It’s nowhere near as simple as some make it out to be, and no one should feel forced to comply with another’s philosophy. I realize I’m raising even more questions than you did, but the implicit point here is that people must decide for themselves where they draw the line, as we could spend hours raising different questions about this issue. Your point about movies being made by multiple people raises another question: should you refrain from purchasing a film just because one person is immoral? What if the rest of the crew is a group of great folks? Should the work they’ve contributed to be completely dismissed and avoided? And if the “knowledge” we have is only an accusation (as in your child pornography example), is it right to assume guilt automatically? Or is it better to not buy any art until you have a good idea of where every artist stands morally? But what if you don’t know if someone is bad and they actually are bad? Is your ignorance a good enough excuse, especially given that ignorance isn’t an excuse in other cases of moral character? You could argue that if you know someone is bad, you shouldn’t buy, experience, or even talk about their work. I can’t tell anyone how they should spend their money because I’m not sure moral consumption exists.
Here’s what I think as an everyday person who lives under a capitalist system: My work is here because of my urge to express myself. It’s marketers’ jobs to tell people to buy stuff.
One rule I follow as a critic is that I don’t tell people to buy anything. Although I encourage all critics to consider their moral responses to art, a critic’s purpose is not to judge the personal lives of artists. And why should they know what all of these artists do in their spare time? Critics are here to interpret and evaluate art.
It’s quite likely that critics regularly appraise games that involve immoral artists (or artists they would deem immoral), and they just don’t know. You can’t ignore good art by bad people if you want to be a serious critic. Jed Pressgrove: I can look at these questions as a critic, and I can look at them as an everyday person who lives under a capitalist system. If a director is accused of having child pornography, and we buy his films, aren’t we helping him? I’d like to know what you think. Should we buy their art and support their careers, knowing that their behavior is not the the best? I don’t think piracy is the answer, because if you look at the case of a film director, more than one person is involved in making a film, so piracy is not fair to the whole crew. I’m talking about really bad, awful, and despicable people, like rapists or Nazis. Julio Cesar: What do you think of good art made by bad people? And I’m not talking about little things like not washing your hands before lunch. If you have a question you would like to submit, please email it to or tweet it to Questions can cover anything closely or tangentially related to video games or art, including but not limited to criticism, culture, and politics.
Loaded Questions is a new weekly feature at Game Bias.
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