9KEY
Bold:	Interviewer
Regular:	Respondent
[ ]:	Uncertain word(s)

There we go.  Okay, so hello, [anonymised], and thank you very  much.
Hi.
Hi.  Thank you very much for agreeing to take part in this interview.  So, like in mentioned previously, the interview is now being recorded, so during the course of the interview I will ask you a number of questions about the relationship between ethics and technological design from your perspective as a researcher and you are free not to answer.  If you don’t like a question, if you don’t agree with a question, you don’t have to answer.  And obviously you need to give me your permission to record the interview.  So are you okay with this?
Yes, I’m absolutely fine with that.
Okay, fantastic.  So, alright, so you’re already familiar with the project.  You had a, you know, we had a couple of meetings earlier online with the other members of the advisory board and you’re obviously a member of this board of experts that sort of providing a general advice and oversight on the project.  So you’re familiar already with the sort of things that we are trying to achieve with the project, the fact that we are exploring basically, yeah, this relationship between – within ethics basically, you know, and video games from the perspective of research, from the perspective of development and from the perspective of usage, you know, the way games are used, the way they’re developed, the way they’re researched and so on.
And we talked about a number of areas, you know, that – for example, the kind of specific kind of expertise that you, in particular, bring to the project in terms of somebody who has done research in particular on the more neuroscientific or neurological aspects associated with gameplay and in relation obviously to education, in the area of education.  So that would be kind of one of the angles that we are interested in, so just for the introduction.
Okay, so let’s start now with kind of general question about your – let’s say your trajectory, okay, as a researcher, your research interest around gaming, what brought you to that kind of area, your background and then, yeah, we can move on from there, to just to contextualise a bit the interview and your trajectory, you know, as a researcher, you know, who’s done work in this area.
Okay.  Ooh, well, I suppose my interest in games in the classroom began when I was a school teacher, and like many teachers I was worried about engaging the children and finding ways for them to learn effectively.  But, you know, my educational research began, well, I already had – I was already developing – I already had an interest in research, but not in the area of educational research.  And when I left being a teacher, I started training teachers, it gave me an opportunity to do more educational research and then I started doing a psychology degree as well.  And I suppose, you know, the issue of engagement or how can we engage with learning is – I mean it is of prime interest, I think, to educators.
And inevitably I think that led me towards an interest in games, because we see that games engage children and adults so intensely and, you know, it’s a bit of a holy grail to imagine how we could find out why that is and take that magic element and put it into a learning experience.  And then along the way of my research career I began using neuroimaging and began using neuroscience techniques to understand more about how we learn, how we’re created and began to think about how to bridge that world of learning in a biological sense to learning that we think of often more socially, I guess, in classroom.
And that, yeah, I think probably it has been the last sort of five, six years, I suppose, that I started focusing much more on – actually probably seven or eight years really, focusing much more on trying to understand more about the mechanisms by which games engage their players at a neural level and, yeah, that’s – I’m at the University of Bristol really, yeah, and I guess, yeah, I’ve done a fair amount of research in that area.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That’s a lot of words to say that. (Laughs)
Absolutely.  Absolutely.
But, yeah, so I guess the important thing is I come from a background where I have a grounded understanding of what it means to be a teacher.
To be a teacher, yeah.
Yeah, and to be using technology in the classroom.  And I also have five children, some of whom have been like avid gamers.  And so I think along the way I was asked to do a review of how the internet might be affecting our brains, and I got involved in the discussion about the downsides of technology potentially and some of the ethical issues that are involved with that.  I think that review I did from Nominet, which is about six years ago, really made me question a lot about my own practices with my children and their video game playing.  I don’t think I’d ever paid any attention to the labels, you know, on games in terms of age limits until I did that review (laughs).  
And I suddenly realised that, actually, you know, there’s this huge argument and discussion going on about how violence might be getting prompted by these games, and I also began to understand that I was really studying the same underlying mechanisms probably that the same things that are a concern in terms of the power of video games are also the potential opportunities for education.  I mean it’s the same mechanisms.  More than that, it’s the same mechanisms that are probably involved.  So, yeah, I sort of stayed interested in the moral and ethical side of things in terms of technology and children, which I think in a – is still unattended to in a sensible way by policymakers because it’s still not being dealt with sensibly.  We seem to know much more about it than we are transmitting on to parents and players and learners.
