argue that some video games offer more than an affinity spaces

where gamers can build personally relevant knowledge. Some video games certainly make us

feel good about our virtual agency, but we are also afforded the chance to feel responsible when

playing under morality systems. These games show us the way things could be, the way things

should be, or optimistically the way things will be, but most crucial is that they allow us to

experiment with taking virtual moral action. In this regard, they are somewhat akin to ‘contact

zones’ since they allow us to inhabit ambiguous selves through our avatars in order to negotiate

relations of power. Importantly, playing is not going to make us forget who we are or where we

came from; however, it will offer affordances by freeing us from our limitations and opening us

to dialogue that we might not otherwise have. We play because we feel affinity for our video

games but also responsibility for our video game actions. This is, of course, a limited double

responsibility since video game developers control the possible outcomes for our choosing, but

this limitation may prove to be a hidden strength for social transformation outside the game

world if we seize the pedagogical opportunity and become game designers for social change.

Considering this, I would encourage future investigations on video games to conceptualise video

game space as “ethical space”, where ‘ethical’ refers to the morality system and its sub-features

character creation and conversations. The video game Mass Effect 2 will serve as a paradigmatic

example of an ethical space in the following.

Ethical Spaces

Meet Tali (see figure 6):

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(Figure 6)

In the video game Mass Effect 2 she is a non-player character and one of many members on my

squad which I command in an effort to save the galaxy from impending doom by the Reapers –

an ancient race of ultra-powerful space creatures. Setting aside the grandiose plot for the

moment, I met Tali while she was on her pilgrimage to prove her worth to her family and her

people. Tali is from an alien race known as the Quarians. The Quarians are a people who were

cast out from their home planet and forced to live aboard a “migrant fleet” of space ships drifting

between planetary systems. Once their young reach the age of maturity, it is their custom to

leave their mobile spaceship homes to explore or serve in one of the many alien societies amidst

distant stars. The attentive gamer will recognize Tali as an allegory of migrant workers and

immigrants who try to build a life for themselves outside of the video game world. Indeed, Tali

speaks with a distinct Middle Eastern accent and she wears a full body suit which resembles the

head scarf hijab, niqab or burka signifying a link to the growing Muslim migrant and immigrant

work force in Western countries.

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Tali’s story was not a creative design accident. Mass Effect 2 game designers included

several alien side narratives integrated specifically to test the player’s moral character, in line

with their concept of morality, on social issues resembling those which exist in the “real”

world. Although the Quarians are offered employment on several planets within the human

alliance, they never receive full citizenship and are often subjected to harsh prejudice,

discrimination and bigotry by the local population. They live on borrowed time awaiting their

turn to be evicted, cast out or worse – incarcerated; furthermore, what little community they have

exists outside the rule law and all the rights and privileges assured therein 18

. Evidence of the

moral test which gamers take in light of all this comes to the fore through video game

conversations. Take the following conversation between my avatar named Sheppard and a crew

member named Kelly for example (*In the brackets are the conversation choices which I selected

to respond to Kelly’s comments):

Kelly: I had a wonderful chat with your friend Tali. She's not what I expected from her psych

report. I like her.

Sheppard: (I do to.) Tali's a good friend. We've been through a lot together.

Kelly: Quarians are so fascinating to me. They also make me a little sad.

Sheppard: (How so?) Why do they make you sad?

Kelly: Their environment suits are so beautiful, but with their immune systems they're trapped

inside. I wonder what they look like under those helmets or what their skin feels like under those

suits.

By the time I initiated this speech event with Kelly, I was already several hours into the game’s

master narrative and I already considered Tali to be a friend, therefore I was inclined to expose

18

We should notice here strong parallels to the “state of exception” which Sherene Razack documents for Muslims

living in the West (see: Razack, S. (2008). Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims From Western Law & Politics.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press)

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my feelings and speak well of her. I could have, for example, chosen one of the two other

conversation choices that were available, namely ‘she’s not my friend’ or ‘she’s okay’, but these

would have led to a very different conversation that I wanted to avoid. In fact, I knew that

Quarians had suffered a great deal doing the bidding of other races and that Kelly along with

some other non-player characters on my crew felt uneasy with, threatened by and even hateful

toward Tali’s presence. I made my ethical choice because I thought that Tali deserved my

support.

Concluding Thoughts

I do not offer this example as an ideal conversation that will somehow always translate

into moral action in favour of helping Tali in game and later Muslims outside it for other

circumstances. The dialogue itself only begins to grapple with a reoccurring preoccupation that

many people in Western societies and in particular as of late French societies have had, namely

the disapproval of and discomfort around Muslim women who wear the veil. Indeed, Kelly’s

comment that Tali seems trapped within her environmental suit carries with it a familiar tone

carried over from criticisms of burkas, niqabs and hijabs as being “ambulatory prisons”

(O’Mahony, 2011). Sherene Razack, author of Casting Out: the eviction of muslims from

western law and politics, rightly asks what this image of Muslim woman as confined achieves, or

more accurately, what does it serve to reinforce and to justify (Razack p.107, 2008)? These

questions and more can be worked into conversation choices like those between Sheppard and

Kelly for a deeper ethical choice if we adopt a video game design for social change approach and

begin by building more video games as ethical spaces. Though we might find that the Mass

Effect 2 example is incomplete, that gamers will not always make the same choices, or that the

experience will not encourage gamers to question the similar plight of Muslims in Western

society, we can come to understand video games as ethical spaces where gamers can find a

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“controlled contact zone” as well as opportunities to build affinity unlike the classroom. Finally,

we can come to understand video games as ethical spaces that are useful for designing new

learning experiences. Given the power of the regime of images as described in Chapter 2, we

may find that we have no choice but to intervene. Risking play might not be an option, rather a

necessity for social change.