This document discusses the concept of biotic games, which are video games that require biological processes to function. Some examples created so far include Ciliaball, where players guide paramecium to kick a virtual ball into goals using electric fields, and PAC-mecium, where players control a swarm of paramecium. While biotic games provide educational opportunities, they also raise ethical concerns about exploiting living organisms for entertainment. Supporters argue the organisms are not harmed, but critics worry it could undermine respect for life. Future biotic games may offer novel gaming and provide benefits to research if technological and cost issues are addressed.

1. VIDEO GAMES USING LIVE ORGANISM AND ITS
ETHICAL CONCERN
Presented by :
Sandip Baniya
Bsc Biotechnology 11th batch

2. ANY ONE HAVE IDEA ABOUT THE TITLE ?
IS PUBG A BIOTIC GAME ?

3. WHAT IS BIOTIC GAMES ?
• Playing games is deeply rooted in human culture, with new game modalities
being repeatedly facilitated by new technology, such as video games enabled
by electronics. Despite the recent advancements in biotechnology there is
virtually no impact on gaming yet.
• Therefore, the concept was developed of ‘biotic games’, i.e., games that
require biological process to run.
• ‘Enlightenment’, ‘Ciliaball’, ‘PAC-mecium’, ‘Microbash’, ‘Biotic Pinball’, ‘POND
PONG’, ‘PolymerRace’, and ‘The Prisoner's Smellemma’ are biotic games
developed till the date.

5. HISTORY
• The class’s instructor, Geva Patz(2009) unscrews a small jar, sucks out an
eyedropper full of liquid and carefully squeezes a few beads into the tiny pool,
as students gather around. Patz rotates the webcam’s focus ring back and
forth until the student’s laptop screen sharpens with a flurry of what looks like
white rice grains, swimming erratically.
• Riedel-Kruse coined the term “biotic video games”.
• Riedel-kruse (a software and hardware developer) and biologist Dr. Ellen
Jorgensen tried wet lab work combined with biological matter, and one of the
arcade video games, Ciliaball.

7. HOW THE LIVING UNICELLULAR ORGANISMS ARE
MODULATED VIZ. PAC-MECIUM ?
• Paramecia are ciliated, single-celled organisms that swim around in a run-and-
tumble like motion by stochastically switching their swimming direction,
• Paramecia respond to external electrical fields by swimming towards the
cathode, a phenomenon termed galvanotaxi,
• For the game setup, these paramecia are contained in a square fluid chamber,
which has electrodes arranged along each side. The human player controls a
swarm of these paramecia by applying electric fields along two axes via a
hand-held device reminiscent of a conventional video game controller

8. CONT..,
• The motion of these paramecia is captured with a webcam and displayed live
on a computer screen,
• This set-up is turned into a game by overlaying virtual graphic objects onto
the live video and defining how these virtual objects behave relative to the
displayed paramecia,

9. CLIABALL
The image of virtually soccer field and ball which is magnified, and the
paramecium filled digital pool is made. To earn the points , the players must
guide their paramecia to “kick” the ball into the virtual goals. Users influence
the organism by pushing buttons on a handheld controller which administers a
light charge to one end of tiny pool . The critters then swim in the opposite
direction, in a phenomenon called galvanotaxis.
Galvanotaxis : taxis in which the direct electric current is the orienting stimulus,

10. ETHICAL ISSUES ON LIVE VIDEO GAMES
• In an email interview, Gaita, who supports People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA), explains that he thinks these games run counter to moral
good sense. “They are a perfect illustration of how a hideous act can be
wrapped as a benign, even educational act,” he writes. He suggests that “even
unicellular beings have obvious individual interests” and worried these games
would “nourish the idea that humans are not part of, nor do they relate
responsibly to the biological universe, but they master that universe.”

11. • When asked about these concerns, Riedel-Kruse points to the high ethical
standards university lab experiments must maintain. But he understands
others might have their own feelings about such matters. He estimates about
10% of people who’ve seen his work in person are curious about potential
ethical concerns.
• Riedel-Kruse explains it’s important to educate the public about the
underlying facts. He referenced the microorganisms present in our everyday
lives; we kill tens of thousands of bacteria when performing simple tasks such
as cleaning our kitchen sinks or toilets.
• He thinks these games might be good catalysts for a bioethical discussion, “to
try to separate what are the more rational arguments and what is your own
personal emotion.”

12. • Bioethicist Gregory Kaebnick of The Hastings Center finds the games
mentioned in Riedel-Kruse’s paper to be completely unobjectionable. Even so,
he can see the ethical long view and potential problem areas.

13. • Jorgensen is surprised there were any ethical objections to these games. “I just can't
get emotional about the rights of unicellular organisms,” she says. “They don't even
have a nervous system or a brain.”
• “There's the growing question about the level of control that we humans have over
the domain of life,” he says. Our ability to alter living things or use them for benefit
raises a larger set of concerns. But he doesn't believe these questions about the
human relationship to life can be resolved with an all-or-nothing approach. Although
some people might not be happy about it, we draw distinctions between different
kinds of living things, and permit treatment of some that we wouldn’t consider
acceptable for others.

14. FUTURE POTENTIAL AND IMPACT OF BIOTIC GAMES
• These biotic games demonstrate play-ability from the molecular to the multi-
cellular scale, and we expect future biotic games to provide even more
distinct gaming mechanisms compared to existing modalities,
• Biotic games could enforce technological price drops that positively feed-back
onto healthcare and research investments,

15. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
• The Gaming world in future can be more realistic in future days,
• New ways of treatment of the diseases,
• Transfer of the organisms like as software ?

16. QUERIES TO PRESENTERS ???

17. REFERENCE
• https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2011/lc/c0lc00399a#!divAbstract
• https://web.stanford.edu/group/riedel-kruse/research/biotic_games.html
• https://mashable.com/video/dame-judi-dench-idris-elba-bond/#.nTsGYnGSgq4
• https://mashable.com/2013/07/14/living-video-games/#ETnLAJTAhZqI

18. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION