Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-26
Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Emmanuel Petit, Professor of Economics, University of Bordeaux
Since the first violent games of the 1970s, the debate about the impact of video games has been divisive: do they corrupt or educate? Our research shows that the key lies less in the violence itself than in the way games, through their design and storytelling, evoke emotions in players—ranging from indifference to moral awareness.
On February 5, 2026, during an interview, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, expressed the fact that
Video games, he continued, “where you take down everyone, includingFortnite, that’s not life, because it distorts the relationship to violence.
Yet, the recent enthusiasm aroundChiaroscuro: Expedition 33– game acclaimed by thecritically acclaimed and awarded at the 2025 Game Awards and the 2025 Pégases for its narrative approach and exploration of moral dilemmas– recalls that video games can also be a vector for deep reflection.Chiaroscuroillustrates a game’s ability to evoke complex emotions, engaging the player far beyond mere entertainment.
Prompting gamers’ indignation, the presidential remark reignited the debate on theeffects of the violence inherent in many games on the behavior of young people in the real world. Certainly, the head of state acknowledged that it was not necessary to “put everything in the same basket” and that some uses of video games were “good,” as indeed is attested by an entire literature ingame studiesaround historical, persuasive, educational games or what are calledserious games.
However, as economist Agne Suziedelyte has shown, it is difficult to findempirical evidence that acts of violence declared by children towards others increase after the release of a new violent video game. Thus, policies that restrict the sale of video games to minors would, according to the author, have little chance of reducing violence.
The question of violence and its effects remains unresolved, however, when one looks more closely at the way war games are designed. Our hypothesis is that certain games can generate violence, or cause indifference to violence, because they evoke the figure of the hero and prioritize the playful dynamics of the game.
Other games, on the contrary, are capable of creating a design and narrative that prompt players to genuine moral reflection. In both cases, as we suggest in our book,Emotions and Video Games. A Behavioral and Institutional Approach(Garnier Flammarion, 2026), it is the emotions felt and expressed by the players that are at the heart of video game dynamics and moral learning.
When entertainment erases ethics
A video game is above all a skillful mixture of the definition of more or less rigid rules (what is calledgame) and a game mechanic that gives the player the pleasure (the fun) they came looking for (what is called theplay). In all games, designers seek to maintain an attractive balance between constraints (imposed by the rules) and the player’s freedom of action.
In the same way, designers are concerned with finding a balance between the player’s hedonic experience and what they learn or grasp during this experience. The“retention economy”video game involves in particular the implementation of a video game interface (design, narration,cinematics, etc.) which constantly captures players’ attention, notably through mechanisms of “affective amplification.” Thus, according to James Ash, researcher ingames studies, that when “the variables [to be input in the game] are too numerous, the player is overwhelmed and loses the feeling of mastery; conversely, if there are not enough, he can get bored due to a lack of challenges.”
By studying wargames, which are also called first-person shooter games – for example,Call of Duty,Counter-Strike,Battlefield,Overwatch,Halo,Rainbow Six– researchers in video game studies have shown thatthese violent games distort the reality of war by resorting to mechanisms of moral disengagementÀ: justification and systematic incitement of violence, highlighting the figure of the hero, obscuring the consequences of war, dehumanization of enemies, invisibilization of victims and vulnerable populations (such as women and children).
These processes – narrative and playful – transform war into entertainment without moral ambiguity. By avoiding any confrontation with the ethical complexity of real conflicts (traumas, griefs, dilemmas), these games trivialize violence and reduce empathy, while reinforcing a simplistic vision of good versus evil. The player gains no moral insight from their experience in the game and misses the representation of what would be a“just war”in which the protagonists would respect the humanitarian standards set by the Geneva Convention.
Video games and moral responsibility: the example of white phosphorus inSpec Ops: The Line
In games, morality was initially introduced in opposition to the player’s self-interest. For example,Papers, Pleaseembarrasses the players by confronting them with their desire to continue progressing in the game, which conflicts with the possibility of helping one of the game’s virtual characters. Themoral dilemma is said to be “impure”, since the player has no incentive to rescue the character. More interesting is the situation where interest is not a factor, as is the case in the frighteningUntil Dawnwhere the player must decide which virtual character to sacrifice, without it affecting their progress in the game.
In these cases, the player faces areal moral dilemma. Does he, however, learn anything from his choice?
