Today's Gaming industry as evolved well into a vast field : Indie developers, commercial organisations, hobbyists and more.

It's come a long way from being a way to while the time away into a whole entertainment experience.

As this evolution keeps progressing more and ore people begin to play and develop games. It's naturally proven that games can influence the mindset of a gamer, many may say gaming makes people violent or narcissistic but in truth a game is a means to influence people into a state of mind to relate to a character they control. The responsibility of moulding society partially falls on developers as well.

A game that is developed (be it of any genre) allows the gamer to experience the character's emotions (be it a game character or an unseen force like in strategy or puzzles).It is important while we develop to utilise this powerful tool to improve people's lives. I do not mean to say that violent games are evil, rather games need to inspire people to believe in something. A warrior fights for a cause that he sees as just (Freedom/Country/Money).It's games that entice your mind into a gambling loop that are not helpful to people.

So when you begin conceptualising a game, please consider the effect you can make on the player and take maximum advantage of it to make a better society.

Games are a means to have fun lets not make it a routine but rather an experience.

Veejaye, you weren't really commenting on gamedev.net's site (that's the purpose of the GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and Ideas board) so I'm moving this to the Lounge.

As you have said, video games is vast expanding field, it also attracts people of different motives of why they make video games. There are people who want to make video games to educate other people about certain things like history. There are others who make them just so they can cash in a boat load of money. Game industry is mostly the latter, because after all, it's an industry. Who cares about morality. Who cares about a better society. What sells is what gets made. Maybe they can squeeze in some morality or history lessons here and there, but ultimate goal is money and profit. People have to make money, they have to eat, so do developers.

Here's a small example:

Suppose you are making an MMORPG (gasp!). You sit with your colleagues to discuss about character progression in your game. Should you make characters develop slowly, should you make them develop faster? Maybe faster in the beginning to hook them up (Skinner's box), maybe slower later to reward those with persistence. Is it morally wrong to use Skinner's box principle to your gamers? Or maybe you should just make it a linear progression because you want to them to continue playing as it brings more player and buzz around your game.

Then you notice people are willing to pay some bit of money to advance their character more, like in-game purchases. First you add a seemingly innocuous item like an exclusive armor item for $0.99. Then holy shit people are actually paying for that piece of crap. What are you going to do? Getting excited since now your game is 'working'? OR getting sad because you just practically destroyed the society's moral with your pay-to-win scheme?

Or let's not go that far as pay-to-win. Some people actually pay to have their in-game character customized to their liking. This does not even benefit their character one bit, just have it look different than the rest. This is not pay-to-win anymore, this is pay-to-be-me.

In order to make people play your game, you have to induce some amount of addiction. The more people play your game, the longer they play, the more 'successful' is your game, and that's what you want, is it not? After all you are contributing to the society by making something that people enjoy doing. I am not buying the whole "making a game for a better society" bit. You always have to induce some amount of Skinner's box or whatever psychological trickeries in your design. Is it morally wrong to do so? *shrugs*

If you want to contribute to a better society, spend some time in charity work.

Thats great, now you can tell the same thing to Activision who ripped COD franchise from Infinity Ward and forced them to work like monkeys. It is not flowers and Dora the explorer roaming around the map in COD while throwing flowers at the mob, its the actual envision of how war is and how it can be (not exactly making things better for society.) I have to be brutally honest with you. The reason everyone including those game developers who claim they hate talking about how much they are earning from it are in it for the money. Even the free games somehow manage to get some sort of funding to help get things started and the development teams do significantly well, and no if many people are doing it, it is not wrong to induce nor get paid for your work.

Contributing games to the society would be like giving a game for free with no strings attached, and even than you are earning (in some other matters.)

You can, however, do something that gives user control over how he can make the game by working on a some sandbox style which could be a big hook. That way you can also see what user exactly wants out of the game, would the user go out hunting monsters, build his home, or farm, etc.

As you have said, video games is vast expanding field, it also attracts people of different motives of why they make video games. There are people who want to make video games to educate other people about certain things like history. There are others who make them just so they can cash in a boat load of money. Game industry is mostly the latter, because after all, it's an industry. Who cares about morality. Who cares about a better society. What sells is what gets made. Maybe they can squeeze in some morality or history lessons here and there, but ultimate goal is money and profit. People have to make money, they have to eat, so do developers.

Here's a small example:

Suppose you are making an MMORPG (gasp!). You sit with your colleagues to discuss about character progression in your game. Should you make characters develop slowly, should you make them develop faster? Maybe faster in the beginning to hook them up (Skinner's box), maybe slower later to reward those with persistence. Is it morally wrong to use Skinner's box principle to your gamers? Or maybe you should just make it a linear progression because you want to them to continue playing as it brings more player and buzz around your game.

Then you notice people are willing to pay some bit of money to advance their character more, like in-game purchases. First you add a seemingly innocuous item like an exclusive armor item for $0.99. Then holy shit people are actually paying for that piece of crap. What are you going to do? Getting excited since now your game is 'working'? OR getting sad because you just practically destroyed the society's moral with your pay-to-win scheme?

Or let's not go that far as pay-to-win. Some people actually pay to have their in-game character customized to their liking. This does not even benefit their character one bit, just have it look different than the rest. This is not pay-to-win anymore, this is pay-to-be-me.

In order to make people play your game, you have to induce some amount of addiction. The more people play your game, the longer they play, the more 'successful' is your game, and that's what you want, is it not? After all you are contributing to the society by making something that people enjoy doing. I am not buying the whole "making a game for a better society" bit. You always have to induce some amount of Skinner's box or whatever psychological trickeries in your design. Is it morally wrong to do so? *shrugs*

If you want to contribute to a better society, spend some time in charity work.

Thank you alnite for your opinion, Perhaps it is necessary to immerse a player yes, but what I meant to stress on is the gambling factor even an MMO has certain things like progression and fun. A game should stress on the player to immerse themself in the world and in turn gain some insight on the real world around them. A game has to reward players for investment of effort (or money perhaps) but making payment a central focus of the game is a ethically wrong (I'm looking at you freemiums). If a player has invested their money in purchasing your game let them enjoy it instead of seeing more purchases,perhaps with a few shiny bells and baubles as optional purchases and the occasional Expansion (I loved the classic expansion pack style but DLCs are still great).

Thats great, now you can tell the same thing to Activision who ripped COD franchise from Infinity Ward and forced them to work like monkeys. It is not flowers and Dora the explorer roaming around the map in COD while throwing flowers at the mob, its the actual envision of how war is and how it can be (not exactly making things better for society.) I have to be brutally honest with you. The reason everyone including those game developers who claim they hate talking about how much they are earning from it are in it for the money. Even the free games somehow manage to get some sort of funding to help get things started and the development teams do significantly well, and no if many people are doing it, it is not wrong to induce nor get paid for your work.

Contributing games to the society would be like giving a game for free with no strings attached, and even than you are earning (in some other matters.)

You can, however, do something that gives user control over how he can make the game by working on a some sandbox style which could be a big hook. That way you can also see what user exactly wants out of the game, would the user go out hunting monsters, build his home, or farm, etc.

Thank you Nitewalkr for your opinion, I absolutely agree with the need for a game developer to earn (Heck, how will I eat?) but the Payment needs to be just a gateway or an optional choice. A game where making money off you is the sole point without making an effort to actually make the game useful to the player is unethical. If the game were immersive and tickled your braincells, or involved you in some sort of narrative or simply let you have fun It would definetly be better than forcing a player to buy content for which they already paid for or they dont want.

I'm not against developers earning but at least lets put some flair into our games so that games will earn the respect and income it deserves (for all the effort we put).