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Unethical Programming?
The recent story about FaceBook's Farmville having more traffic than Twitter got me thinking: is there such a thing as unethical programming?
I know many of you will say that Farmville is harmless because it takes people away from boredom and provides them with entertainment. And, after all, they choose to do it.
But there is an undeniably addictive nature to these games. Each game not only competes with other games that a person might play when bored, but it also competes with stuff a person should be doing.
So -- where's the line? Would you write a game that "entertained" doctors in surgery? (Put another way, if you were designing medical software, would you add game-like hooks to keep people's attention focused on it as a way of competing with other medical devices?)
Would you write a program that people would rather play than have lunch? A game that millions of people spend 40-hours-a-week on, like Wow? FaceBook's games are using players to perform hours and hours of menial, mindless tasks as they market and sell to them and other FB users. At what point do you cross the line between simply entertaining people and harmfully manipulating them and using them?
Sounds like a similar situation to casinos. How do casinos manage the fact that people can become addicted and drawn in? Perhaps a similar situation of self-regulation is needed all across the gaming communities? As games become more immersive and interconnected, the opportunity to use them as an escape becomes greater and greater.
How is sitting on Farmville all night buying cows any different than sitting at the Blackjack table all night dropping $5 on hands, except that with Farmville you are guaranteed to never make a return on your investment?
Games like Second Life actually had currency systems where in-game money had a real-world currency equivalent. Entrepreneurs of the game sprung up and made real-world money on these virtual economies. Was it productive in the greater human sense? Not particularly. But who are we to judge the value of productivity? Does everyone of the species have to work towards the advancement of the species?
Would you rather be involved in a business that created products that made people sick? (e.g. tobacco, alcohol) At least these people playing Farmville are only losing sleep and time, not their lungs, liver, or house (in the case of the casino, and potential gambling debts). So yeah, I just wish I had the skills and chutzpah to come up with something like WoW or Farmville.