Right, okay.  Okay, yeah, you mentioned this thing, the mechanism, you know, the fact that games have this kind of powerful mechanisms and, you know, they are used basically – they can be used for different purposes, you know.  We can sort of recruit these mechanisms.  We can use these mechanisms to – for kind of good or positive outcomes, that’s what I understand from your—
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so—
I think actually that Nominet – the thing about that Nominet review was that I was looking, for example, at social media sites, the work on social media sites and, you know, there’s a lot of concern about cyberbullying and that sort of thing.  But actually, when you look at the research and what we know about social network sites, really the advice and the support that children need to cope with those sorts of sites really boils down to the sorts of advice that you would give children, strategies that children need to avoid being bullied in the playground, for example.  
So there was a sense, in terms of most types of digital technology that people are getting excited about and are enjoying using, really this is not something terribly special.  It’s just another manifestation of, you know, the sorts of day-to-day experiences we have already and perhaps more attractive, more efficient, perhaps more useful, but essentially it’s the same deal.
Right, yeah.
I think the interesting thing about video games though is I felt at the end of doing that review that actually maybe video games is going to be one area where I couldn’t say that, where I had to admit that actually, this might be something special, this might be something different, it would be video games.
Right.
And I think that’s, you know, that’s based on the problems that people sometimes develop with them, but also their effect on the brain.  I mean you can see effects on the brain from social network sites, so, you know, there are regions associated with social memory, the size of which are predicted by the number of friends you have on Facebook.
Okay.
So, you know, the brain is plastic.  It responds to different environments.  Obviously you are learning when you’re on Facebook, you’re learning about other people, but you’re also learning – probably really challenging your skills in terms of social memory, and it’s not surprising that because, if you’ve got a large network, you’re having to remember all that social information, that those parts of the brain are getting exercised and that they are, you know, they’re expanding relative to other parts of the brain.
So, you know, that’s kind of, you know, fine.  But the thing – but I’m not aware that there’s research showing that using social network sites necessarily means that you do have improved fundamental cognitive abilities.
Okay.
On the other hand, when you look at video games, they are achieving something that scientists have struggled for a long while to achieve.  I mean there’s a huge irony here because you’ve got like decades of research in laboratories where scientists have tried to create programs to enhance basic cognitive function and they’ve really been a bit of a failure.  You know, I mean there’s work around working memory, now that’s the big hope, I think.  And I don’t know if that’s just because there’s been more work done on working memory or because it’s been better designed, or possibly because working memory is more amenable to these sorts of interventions, but, you know, there is some hope that some of these bespoke scientists create – the software that scientists create does appear to improve working memory, but there’s a huge argument about that.
What there is, you know, what seems more clear is that some of these off-the-shelf video games have been influencing some basic cognitive functions, you know, even though they’re not designed to do so.  So there’s a huge sort of irony to that really that Call of Duty are achieving – you know, Call of Duty is achieving something that scientists have failed to achieve consistently over decades.  And that is very striking, I mean it’s to the extent that scientists are really questioning this and trying to understand what’s going on.  And I think that’s – you know, so then suddenly we’re in a situation where we might have to say, well, actually video games are a bit different.  You know, there is something more powerful here that you can’t fit in the normal, everyday processes.
I mean of course it does recruit processes that we use in other contexts, but there does seem to be something, you know, potentially particularly powerful about video games and their impact on our cognitive function and our learning, if you like.
Right, okay.  So, yeah, that’s something actually we’re very interested in, you know, is this kind of potential that video games clearly have, you know, to engage, motivate and the fact that research systematically kind of shows that.  So is there, according to you, this kind of capacity can be mishandled?  Can it be somehow be used – you know, is there – do you think there should be some kind of, let’s say, practical discussion about how video games achieve that and how we can transfer those mechanisms to other areas?
Well I think the first thing I should say is that my theory about this, I’m very interested in the idea that it involves the brain’s reward system, and I would say it’s something, you know, strongly related to their ability to engage and that’s what drives these enhancements in cognitive function, although what we mean by engagement there is activation of the brain’s reward system and, you know, mid-brain dopamine, which is related to increased synaptoplasticity, and that’s one – that’s a very sort of biological interpretation of engagement, and it may not be related to the excited look that you see on gamers’ faces and your inability to get your child way from their gaming station.  You know, that may – you know, there may not be a relationship between those two definitions of engagement, but there probably is.
