Christopher Bartel is a Professor of Philosophy at Appalachian State University whose research interests include aesthetics and ethics.  He is the author of Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy: Killing Time, which addresses the question: is it ever morally wrong to enjoy fantasizing about immoral things? He's working on an upcoming book, Aesthetics and Video Games.  Chris and I had a long-ranging conversation about player and designer ethics in video games, the purpose of art and what moral considerations there are for open-world games. 

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Substack: https://gameoflifepod.substack.com/

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"Game of Life Podcast" is produced by Sophia Deng; visuals by Alonzo Felix; music is from Anchor.  

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Timestamps

(0:52) Chris's background

(06:49) Violence in video games 

(20:36) Ethical considerations for video game designers 

(25:10) Why we find video games aesthetically engaging

(27:52) Quick fire round:  Metaverse, open-world games, avatars

(31:19) Takeaways from Chris's class, Philosophy and Video Games

(35:03) 2 final questions

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Chris's recommendations

Games: Agency as Art by C. Thi Nguyen

Half-Real by Jesper Juul

The Art of Failure by Jesper Juul