PLAYING WITH AN OTHER: ETHICS IN THE MAGIC CIRCLE

In his introduction to the 2005 issue of the journal Game Studies, Jesper Juul describes computer game studies as being in “a state of productive chaos”, populated by researchers who have come to the area from a variety of disciplines and who all hold “wildly contradictory assumptions ” (2005b). In the light of Juul’s assertion, it is appropriate to identify two central assumptions which I bring to the following dis-cussion, neither of which is particularly contentious, but which indicate some of the reasons for this undertaking. My first assumption is that games, both digital and analogue, are a particularly unique aesthetic and cultural form with an as-yet untapped potential to “help us under-stand the reality that surrounds us and … what it means to be human” (Frasca 2001, 114). The interactive and simulative capabilities of the game form do, I believe, suggest new ways in which issues of critical and ontological significance might be addressed. In short, I have faith in the potential of so-called ‘serious ’ games. The second assumptio