An ethical commitment for Mixed Reality Games.

Abstract

Mixed Reality Games change the way that people experience and share space, they thus raise new ethical challenges for designers, especially at cultural heritage sites that are particularly sensitive shared places. In this paper we re!ect on a major study of ethical practice in mixed reality games recently published in ACM Games: Research and Practice, and explore how its "ndings might be translated into guidance for developing mixed reality games within our LoGaCulture project. The result is a four part commitment: to critically engage with ethical aspects of our case studies, to draw on known ethical strategies, to actively look for ethical issues, and to create space for artistic freedom where possible. We have then set out what this initially looks like at two of our case study locations: Avebury and Madeira. Our approach shows that rather than a prescriptive set of strategies that would create a false sense of assurance it is possible to set out a re!ective and critical approach that represents a more genuine engagement with mixed reality ethical issues.