Vulnerability and Play: Exploring the Mundane Ways in Which Games Might Harm Players

Vulnerability and Play: Exploring the Mundane Ways in Which Games Might Harm Players

Vulnerability and Play: Exploring the Mundane Ways in Which Games Might Harm Players

Martin Johannes Dechant, Max Valentin Birk, Kathrin Gerling

Abstract

"The games research community strongly focuses on games as a medium that benefits players, and predominantly views negative effects through the lens of permanent vulnerability. In this paper, we argue that this is a narrow perspective which no longer aligns with how policy makers and other fields view the construct, and limits our research community in how we understand the potential harms of play: First, We deconstruct vulnerability and question who is vulnerable in which context, and then we explore the relationship between vulnerability, game design, and mundane types of harm. We conclude with challenges and opportunities for our community."

Reference

Dechant, M. J., Birk, M. V., & Gerling, K. (2023). Vulnerability and play: Exploring the mundane ways in which games might harm players. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3573382.3616048

Keywords

Vulnerability, Harm, Digital Games