Biases in Simulation Video Games

Orsonwarcry writes "Kieron Gillen went to Prague to speak to Bohemia Interactive, known best for Operation Flashpoint. He goes on to discuss the effects of bias on simulation games. 'In other words, a simulation is never just a simulation. Equally, freedom is rarely actually free of designer- imposed desires. Even in games with the most self-expressed mandates of "choice" for the gamer, it doesn't mean that there isn't a message. In Deus Ex, the generally politically liberal Ion Storm Austin created a world where you could choose between violence and pacifistic approaches, but the charismatic characters urged you towards peace while the monsters suggested violence.'" Some interesting stuff in there.

Comments

Limitations of technology

[mfloy]

I don't think we should expect games to be perfect simulations. The designers are dealing with fixed resources and obviously need to make limits in places. We shouldnt expect game simulations to be on par with academic or scientific ones. Games are for fun, not perfection.

Re:Bias in the player too?

[eln]

Personally, I find it disturbing that they would suggest that preferring peace over violence is a "liberal" trait, suggesting that a conservative person will prefer a violent solution over a peaceful one.

Good Call

[stoolpigeon]

Everybody is 'biased'. In fact a better word might be that everyone has a perspective. (A little less pejorative) The creator and the player both bring things to the game, conciously or uncounciously. This is why interaction with others is so valuable. It allows you to gain access to other perspectives.

There is bias in almost everything

[ReformedExCon]

However, with exception of when we deliberately seek out bias, it is pretty much irrelevant. We play games because they are fun. Whether the game designer has some ulterior motive or not is only important as far as it affects the playability of the game. Good games succeed, bad games fail.

To argue that bias somehow affects the player subliminally, influencing the player towards the bias of the game designer, is to say that people are influenced significantly by what they play or see. However, I have to reject this, from my own experience. I have known many people who play violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and its ilk who have no inclination to go out and commit those crimes shown in the game.

Bias is inherent in any human action. To make it a central pillar of a video game is foolish because it is uninteresting to anyone not interested in it. Game makers, for the most part, sublimate their biases and focus on gameplay. Whether they succeed or not is debatable, of course.

Re:There is bias in almost everything

[sparty]

To argue that bias somehow affects the player subliminally, influencing the player towards the bias of the game designer, is to say that people are influenced significantly by what they play or see. However, I have to reject this, from my own experience. I have known many people who play violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and its ilk who have no inclination to go out and commit those crimes shown in the game.

Bias is inherent in any human action. To make it a central pillar of a video game is foolish because it is uninteresting to anyone not interested in it. Game makers, for the most part, sublimate their biases and focus on gameplay. Whether they succeed or not is debatable, of course.

Actually, it does matter. Claiming that games perpetuate subtle biases is extremely different from claiming that games cause people to dramatically change their outlooks with regard to morality and violence, and the argument that most people who played the original GTA didn't go around trying to set monks on fire is irrelevant to the question of more subtle biases.

Continuing with the GTA line of though, let's suppose that a game very similar to GTA exists but has real cars (IIRC, the original GTA used fake names to avoid trade name issues, and I assume that's still the case). Let's further consider that it has both Volkswagen Jettas and Ford Focuses as in-game options. In the game, the Jetta provides more gokart-like handling (i.e. more nimbler and quicker) while the Focus is more "solid" and better at handling damage (e.g. pedestrians have less of a tendency to knock you off course). As someone who plays GTA frequently, you are quite likely to internalize the preconceptions that the Jetta is more nimble while the Focus rides more solidly and handles damage better, because that's the way the game is programmed. On the other hand, the real-world incarnations of the Focus and the Jetta (for the 2005 model year) are the reverse--the Focus is a lighter car and arguably better-handling, while the Jetta is heavier and has a better crash rating.

Now, consider the same issue with regard to sexual orientation as treated in the Sims 2, according to the article--the game treats gender identification and sexual orientation as freely made choices, and it allows them to be made without the full barrage of results that occur in the real world. Play that game enough, and it would be quite natural to internalize the idea that those elements of identity are conscious choices (which is contrary to most opinions in the real world--even those who reject genetics as an influence on sexual orientation tend to support extended "treatment" programs to encourage those whose sexual orientation upsets their agendas, implying an agreement that it is not a conscious choice).

In summary, I think it is not the central themes of a game that present a danger but the details; just as non-politically-correct jokes can create a hostile environment, those details can add up to an internalization of biases that may not even be conscious in the developers' minds. And those unconscious biases can be among the most difficult biases to confront in a society--a courageous DA can, with the support of good cops and a crime lab, track down a jackass burning crosses all over town. But it's going to be a lot harder to erase the perception amongst the citizens that a certain ethnic group is shiftless or prone to stealing.

Part of the problem

[Iriel]

If you would call it a problem at all is that you can't really have people write a script for just about anything that is truly unbiased. Most everybody is incapable of completely detaching themselves from something to the point of having no bias when creating it.

Besides, the example of a video game having bias despite free choice is sort of a backwards one. Without some slant to it, there wouldn't be any real esacape element to playing the game. Do players want to be presented with a mulitude of choices from different characters who seem completely abivalent as to the outcome? Bias (while being unhealthy in gargantuan quantities) is what provides flavor in a lot of these simulation games. Otherwise, with no bias, you would have an online chatroom because the majority of people wouldn't know what do to with the simulation in question.

It really depends on what you're trying to simulate.