But then there is another theory which Daphne Bavelier has put forward, which is that it’s really about action and it’s about, you know, very rapid schedules of responses required, rewarded responses, but it’s actually the action element because she differentiates strongly between the action-based video games and the strategic-based video games.  So it’s, you know, it’s not necessarily – you know, we don’t know yet whether it is about the engagement.  That’s one of the questions which we have to ask ourselves, but I mean I would say it probably is.
So the next thing you’re asking, about ethics, I mean to my mind, if it was just more of the same, I mean if it was just more of the same then you’ve got a framework for understanding, for example, you’ve already got an ethical framework available to – a suitable ethical framework to consider what the issues are.  If you can comfortable with what already exists if it is just more of the same, so, with social network sites, we’re getting to a stage whereby we can see, yeah, actually people who are on social network sites a lot tend to be people who actually have a lot of face-to-face friends as well.  You know, there’s a correlation between that.  Where negative outcomes occur, they’re very similar in their sources and their remediation as the face-to-face negative outcome, so this is really just more of the same.
You’ve already got an ethical framework there in which you can consider how the social network sites should be approached, you know, in terms of issues such as bullying and, you know, access and gender and all of those other issues.  But if, with video games, we’ve got something which is fundamentally, you know, different in its impact, then, you know, something which is more powerful than going to a lesson, for example, if we say, “Well, I’m going to a lesson to find out about how the Americans won the war,” you know, and say, well, okay, that’s going to be a little bit – you know, that might – there might be a bit of propaganda there.  There might be a bit of brainwashing, you know, in that lesson. 
Yeah.
But actually, that may be an easier situation to think ethically about than playing a video game about that.  If we decide that actually video games are much more effective as a learning experience, they’re going to affect your synaptoplasticity a lot more, you’re going to be making connections in the brain a lot quicker because you’re in an interactive – well, we don’t know why.  We don’t know what the because is entirely, but, you know, probably because it is increasing arousal, it’s increasing interaction that stimulates the brain’s reward system,  increasing synaptoplasticity.  We have to think again about that.  So do we think about that in terms of an educational ethical framework of how issues should be presented or maybe like a media one, where how should issues be presented in newspapers and magazines about gender and identity?  You know, we have these discussions all the time; maybe if we could just transfer those ethical discussions to video games.
Or maybe we say, “Actually, hang on, video games are much more serious as a source of changing the brain and how we think about things,” and therefore, you know, there is not just an extra degree of care and attention required, but actually through understanding the processes, perhaps the way in which we think about them should be mediated by our understanding of those processes.  You know, if you’re getting very rapid schedules of reward for doing something which is unethical in a virtual environment, that may be more of an issue than if the environment itself is set in like in a context which is ethically dodgy.
Dodgy.
Yeah, questionable, but you’re not getting like cause and reward for responding to that necessarily.  So it’s actually, you know, you could actually imaging how, as we understand more about the processes of why these things teach more effectively, we can actually identify certain aspects of games in the future which are potentially, you know, more serious, more of an ethical issue because those are the things that are likely to be taught, if you like, you know.
Yeah.
It’s not – you know, so when you bring the biology into it and start thinking about it in those terms, it may well, in the future if not now, influence.  And I think it should be now actually influence how we’re thinking about them ethically, both in terms of the extent of hazard, but also in the nature of the hazard as well, and also the opportunity, you know.  Also it’s not just – because you’ve got to weigh risks.  You’ve got to weigh the hazards against the benefits, and actually, you know, video games have real educational benefits to the brain as well.
Yeah.  Sorry, I want to make sure we explored actually this aspect, which is quite crucial, is about the kind of ethical neutrality of these mechanics and these principles.  I’ll make you an example of what I mean.  There are recent, you know, games, mainstream games and online games like, I don’t know if you know – familiar with, you know, the latest developments, things like Overwatch or Counter-Strike, you know, basically online multiplayer games, very popular these days, where actually they implement quite heavily mechanisms of random rewards, randomisations and basically all these kind of mechanisms that you basically get people – the reason why they do that is they want people to play more for longer time, you know, longer periods of time, and they want to do so – they want people to spend more money, you know, because basically by using this mechanism…
Yeah.
