Friday 9 November, 2018

I decided to play through the game once more and I find it alarming how easily the funeral industry takes advantage of the customers. I personally did not know about the process of death and have had little interaction with the deceased of those in my family, however the game has a clear picture between the small business your character begins that focus on being accommodating, show sympathy, an death being a normal human experience. The big corporation that takes over though is all about fees, money, selling as much as you can to the customer, and not focus on showing compassion towards the customers nor taking into consideration culture perspectives in respecting the dead. The companies utilize the fear, misinformed, and grief to exploit those for money and the game wants players to know that this is ethically wrong to do. The game's ending is your character opening up their own funeral shop because they disagreed with the mindset and attitude of the bigger corporations.

There is a lot of great analysis here, such as your analysis about death being mystifying even to those around it as well as how the corporation that takes over the mortuary tries to exploit the customer base for money. Additionally, you have the starting of a great ethical statement in the 2nd gamelog where you write “The most important ethical message I have interpreted in the game is that death is meant to be respectful, supportive, and sympathize with those who are going through it. It is unethical to exploit those in vulnerability of loss and despair for profit.” A rewording of this could be a great potential thesis statement. Additionally, consider looking at this statement in regards to the game itself being ethical for making this commentary and teaching the player.