In this chapter, I outline a possible argument for why virtual enactments within gamespace might require some form of moral appraisal, and therefore why the indignant cry of “It's just a game” is unlikely to deter those who, following this argument, insist that STAs are a legitimate target for moral scrutiny. I begin, however, by considering the amoralist's claim that there is no case to answer: in effect, that there is nothing about the virtual act itself that warrants moral policing. I then move on to the question of what the act represents, rather than what it is per se, and so consider the extent to which representational meaning constitutes something above and beyond the literal manipulations of pixels, thereby making it worthy of moral scrutiny. After that, I construct a framework of conditions and related questions designed to inform my assessment of different moral theories that have been (or can be) applied to video game content in order to establish how one might go about discriminating between those STAs that should be prohibited and those that should not, if indeed such selectivity is itself morally justifiable.

THE AMORALITY OF PIXELS

In 2010, the video game God of War III was said to contain some of the most brutal and intense violence ever depicted in a video game (Dan Chiappini, editor of Game Spot).