…people feel more encouraged.  So, somebody might argue that, you know, okay, they are in the business of selling games, of making money, and they found a way, you know, that kind of a mechanism that builds on what we know about the brain functioning basically, because that’s what happens, in order to achieve that objective.
So is it possible, that’s the question basically, that as your capacity as a researcher, as an educationalist and so on, can we – are we – can we assume that that kind of principle, that kind of mechanisms is basically – is just in the way it’s used.  Okay, the problem is in the way it’s used and the way it’s implemented in a particular context, but it can be transferred.  The same mechanism, the same principle, it’s basically ethically neutral; you know, it’s just literally a tool.
Yeah, yeah.
And can be applied to another context for more socially or educationally relevant goals.
Yeah.
Would you agree with that kind of perspective?
Well, yeah, I would agree with it because I mean one example of this is that pragmatically, many entrepreneurs have developed a strategy of offering uncertain rewards with an advantage to the house, with a house advantage.  In other words, they’ve set up casinos.  They’ve set up, you know, gambling houses.  They’ve set up amusement arcades for children.  And these are exploiting our attraction to uncertain reward, and you can take that principle, and that’s what we’ve done in our research, and shown that actually you can apply the same principle, you know, impacting, you know, influencing the same mechanism in the brain to improve educational learning.  So, you know, and you can see these are two things using exactly the same mechanism to engage the user.  One is for what I would say is a morally dubious outcome and the other is for, I would say, a morally beneficial outcome.  It’s exactly the same principle.
Okay.
And actually some of the games that you’ve been describing, where – whether they know what they – the science of what they’re doing or not, but they have, you know, probably it’s pragmatically, you know, hit upon strategies that massively engage players.  And we know when we put the people in a brain scanner and they’re playing these video games that they have these, you know, huge increases in reward activity, you know.  I mean if they’re doing that and making money out of it, well, how is that different?  How is that different from a casino? (laughs)
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s – yeah.
So, I’m not – I sort of feel it is, you know, but (laughs), you know, I can imagine it’s a fine line because if you do well in the game, maybe you get another game, you know, and so in a way there’s almost a sense in which you are taking a chance in order to, you know, retain at least some of the values and the money you’ve invested, if not doubling it or whatever, so it might not be giving you a monetary reward, as such, but the principles, I mean they’re very similar, aren’t they?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.  So would you say that this difference, you know, the difference in implementation in the way things, you know, mechanisms are used, you say that kind of difference is basically – it kind of justifies this kind of distinction that people often, you know, sort of advocate between, okay, there are entertainment games and, you know, they do their thing.  Their purpose is to entertain.  It’s to make money because it’s a business first and foremost.  And then, on the other hand, there are serious and applied video games, educational games, games to – you know, and that kind of distinction needs to be kept at all times.  Would you agree with this kind of idea that, you know, the same mechanisms apply to both?
I think making a – yeah, I think making a distinction is very helpful and useful and beneficial to society, so I think it’s important to make that distinction.  I mean, you know, it’s the same thing with amusement arcades or something or gambling casinos.  For the vast majority of people, you know, people are not harmed by them.  The vast majority of people who use them are not harmed by them, but in terms of the – I’m not sure if this is true actually now, but certainly in terms of their place in society in terms of how much they’re supported by the government or encouraged to blossom in certain areas of the city, you know, or whatever, or taxed or whatever, they are given a lower moral status, and I think that’s appropriate.  I think that is appropriate.
So I think we should be just as discerning in terms of thinking about what video games are contributing to our society as well.  And I’m sort of – I’m drawing in ideas from gambling culture here, but that’s just one alternative field or additional field of values and discussion and thought that I think is potentially relevant to video games.  But I think there’s also another field of thought and ethical debate, which is cognitive-enhancing drugs, because when you – and it has been measured using brain scanners that when you’re playing a video game the effect on the midbrain reward regions is similar to if you were taking a dose of, you know, a standard dose of methylphenidate, Ritalin.  And in fact, you know, talking to some scientists, they talk about video games as environmental Ritalin, you know. 
Right.
