Integrating poor taste into the ongoing debate on the morality of violent video games

This paper considers the implications of a recent change to the direction of our moral scrutiny of video game content: away from moral assessment based on some form of ‘contamination’ towards a position in which the morality of a video game is determined by the worldview (allegedly) endorsed by the gameplay taken as a whole. It is my contention that, given the nature of video game enactments (i.e., simulations involving make-believe), this switch of focus requires a degree of interpretation characteristic of judgements of poor taste. Because of this, with the exception of rare cases, the force of moral condemnation levelled at putatively immoral gameplays is weakened to the point where, typically, one would find it hard to justify a moral obligation not to permit the gameplay. In defence of this claim, I draw attention to the potential problems facing a moral account based on the interpretation of the worldview contained within a gameplay, even when taken as a whole.