Re:World View

[AKAImBatman]

It is impossible to do almost anything without betraying some part of ones world view. This is true in every day life, doubly so in things that people create.

Arguably, the entire point of fine arts is to explore someone else's worldview. While Video Games may have a long way until they can be considered "fine arts", they are just as much about allowing you to explore the author's worldview as a book or movie. Perhaps even more-so, because the author must craft a universe that is entertaining to be in.

To do this he may have to create a caricature universe that enhances certain aspects while de-enhancing others. For example, if I'm playing a Sci-Fi video game I expect everything to be Sci-Fi-ish. All doors slide, everything hovers, metal and plastics everywhere, etc. This is despite the fact that a more reasonable look at the future would conclude that swinging doors and wheels aren't likely to disappear at all.

Creative works are creative works. If you want to complain about simulations, go complain about an F-22 Raptor sim allowing you to an impossible barrel roll. ;-)

PC in PC games stands for... ?

[moz25]

I don't see why the PC has to stand for "politically correct". That is: it is unreasonable to demand that games are free of any bias with regard to strategy. Most comparisons for games that have been going around are the convergence of games and movies... that is: you are "in" a movie. It can hardly be argued that movies lack any bias in terms of the strategy to handle trouble.

The only situation in which bias is obviously a bad thing is when bias is labeled as fact.

Re:World View

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Think "Deep Space 9" Holosuite, where Sisko didn't like to use the lounge program that was set in the 1940s because the racism that was so prevelent at the time was nowhere to be found. He thought that it was insulting because the creators of the program were trying to pretend that said racism never happened.

Re:Was Jesus a liberal?

[Txiasaeia]

"He was so passive that he let himself be killed."

This isn't exactly true. He wasn't so passive that he refused to admit that he was, in fact, God. This was ultimately what led him to be crucified, the charge of blasphemy.

And I wouldn't exactly call him a passive liberal; if anything, he was a social activist that refused to resort to violence. He worked on the Sabbath (big no-no), taught his followers to turn the other cheek/cloak/walk further with a Roman soldier (actively rebelling against authority by willingly giving up goods & temporary liberty), befriended prostitutes and tax collectors (like befriending lepers today), and inspired a schism in the dominant religion.

He was "liberal" in the sense that he fought against the status quo, but I can't see anything in his actions that could be defined as "passive."

Re:World View

[operagost]

The irony is that, in today's PC world, a holosuite designer who DID create an accurate portrayal of racism in 1940s America would be labeled as a racist who glorified prejudice.

Pigeonholes

[SeanDuggan]

How about abandoning all the terms and simply identifying yourself by your views? The whole "Ah, you oppose abortion, so you must be pro-death-penalty and a warmongerer" line drives me batty. I don't identify myself as a conservative. I don't identify myself as a liberal. I identify myself as a human. With issues. Big issues sometimes, but that's a long story and a lot of therapy...

Seriously though, if it weren't bad enough that people will try to pigeonhole others with these terms, so many people pigeonhole themselves too! "Well, I'm against the war in Iraq. That would make me a liberal. Does that really mean that I have to consider "Piss Christ" to be a work of art?" Great googly-moogly, people! Find where you stand. Stand there. Don't call names, whether it's at yourself or others.

Re:Bias in the player too?

[radish]

It is particularly harsh to force someone who believes that abortion is murder to pay for another's abortion
I believe that the invasion of Iraq was tantamount to mass murder, however I don't have any right to prevent my tax money paying for it. Will the LP help me? I believe that the death penalty IS murder, again my tax money pays for the process - where do they stand on that? I'll admit to not knowing a lot about the LP, but I hope they can at least be consistent.

For the record, I'm for the criminalization of wife-beating too.
I think you'll find assualt is already illegal.

Re:World View

[Salgak1]

IF he portrayed it as evil. . . it wouldn't be a true simulation. Back then, racism wasn't something to be fought, it was pretty much a fairly basic assumption of the culture in question. . . You want to accurately simulate a period, you're pretty much going to have to get your head LIVING in that period. The current predjudices and assumptions of early 21st Century America are likely to be questioned. . .and considered questionable. . . in the decades and centuries to follow. . .

Re:Bias in the player too?

[SyncNine]

Just because this needs to be said, and it's not specifically direct at you, per se, but all MALE Pro-Lifers out there.

How can ANY Male *EVER* even begin to think for EVEN JUST A SECOND that he has any idea how hard the decision for a woman to have an abortion is?

How can ANY MALE, who cannot/will not ever conceive a child and hold it in their womb EVER decide what a WOMAN can and cannot do with HER egg?

I'm against Pro-life. Call me Pro-Death or Pro-Choice, I don't care.

It's not up for me to decide whether a woman can or cannot kill her fetus. It is up to the woman. Until that baby has a brain and some semblance of 'person' in it (which iirc is the Third Trimester), it's not a person to me. But again, it's also NOT MY DECISION.

It aggravates me that men will step up and decide for women everywhere without even thinking for a second that there is no possible way for them to ever understand what they are deciding.

And before someone starts flaming and telling me 'KILLING IS KILLING YOU MURDERER'... Keep in mind that is YOUR OPINION. Just as this is MY OPINION. Unborn fetuses are NOT PEOPLE (in my mind) until the third trimester. Hence, Pro-Choice.

The joy of my viewpoint is that it allows the WOMAN the choice to do what she feels is right. As she, ultimately, is the one who will be dealing with the ramifications of her choice, I believe it is she, ultimately, who should DECIDE.