Workshop Series „Rethinking Games”
Session 4: Moral Kombat: Video Games & Ethics
Organisation: Österreichisches Kulturforum Warschau
Partner: Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology
PJAIT Game Lab: https://bhanussek.com/pjait_game_lab/

"Questions of good and bad that are raised by such groups often have little to do with better understanding of games and player experiences with them—rather they are tied to calls for censorship or general moral outrage." - Mia Consalvo, Scholar in Games & Education

Killer Games! Violence! Addiction! Media and politics, until recently, have often taken steps to discredit video games by prescribing negative impacts on children and young adults. Whole moral panics were ravaging the globe when games like Mortal Kombat, with their graphic violence, were released. But were these discrediting campaigns grounded in any solid scientific evidence? How do games really impact us? Is there maybe even any good that games can do for us? In our final session on Rethinking Games, we will investigate by means of psychological research which effects video games really have on us. We will take a critical look at the good and the bad aspects of video games and discuss how we as players can handle the impact of video games on us and others! 

Benjamin Hanussek is an educator and researcher in the field of game studies & development. He received his formal education at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria. In early 2022 he became an Austrian Marshall Plan Fellow enabling him to visit Teachers College at Columbia University in New York to conduct a research project on game-based learning. After completing his project, he founded PJAIT Game Lab with the help of New Media Arts Dean Prof. Ewa Satalecka at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw to conduct exploratory research on methods of teaching game development and to support students in their careers as future game developers and designers. Moreover, Benjamin Hanussek works at Lionbridge Games in Warsaw where he reviews video games and their localizations before they are published.


21.06.2023 (Wed.), 18:15
Austriackie Forum Kultury 
ul. Próżna 7/9, Warszawa
Free admission / In English