If you see children with ADHD, I mean people talk about children with ADHD as having attention deficit, but they don’t usually have an attention deficit when it comes to video games, you know (laughs).  And so, you know, potentially, you know, this could be a wonderful thing because it actually provides a less pharmaceutical approach to engaging children’s attention, but it also demonstrates the power of these things and it is also, I think, tells us that we need to be a bit more joined-up in our thinking about when we’re having these ethical debates and bring in these discussions and ideas form other fields because there is this – there are these underlying biological mechanisms and they are relevant.
But don’t you think, for example, that, you know, you made a very interesting example there with the, you know, the ADHD child getting somehow so engaged in a video game that people start calling like environmental Ritalin, but wouldn’t you – would it be possible, you know, to at least argue that that kind of approach might basically encourage a form of engagement, you know, with reality, basically the child can only engage with reality if it’s structured in a certain way…
But don’t you think, for example, that, you know, you made a very interesting example there with the, you know, the ADHD child getting somehow so engaged in a video game that people start calling like environmental Ritalin, but wouldn’t you – would it be possible, you know, to at least argue that that kind of approach might basically encourage a form of engagement, you know, with reality, basically the child can only engage with reality if it’s structured in a certain way…
Yeah.
…according to those mechanisms.  So it’s not – that kind of engagement, you know, intense and attention, you know, high attention, that kind of, is not – doesn’t transfer.  And I don’t know the consensus in terms of empirical evidence about that, to be honest.  It’s not – but I do know that there are kind of discussions happening in terms of – you know, that kind of risk there also raises a number of ethical concerns that it’s okay, yeah, we know these mechanisms are powerful.  We know that they work.  But they also structure the experience in a certain way so that the only – basically the only way that that kind of arousal can be recreated is by an experience structured in a certain way, and that comes with a number of – I don’t know.  Do you see where I’m going with this?
Yes, but you can also say the only way in which – the only other way in which you can increase that arousal is to give the child another pill, you know, so (laughs) – so I’m not suggesting, yeah, it’s probably similar in that sense to Ritalin.  It’s like symptomatic relief, almost, isn’t it?  You know, it’s not like getting to the root cause of the issue.  And, you know – but I suppose in some respects it demonstrates, well, I don’t want to sort of get into the ethical issues and debates about ADHD; I think that would be a distraction.  But I think the important thing is it demonstrates the power of the video game, I suppose, to engage, without any pharmaceutical enhancement.
Okay.
And therefore, yeah, some – and some of the arguments that we’re having about video games in education are also around Ritalin.  So teachers will say, “Look, you can’t turn games into video games because…” sorry, “You can’t turn lessons into video games because this child has to learn how to pay attention when life is not a video game.”
Yeah.
Life isn’t a video game and they’ve got to be able – and you go, “Yeah, that’s true.”  But then on the other hand, you know, if we understood what the elements are in the video game that are maintaining the child’s attention and you put those into a lesson, it may not get to the source of the problem, but it might be preferable to, you know, having children on powerful pharmacological, you know, treatments.  So – but the argument, I think when we’re going to say, “Well, are video games good for education or not?” it’s very similar to Ritalin because you can sort of say, “Well, this child’s got to learn to live without Ritalin.  They’ve got to learn to be able to study.  They’ve got to be able to regulate their attention within the help of drugs and therefore, you know, this is not solving the problem,” whereas other people will say, “But, if they leave school and they haven’t got their GCSEs, that’s going to create an even bigger problem.”
Yeah, yeah, fair point.
And actually, yeah, and actually if it’s not treated it’s more likely to lead to criminal behaviour and all the rest of it.  So, and you say same thing, well, you know, so using video games as an intervention instead, people will say, “Well, you can’t turn lessons into video games,” yes, but if it gets the learning achieved and then they pass their exams, they’re given a bit better chance at the next stage, you know, and growing up is a difficult phase anyway, so, you know, why not?
No, that’s interesting.
So I suppose what I’m saying is, you know, I’m not for any solution or anything, but I’m just saying that there are debates going on ethically that are relevant to video games, you know, even though they’re not involved in video games because of these underlying biological, you know, mechanisms that are involved.  So there are similar mechanisms that appear to be involved.
