Values in Media are Subjective

What I mean by "Values in Media are Subjective" is that with any media, that values that you get from it are not objective at all. Two people could draw entirely different values from the same game, newspaper, television program, etc, simply because they see and interact with it in different ways.

For instance, take a look at any of the Grand Theft Auto games. Jack Thompson sees them as tools that corrupt the youth and train them bad values. David Sirlin views the GTA games as being purely about exploration and freedom, and that the violent nature of the content in the game is not what is learned[1]. Both of them are right, in that for them, those are the values or lessons that they get out of the game.

The problem is that people play games for different reasons, come from a variety of backgrounds, and have various values and morals that they already believe in. Even a short amount of text can have numerous interpretations about what the message behind it is. Video games have just as many, if not more, interpretations than books because they are so much more interactive and have a lot more content that can be interpreted. As a result, whether game designers decide to put in good or bad values, or even don't put in any values at all, people will draw values from that game based on their interaction with it that game designers cannot control.

More values might start going into games if designers used some of the ways to integrate values into the design process without costing a lot of money. Right now values are somewhat of a last priority simply because they aren't significant in selling most games. It is the very nature of capitalism to just pursue profits. Many large corporations are starting to take a look at values in the design process because they are making money off of it if they market those values, and avoid lawsuits or product failures because of bad values.

For instance, take a look at companies that spend the money to "go green," why would they do such a thing? First of all, people who appreciate companies that are trying to fix the climate problems are more likely to buy products from them. Secondly, with the climate becoming more of an issue, products that deal with the solutions are going to have an enormous amount of demand. General Electric, for instance, recently created an entire green division and put a lot of money into researching greener technologies. They didn't do this purely because they are nice people, but because it markets them as nice people, while establishing themselves as one of the primary companies with products for climate change solutions. GE has profited enormously off of this so far, and expects to generate record profits from this growing niche[2].

While the values that people get out of any medium are going to be different, I suspect that companies will start to put more money into value sensitive design and other processes because it is becoming increasingly marketable.