Gaming Ethics

August 22, 2013 timothywstanley@me.com

They were only an hour from the summit [of Mt. Everest], and they debated whether to abort their climb to try to save the man. Hall's partner was distraught - he wanted to help even if that meant abandoning the climb. Hall had no such ambivalence. 'I thought I would have reacted differently, but when I looked at him, I realized that there was just nothing we could do,' Hall says. 'I felt really sad, but I figured he was dead or he was about to die.' Hall persuaded his partner to keep moving, and they scrambled past the dying man. 'It was a Day Z moment,' Hall says grimly. The man died, and his body was left behind, encased in snow and ice. An hour later, Hall reached the summit. 'The sight was so breathtaking it was like being slapped in the face,' he recalled on the bog. 'I immediately started crying... I've thought a lot about how to summarize that feeling, and the best I can do is to say that if there is a God, then it's like looking upon his face.'

Joshua Davis, "Master of Zombies: One Man's Obsession Turns into a Blockbuster Game" - Wired Magazine, September 2013.