Right, okay.  That’s very, yeah, very interesting stuff.  Alright, I’ve got a last question for you, okay, and then we can wrap it up.  You know that the sort of video game as a medium is constantly evolving and there are obviously sort of innovations continuously, not just in the technology of video games, you know, the kind of more technical aspects, but also the kind of more stylistic and narrative aspects.  So there is this constant sort of innovation through the medium and inside the medium.
And there are – there have been examples in the last few years of video games that try to sort of move away from the kind of more traditional mechanisms and mechanics that are generally associated with video games, like competition, combat, reward, the sort of things that, you know, you described.  There are video games that try, for example, to create experiences where there is no combat, where the main element is actually exploration, where there is no element – there are no random rewards but there is more – it’s a different kind of engagement with the content that is presented through the video game and also through some of the themes that these kind of more alternative video games tend to focus on, on issues like identity, difference, they are more kind of culturally aware, I suppose, as opposed to kind of the more mainstream big video games where these kind of mechanisms are used intensely.
So, first question is if you’re aware of these kind of trends.  And second, if you think that there may be something in there, you know, that might signal a different direction or, you know, a different area of interest for, you know, the educational socially relevant use of video games?  Does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean my understanding of the research on some of these are pro-social sort of games?  Yeah.
Yeah, some of them – yeah.
Is that what they also show impacts on learning in terms of effective response.  So if you take violent video games then afterwards, you know, and this is all very debatable, but, you know, in these surveys which is the best that can be done really of, you know, involving hypothetical situations then aggressiveness appears to be – or aggressive tendencies, tendency towards being aggressive appears to have increased.  But then when people have been playing these pro-social games, you see tendencies towards empathy, again using these sort of hypothetical scenarios, appears to have increased as well.
And I think, yeah, I think it’s important and I think, you know, essentially we build – we are in charge of building our culture and our culture is based, you know, our culture develops as a result of the decisions we make as a community about how we’re going to and what we communicate, how and what we communicate.  And so this is true for books and for newspapers, these are the things that sort of drive – these media are the things that drive our culture and make our culture what it is.  I mean of course we have – yeah, underlying we have those fundamental, you know, genetic differences and the genetic nature of our species, but actually most of what we are, that we consider to be important, is culturally constructed through these cultural tools.
And the video game is at least as important and powerful as the more traditional media, and probably, from what we’re understanding, more powerful.  And therefore anybody who is interested in developing our culture and way our communities operate in a positive way should be taking an interest in the messages that these games are transmitting, and therefore, yeah, I think it’s incredibly important.  And I don’t – I think just as authors have – authors and program makers, I think not all of them, but I think maybe of them, many, I think probably all of them, unconsciously or otherwise, transmit their moral values.  And I think many of them transmit it consciously and it’s part of their agenda.  And I think that should be true for video game designers as well, and it’s probably even more important.
And I don’t know what you can do about that in terms of encouraging that more, but maybe it has something to do with the status of the video game designer in our society and, you know, because I mean authors, you know, authors are very highly respected people and I think video game designers, if you meet somebody at a party and they say they’re a video game designer, you’re probably going to think they’re pretty cool.  I don’t hear them enough talking on Radio Four (laughs).
Good point.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
So I think society is just catching up to the significance of the video game designer.  They need to catch up a little bit more quickly because I think these people are going to – are increasingly important in terms of educating us, you know.  I think the (overlapping speech 38:58).
That comes back to – yeah, I’m going to stop you right there because that’s – I want to make sure that we – this is a very interesting, crucial point that you – I think you attached on.  Do you think that the kind of ethical perspective, you know, the ability to convey value, it’s always an individual act, somebody there in a capacity, an individual, as an author or a creator, is expected and is capable of doing, or it can be – because the problem with video games, I think they are very often – they are very complex and they’re made by lots of people, and very often, especially with the big video games, there isn’t one single creative vision that kind of drives the endeavour.  I think – do you think that kind of ethical value-based perspective can only come from an individual, you know, the creator, the author, like you made a comparison—?
No, absolutely.  I mean, of course, no, absolutely not, I don’t think.  I mean it’s probably the reverse, that actually, from what we understand about human development is that our ethical and moral makeup is very much constructed through social interaction.  And so, you know, I think if you’ve got somebody – it’s very important that people are creating these in teams, in a way, because if it’s a large community where there is some diversity in that community, you’re more likely to end up with outcomes that acknowledge that and represent it, that diversity, for example.  And so, yeah, I mean I guess you’re always going to have, you know, particularly influential individuals, but I think it’s – I think it’s not the case at all that those decisions are not being made because they’re part of a team, if you like, or they’re in a community.  And it’s probably better that they are part of the community when these things are being designed in terms of those messages that are being produced.
