As reported by GamePolitics and others, Border Patrol is a flash game attempting to supply "commentary" on the current U.S. immigration debate. It's been making the rounds in forwarded emails and other distribution channels including, apparently, racist blogs and websites.

Games like these often surface around hot button political issues, but as reprehensible as this game is, I think it demonstrates an important aspect of rhetorical game play. That is, the game's racist content is not communicated through its actual mechanism of play (think Duck Hunt with Mexican caricatures instead of ducks) but is most obviously presented in the artwork and explanatory text.

At our recent Game Studies conference, the question if ethics in video games came up several times, so I think it's interesting to consider this game, which is clearly unethical, in terms of where it's ethics actually take place. Specifically, the question of a player's moral culpability in light of his or her interaction with a game focus the ethics on the nature of simulation, but does the fact that it is "just a game" "protect" the user for moral responsibility since his or her actions only have consequences within the temporary world of the game?

Stripped of its artwork and text, Border Patrol is simply another duck hunt. In fact, most "Programming with Flash" tutorials include one on how to make this simple kind of game. It seems to me that the moment the game becomes "about" something, it also becomes responsible to the ethics of that representation. In this case, the caricatures are derogatory and offensive, so on that account alone, we can clearly identify the message of this game and imagine its intended effect on its audience.

I'm still troubled, however, by the role interaction plays in this game. As I started the game and caught on to what I was supposed to do, I hesitated. After opening the game and reading the instructions, I was simply finding out about it, but the moment I chose to pull the trigger, it seemed I became complicit in its derogatory message. This is, of course, the argument of video game critics who justify harsher restrictions on games than on movies with similar content because a murder is "worse" if the player himself acts it out, and I'm not sure if I buy it or not.

On the one hand, it seems obvious to anyone who has played Grand Theft Auto that, while the content is certainly meant for adults, it's not worse than most R-rated movies in terms of the violence and sexual content it depicts, and taking into account the game's satirical context, I see no moral problem in enjoying the game. When that context is shifted to a racist one, the terms seem to change, but I'm troubled that I can't articulate exactly why they change except that I happen to find the intended meaning offensive. This bothers me because I believe strongly in the rhetorical power of games, but in comparing GTA to Border Patrol, I have to appeal to something outside of the situation of play in order to understand that situation. In Huizinga's terms, I have to redraw the magic circle to include something non-ludic.

Furthermore, in terms of criticism, I expect many of us are firmly entrenched in the "Death of the Author" mindset, so taking into consideration the intent of the author seems to violate a rule of criticism, even when the intent is so obviously important to the game's reception.

Any thoughts on this game? I feel it touches on some critical issues for game studies that need to be addressed somehow.

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