Ethical Analysis of “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”

I am going to be talking about the game Skyrim which was released on November 11, 2011. It’s main setting is the world Skyrim in northernmost province of Tamriel. It’s narrative is the story of the player’s character, a dragonborn, on the quest to defeat Alduin the World-Eater, a dragon who is prophesied to destroy the world.

The rating for the game is rated 17+ across most of the different rating systems. Skyrim is not censored in any countries as of writing his blog post. 

The game itself did not raise any ethical questions in my opinion but it did allow for it. The game allows for others to create mods which anyone that downloads them to modify the game. The mods are endless, there are some about nudity and murdering children. So these mods raises ethical questions such as, should the developer restrict the freedom these mods allow or get rid of them altogether?

I myself have played the game. It is very good in terms of graphics and storyline. There is robbing and murdering early on but I believe that just adds to the gameplay and creates a more broad gameplay, that many can enjoy. Another perspective is that this game is very violent and the gameplay rewards violences, making the player become accustomed to causing violence.

Against the game, ethically the game creates an environment where killing and robbing is the norm or the way to success in this world. This allows for people to again become accustomed to it without even realizing it maybe. If we were to ethically review the game on a positive side. The game creates an environment for players who have a need to kill or rob but in a more virtual sense to get it out of their system. This would allow people to relieve these kind of things without harming themselves or others, thus it creates a healthy alternative to releasing stress. I am on the perspective that we view this game as a fantasy world and a way for people to live a life they fantasize.

I think overall the ethics of video game development is a very tricky field. You can always argue one side or another of ethics with video games. However, I think overall the video game development and distribution is doing a decent job of creating fun and exciting games as well as making sure they accurately label the ratings.