Hi AoIR-ists I'm pleased to announce that the current issue of the International Review of Information Ethics, a special issue on ethics and computer games, is now online, <http://www.i-r-i-e.net/current_issue.htm>. The issue was co-edited by AoIR Ethics Working Group members Elizabeth Buchanan and Charles Ess, and includes articles by our sister and fellow AoIRists Mia Consalvo and Dan Burk. (And perhaps others? Apologies if I've omitted a name - I don't have access to the membership list!) As we note in the forward, much of the especially popular discussion of computer games tends to come in the form of Manichean dualities, fueled by moral panics. By contrast, there is a striking lack of serious philosophical scholarship and reflection on the ethical issues involved - i.e., that takes into account the manifold complexities of what our German colleagues like to call e-games, including their social dimensions. We hope that the articles in this special issue begin to address that scholarly deficit - and thereby provide scholarship that is more guided by attention to the complexities of e-games (including their cross-cultural dimensions) and more extensive ethical and legally-informed reflection. Ideally, we hope these articles will help cut through the largely artificial and unproductive dichotomies of "Computer games: good or bad?" and help inform and shape more productive dialogue and reflection on computer games as a phenomenon of rapidly growing significance in both Internet research (especially Computer and Information Ethics) and our larger social and political worlds. If you find this issue, and/or specific articles of relevance and interest (ahem, say by Mia Consalvo or Dan Burk - smile), we would appreciate your calling these to your colleagues' attention. Thanks - and enjoy! Charles Ess Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies <http://www.drury.edu/gp21> Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Co-chair, CATaC'06: http://www.catacconference.org Co-chair, ECAP'06: http://www.eu-cap.org Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes Norwegian University of Science and Technology NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23