Hi guys,

Today I have a nice one question to ask you :)

The question is:

Assume you have been offered a high-salary job in a software company that develops games for children. You have been assigned to work on developing a game that is uneducational (e.g. about fighting enemies or chasing thieves) and you believe that such a game is waste of time for children and corrupts the public manners. What would you do in such a case?

Good luck :)

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All 9 Replies

Turn down the job. In any case where the choice is to 1) compromise your principles or 2) exit the situation, the right answer is always "exit the situation".

but you should take a serious decision , and you cannot exit.

what should you do for the management?!!

I can't not accept the job offer? What kind of crazy made-up world is this? You ALWAYS have a choice, in any situation. You're saying "you have to say either 'yes' or 'no' but you're not allowed to say 'no'." Sorry, there's no way to give an meaningful answer in that case.

There are so many better ways you could spend your effort 'helping' children than turning down the job. If you want to do the most amount of good in the world, the right way is to find the most efficient use of money you can (maybe the most efficient charity you can find?), and put all your charitable effort into that one goal. You'd do far more good working for the company and sending that money to the most efficient charity. If you avoided the job there, it would be a selfish act, because you'd be doing the action that makes you _feel_ good, not the action that does best for the world.

Assume you have been offered a high-salary job in a software company that develops games for children. You have been assigned to work on developing a game that is uneducational (e.g. about fighting enemies or chasing thieves)

Hold it! The job hasn't been assigned yet -- I haven't accepted anything!

and you believe that such a game is waste of time for children and corrupts the public manners. What would you do in such a case?

Option #1: Accept as stated.
Option #2: Walk away.
Option #3: Negotiate a different position.

From the scenario, the company accepts my ability to develop games, and accepts my ability to work with children.

Now, I have actually done games for kindergarten kids. The action was geared to their behavior (unstructured explorating) and their reward sytem(complete a challenge and watch the eye-candy). The teacher liked it and asked me for more, and asked me for support. There's a market for "nice" games.

Grade school kids want their play to be more cognitive. I don't know about teens.

So, Option #3: I work the project my way, and they market their way, and we'd both get rich.

I can't not accept the job offer? What kind of crazy made-up world is this? You ALWAYS have a choice, in any situation. You're saying "you have to say either 'yes' or 'no' but you're not allowed to say 'no'." Sorry, there's no way to give an meaningful answer in that case.

But Turn down the job is a semi-solution for this problem

tahnx for every one :)

One question: is this happening to you?

>What would you do in such a case?
It depends on how far you want to go. If you simply don't want to be associated with the project, you can turn it down at the risk of losing your job. If you feel the project should be cancelled, you can fight a lot of battles to get it cancelled (very likely losing your job and/or going through a lot of unpleasant experiences in the process), keeping in mind the slim chance of success.

Perhaps a better route would be to accept your assignment and attempt to improve the game. However, an ethical developer is aware that other opinions exist and is tolerant of them. These things are very much a matter of perspective, and if you're not careful, you could easily cross lines that shouldn't be crossed.

commented: Welcome back Miss Narue, hope you let bygones be bygones and stay a bit longer this time -- ~s.o.s~ +7

Assume you have been offered a high-salary job in a software company that develops games for children. You have been assigned to work on developing a game that is uneducational (e.g. about fighting enemies or chasing thieves) and you believe that such a game is waste of time for children and corrupts the public manners. What would you do in such a case?

The company makes or develops games for "children" as you say. So is this your assumption or it is what the company says. If this is what they say then how come they have started developing action games....

BTW the answer is simple, you accept the offer. Also a plain and hard fact, you cant change the world you know, if you dont accept the offer, someone else will, if he doesnt then somone else and so on.

If you leaving the offer thinking that the game wont reach completion or your rejection of offer will make them reconsider their idea, then you are wrong I fear.

Of course if your conscience doenst allow you to do such things, you just leave it and be happy that you are not involved in such a thing.

Good luck

Why am I feeling that this is a fictious situation / senario ? ;)

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