In a more recent version ofCall of Duty: Modern Warfare, the player does not control an overtrained soldier (a hero) but an injured, traumatized child, trapped in a devastated space. By notably playing on the game’s mechanics (reduced movement speed, absence of weapons, etc.) and on the helplessness of the player-character, this episode offers aimmersive experience that promotes empathetic awareness towards civilians, real or fictional, in conflict zones. These scenarios can thus give rise to a more elaborate moral reflection in the player.
However, one can go further by mentioning the central role of games – such asSpec Ops: The LinewhereThis War of Mine– which is called“anti-war”, because they seek to deconstruct the figure of the hero and the aestheticization of war by staging human suffering, deliberately causing discomfort in the player, and refusing to reward violence in the game.
This War of Mineachieved undeniable commercial success (more than 4.5 million copies sold worldwide) whileSpec Ops: The Linehas become a cult game for its bold narrative approach and its critique of war. One scene in particular attracted the attention of researchers:that of “white phosphorus”. Designed to produce smoke or create camouflage, white phosphorus is above all recognized and denounced by the Geneva Convention for its use as a chemical weapon.On March 3, 2026, an NGO notably accused the State of Israel of having used “illegally” white phosphorus near inhabited areas in southern Lebanon.
InSpec Ops: The Line, the game mechanics force the player-character to commit an atrocity (when they use phosphorus to defeat enemies and inadvertently kill innocent civilians) and then blame it on a non-player character (NPC) when the latter confronts them with the consequences of their action and responsibility:
“[Y]ou could have stopped.”
The player is encouraged to disapprove of his immoral behavior through the guilt he feels. By locking the player’s possible actions, the story and thegameplaytogether highlight a brutal truth: inin a war situation, the “choices” are only a false freedom, masking the real absence of moral options.
Violence and video games: design as a lever for moral awareness
Let’s summarize. On one side, there are players encouraged to mimic violence orat leastmade indifferent to violence in standard war games. On the other hand, participants who have a sensitive experience of war and can derive a moral significance from it. The hypothesis that we develop extensively inour workis that the expression of the player’s sensitivity depends crucially on the context in which they are immersed. The effects of violence in the game therefore mainly depend on the design conceived and produced by the designers and developers.
The work carried out by video game studies researcher Stéphanie de Smale and her colleagues questions themoral and emotional logic of the game from the perspective of the designers ofThis War of Mine. For the latter, “humanizing the war experience” means that players no longer see non-player characters as mere resources, but as human beings. The design must also deliberately incorporate moments of discomfort (and thus negative-valence emotions such as disgust, sadness, fear, guilt, or anger). The presence of children on the battlefield, for example, aims to provoke confusion or even outrage (“They shouldn’t be here!”).
The story, the possibilities offered by the game (mechanics, interactions), as well as the language and body expressions of non-player characters must combine their effects to awaken the moral sensitivity of the players. Apart from the many testimonials from players and developers, it is difficult to establish an empirical link between discomfort and morality. However, it is possible to measure the fact that somestressful situations in a game likeNevermindactivate on the physiological level emotions with negative valence. From then on, these emotions can encourage moral actions.
Furthermore, the creation of an opposing world, even virtual, is likely to expose the game’s designers themselves to a formstructural apathyor“emotional numbness”. To protect themselves from this, they call on players to test the game at different stages of the creative process, thus avoiding a form of desensitization to agameplayemotionally distressing. Faced with a repeated situation of violence, even virtual, individuals may try to protect themselves by adopting a form of denial, as some do, for example,moderators on social networks.
It can thus be concluded that the real impact of violence in video games is by no means a matter of chance. It depends, as Holger Pötzsch, a researcher in…game studies, of theway in which they are represented, hidden or filteredthe (realistic or not) forms of violence, the way in which the player-character embodies (or does not embody) a heroic masculinist ideology, the tangible consequences of the actions he is led to pursue, and finally, the sharpness and veracity of the moral dilemmas to which he is subjected. These different filters thus directly question the responsibility of the designers through what they propose in the games released on the market.
Emmanuel Petit does not work for, does not advise, does not own shares in, does not receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no affiliations other than his research institution.
–ref. The paradox of video games: between glorification of violence and the emergence of a moral conscience –https://theconversation.com/the-paradox-of-video-games-between-glorification-of-violence-and-the-emergence-of-moral-consciousness-278551