3. One of CompTac’s best-selling products is a computer game that includes some

Question

3. One of CompTac’s best-selling products is a computer game that includes some extremely violent actions. Groups of parents, educators, and consumer activists have bombarded CompTac with letters, petitions and emails calling on the company to stop selling the product. CompTac’s executives are concerned about the public outcry, but at the same time they realize that the game is CompTac’s major source of profits. If CompTac ceased marketing the game, the company could go bankrupt. If you were a CompTac decision maker, what would your decision be in this situation? How would you justify your decision from an ethical perspective?

Explanation / Answer

If I were a CompTac decision maker, I would have recommended to rather changing the composition of the content, keeping the basic essence of the game intact. In other words, the level of violence could be reduced considerably, replacing the same with some other innovative theme that could engage the users to still continue playing with this product. Certain introductory offers or schemes could also be introduced with the revamped model in order to ensure the stability in the sales of this product.

In terms of the ethical point of view, Utilitarianism theory could be utilized in this case, which is the philosophy to be followed is that of beneficence that is, a decision or act is right and proper and good only if it generates the greatest amount of benefit for the largest number of people at the lowest cost or harm to others. It is the decision to be judged on overall consequences of act. Utilitarian act is therefore applied to interpret for each decision in a particular situation relating to costs and benefits. The rule suggests to avoid macro assessment and searches for guidelines in terms of “Repay debts” or “ Keep promises”. These promote greatest good. Accordingly, our game would take care of the interest of the concerned Public as well as that of the users, by finding a pragmatic middle way out. Since there shall be hardly any modification in which the game is played but only altered in terms of the violence content in the program, this shall be doing the greatest good of both the parties, the users as well as that of CompTac.

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