Video games are a global digital infrastructure with real economic and social impact. They raise ethical challenges – from harassment to manipulative gamification – often overlooked by traditional frameworks. Normative, utilitarian, and virtue ethics approaches guide design, but often miss the designers’ own experiences and dilemmas. A case study of Eldermove shows ethical design emerges when developers avoid infantilizing users and step back from assumptions about them, respecting dignity and autonomy. Creating responsible games requires attending to the ethics of design itself. As gaming increasingly shapes culture, business, and healthcare, understanding designers’ fantasies and choices is key to technologies that truly support users.
