AIQS Class Workbook Fall 2025

"Cover of Empathy"

Empathy is a frequent topic in online narrative video games - with "empathy game(s)" being an entire genre of emotional games (typically) focused on the depiction of marginalized characters. However, Ruberg believes that empathy is a word that gets constantly misused to misrepresent these games. She argues, "Out in the open, without the cover of empathy as a catch-call buzzword, sympathy, depth, and allyship become more visible and therefore more accessible for critique" (68). Ruberg states that without the lens of empathy to look through, the depth within games is enhanced and the player is enabled to feel more complex emotions beyond the "buzzword" of empathy. Empathy, she argues, has become a blanket term, reducing the complexity of emotional messages that games might convey to mere "empathy." The term has lost its meaning over time, as more and more games have been labeled "empathy games" - covering emotions and feelings that aren't necessarily associated with empathy, but have been labeled as such. By discarding this buzzword of "empathy," it would be easier for games to categorize their experiences, allowing for the depiction and recognition of deeper, more complex emotions - while at the same time opening these messages to critique that they may not have received when labeled.

This page has paths: