Paul Wake and Sam Illingworth are Manchester Metropolitan University academics and co-directors of the Games Research Network
“After your guests leave, you discover a pound in change on a sofa where one was sitting. Do you make a point of returning it?” So asks Henry Makow’s classic game of moral dilemmas A Question of Scruples.
Released in 1984, this was a different world, one in which sitting down at the dinner table and quizzing your guests about the contents of their soft furnishings apparently represented the height of gaming sophistication. Despite its glib Ferrero Rocher vibe, the game has been used to teach managed care ethics to medical students to encourage trainee doctors to overcome knee-jerk responses and to ensure thorough discussion around ethical dilemmas. This approach was found to force students to develop arguments to support their assigned positions regardless of personal viewpoints, enabling them to come to terms with their own prejudices when dealing with ethical dilemmas in their future practice. To date the game has sold over seven million copies and been published in five languages, so it must be doing something right.