PixelHub Podcast

In our second episode of the PixelHub Podcast, we discuss the intriguing subject of morality in video games. What types of characters do you enjoy playing when given a choice? Are they typically “good” or “bad”? Or maybe you play both? For Microsoft technical evangelist, Amanda Lange, these are interesting questions to answer for both studying game theory and for the practical side of game design. In fact, Amanda has done her own research into morality in games and player choices and recently released the data at GDC where she gave a lecture entitled: “Beyond Binary Choices: How players Engage with Morality.” In the podcast, we explore some of her findings and discuss what implications her research has for game developers today.

In our first episode, we talked with game dev, Stephen Hauer, an industry veteran who’s currently the Art Director for Camouflaj Game Studio working on the game, Republique. Stephen has been working as an Environment Artist, Technical Artist and Art Lead in some fashion for the last 10 years. Some projects he’s worked on prior to Camouflaj include Halo 4 for 343 Industries and was a founding member of Cascade Game Foundry for two years. Prior to that he worked at the R&D Team for Microsoft developing the Kinect and finally at Aces Game Studio on Flight Simulator X, TrainSim2 and ESP. His work has been published in 3D Artist Magazine and he has contributed to promotional videos for Unity.