Right.  So it may be – it may have something to do with the very technical nature of a lot of that development work that they are made by communities, you know, large communities, you know, large teams, like you said. 
Yeah.
But a lot of those people, they – because the nature of game development is what it is, it’s very technologically oriented, so a lot of these people don’t really engage with the cultural aspects.
Well I think that’s the problem, yeah.  I mean I think that’s the problem is it’s the sort of – it’s the cultural location, if you like, of video game design is not the same as the author of a book.  So you’ve got something which is more powerful than a book in some respects in terms of its reach and its ability to teach, which is not located within our culture in the same way.  You’ve got people working – I don’t know, I suppose authors compete, but, you know, it’s a more corporate undertaking, isn’t it, developing a video game?
Indeed, yeah.
And I don’t know how, in its development, how much reflection there is on the impact of – well, the impact or on the values that are actually being integrated into that game.  And my – of course it’s going to be happening because people do this anyway, you know, even unconsciously, you transmit your values in what you create and how you create it, how it’s marketed, but, you know, I’m not sure whether there’s – how much space there is in the design and development process for a great amount of reflection on that as there might be in, you know, you’re probably more self-aware.
So it’s about self-awareness isn’t it, really?  And I imagine that the act of creating a book is a greater act of self-awareness, you know, involves greater self-awareness than the act of creating a video game in a corporate, competitive environment, you know.
Okay.
And that influences the ethical content, the moral content of the outcome.
Right, okay.  Let’s – no, I think we’ve run out of time and, you know, I appreciate you may have other things to do.  So we are at the end anyway and I think we covered everything that I wanted to cover, so, yeah, just wanted to say thank you again for your time.
Thank you.
Any other questions for me at this point that you want to ask about anything, please go ahead, otherwise we can leave it at this?
No, no, I mean I’m enjoying being involved, you know.  I wish it had more time to be involved.  Looking forward to the Brussels meeting.
Yes.
Have we got some – I mean I’ve got two dates in my diary that have sort of been, you know, careful—
Yeah, okay, yeah, I’ll give you an update about that very, very briefly.  We will be in touch in the next probably week or so to probably book travel and accommodation.  The date is the 19th.  You have two dates because obviously we wanted you to take into account time to get there, so, yeah, that’s basically 18th and 19th.  The actual event is on the 19th.  So – and we are sort of in the – right now that things are kind of ramping up in terms of organisation, in order trying to get people, you know, arranging the venue.  We already have a venue and everything.  Anyway, everything is coming together.
Okay, that’s good.
Yeah, it’s going to be hopefully an interesting event with lots of people from different areas, you know, the kind of area of expertise and so on.  And, yeah, we will – I will be sharing kind of more detailed agenda over the next couple of weeks and we will be in touch for arranging travel and accommodation.  That’s all I had to say.
Okay, great.
Okay?
Will it carry on on the evening of the 19th?
There will be some activity on the 19th, but it also depends on, you know – as we kind of arranged travel and accommodation, we may ask you when you want to come back.
Okay.
So, yeah, if you – you know, there will be an opportunity, I think, to do stuff in the evening, I suppose, but hasn’t been defined.  That kind of aspect hasn’t been defined yet, to be honest.
Alright, okay, so it’s not impossible that I might be able to fly back home on the evening of the 19th?
No, not impossible at all, no, no.
No, okay.  It’s just that I’ve organised a – I’m organising a big internal conference here with the whole department that I really need to be there for.  I mean it’s actually on the Thursday afternoon, but I’m thinking people will probably be annoyed with me if I’m not there in the morning of the first day.  I’m certainly going to need to do that.
No, I made a note for that and, yeah, I’m sure we can, you know, accommodate that.
Okay.  Oh, brilliant.  Alright.  Thanks very much, Carlo.  I hope that was helpful.  Is that what—?
Very helpful, absolutely.
Oh, good.  Okay, excellent.  Thanks very much.  Have a good week.
Bye.  Thank you.  Bye.