Monday 15 January, 2018

Prison Architect. (1.5 hours)
Well the first thing I really ought to put down here is that I have never played this game before until today. I had heard really good things about it from friends so after seeing the list I went for it right away.
This is a really great game as far as games go. I had a really fun time playing it, and I loved pretty much everything about it. However, going into this game thinking about what we had gone over in class regarding the nature of morality (Lecture 1: What is Morality?). The question of whether this game is moral or amoral immediately jumps to my mind due to the setting of the game. The United States has the highest prison population in the world right now, and (I just checked wikipedia to verify this although I think I heard it on NPR a while ago) the second highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. There is a fairly well known concept called "Prison-Industrial Complex"(Abbreviated to PIC hereafter) and this game sort of jumped out as a literal PIC simulator. You are literally acting as a the creator and operator of a privately owned prison that profits off having more prisoners! Granted a lot of the game does revolve around the actual architecture and plumbing and electric work etc. but that doesn't change the fact of the matter.
I had to ask myself if this game highlights this issue in a way that raises awareness against PIC within the United States, or if it merely trivializes and normalizes this issue. I had this realization in like the first 10 minutes of playing, and luckily I played more of the game and realized that ultimately my fears may not be entirely justified.
So as I played more I found out that there are multiple ways to run a "profitable" prison. I had initially thought that it would just be get more prisoners and keep them in line and you make more money, and I wasn't wrong, but you can also make money and profit from reforming prisoners, which I really liked that the developers included. I kept playing and my prison kept growing.
By the time I finished playing for the day (Having spent twice as long as intended) I came to realize that the game itself has been made to neither be inherently moral or amoral, but provides the opportunity for the player to find a balance between the two for themselves. Yikes. So now I have to figure out if I want to go for brutal efficiency that I am not sure will work or a more ideal and humane prison that I am also sure will not work. Suffice to say I am excited to see what path I end up taking

Really awesome work here Sterling! It’s great how you didn’t allow your preconceptions of what the game could be (your fear of the game possibly trivializing the PIC) influence how you interpreted the game once you started playing. Keeping an open mind when analyzing anything will always give you the most profound results! Additionally, you have a really great thought brewing in your 2nd entry where you talk about how the developers have you question your own morality, making you decide between what you consider morally “right” versus what gives you the most optimal in game results. Along these lines, consider this moral question: what are the moral implications of making the “right” choice versus the one that gives you the most optimal result? Does the fact that you are making these decisions in a game change the moral implications of these choices? Keep up the great work!

Clay