"Designing Games for Ethics: Models, Techniques and Framewords: edited by Karen Scrier, David Gibson
2011


Drop Zone 4

The earliest example of an antiwar videogame is Drop Zone 4 (1975) by Meadows Games. In this arcade game, an aircraft drops bombs on a fleet of ships. The games' designer, David Main, then actively involved in antiwar activities, felt morally obligated to add a rule that would give players a free play if they dropped all their bombs without hitting a single ship. However, he also made playing by this rule a challange: [I]t was actually more difficult to win a free game by dropping all bombs and missing all the crudely graphic 'ships' than to hit at least one" (Monnens, 2008a). Drop Zone 4 is not explicitly an antiwar game, and the Pacifist Option, as Main calls the strategy, was never printed int he game's instructions: Meadows Games deemed it too controversial, calling it "a special bonus for novice palyers" (Monnens, 2008a). Significantly, Main's design also demonstrates that game expression is not limited by technology. Though Drop Zone IV was not as influential as contemporary titles, it introduce a new mode of play that was both challenging and supportive of Main's philosophies while still allowing players to play using a more traditional system, demonstrating that it is possible to build an ethical design that can support multiple audiences.


Source: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/yqNeVKZbCiwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA87&dq=%22DROP+ZONE+4%22+MEADOWS


Original source: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yqNeVKZbCiwC&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=%22DROP+ZONE+4%22+MEADOWS&source=bl&ots=-TcNmwmzfj&sig=YISlHxRX_Us3eVBK9_Mdmp3bKVY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SEPcUPnxFcaN0AWnx4HwCg&ved=0CGQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=%22DROP%20ZONE%204%22%20MEADOWS&f=false