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On the Moral Consequences of Gaming
N'Gai Croal and the LevelUp blog are collaborating with the popular UK games magazine Edge, and late last month we discussed the emotional impact of games. Or, more realistically, the lack thereof. This week N'Gai has been exploring what could be done to reinforce that emotional impact, and perhaps take those choices to a moral level. "What if developers attempted to bring social sanction into the experience? What if your Gamertag were designated 'Child Killer' for having murdered [Bioshock's] Little Sisters--or 'Good Samaritan' for having saved them? Microsoft recently announced its plans to add the Facebook and MySpace-inspired feature of allowing you to browse your friends' Friends Lists; what if everyone on your Friends List were notified each time you killed a Little Sister--or every time you rescued one--like the Status Updates on Facebook?"
But seriously, we're not affected by games because we're focusing on our performance, not what's happening. Those who focus on games are affected by them; where's the problem?
Valve's orange box gave us 'Achievements', which are viewable online. I know they're included with Portal, TF2, Ep2, and probably others. Given the framework in place, I'm sure valve could extend it to include more 'moral' type results. The only thing is, I'm gussing a significant number of players would seek to get these, as at least in certain gaming communities, they'll be considered badges of honour more so than a judgement of the moral of the player.
It's a video game. Your actions don't have ANY important reaction because IT'S NOT REAL. That makes those tags WORTHLESS. Maybe if you were an actual child killer it would matter, but since no one is hurt or helped in the process of slaying a little ghost girl, the title loses all possible moral meaning.
If I thought I was being judged on moral grounds when I played a game I wouldn't play. There would be no point.
I believe I am ethical and moral in my real life, why the fuck would I want to be that way when playing a game? Isn't the point of a game to do things you would not ordinarily do.
And yeah, I killed some of the Little Sisters; after fighting a Big Daddy and getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter over and over again I figured they deserved it.
Remember that America stands for life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness to the point of risking anything--even life & liberty! Games are merely the pursuit of happiness, almost always at the expense of your liberty & life!
See, there's this thing called roleplaying.
It's when I pretend to be something I'm not by using my imagination.
I enjoy being creative, it adds to my enjoyment of the game.
They create fantasy worlds for us to play in, so we live fantasy lives when we play.
You can not judge someone for fantasy crimes.
I am not affected by these fantasies, except perhaps earning more understanding for the types of people who act that way.
This is important because I will come across many types real people over my lifetime, and my ability to deal with them hinges on my understanding them.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
FTS: What if your Gamertag were designated 'Child Killer' for having murdered [Bioshock's] Little Sisters--or 'Good Samaritan' for having saved them?
A lot of games have these kinds of labels already in game to describe your character.
But, I'm not sure how well that would work when putting those labels on a Gamertag. I mean, who doesn't play an RPG at least twice, once as a do-gooder saving the sisters, and then once as a maniacal murderer killing everything that moves?
The entire point of all games (not just video games) is that they allow you to pretend to do things without the moral sanctions that normally apply. To pick an antiquated example, would you like being labeled "potential thief" if you happened to play on the robbers' side in a game of Cops and Robbers? To put it more succinctly: if there are consequences outside the game, then its not a game. Its reality.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
yes, its true, some people will go to the 'dark side' in various games because they like that aspect. though, sometimes, its a completely utilitarian view. sometimes the abilities afforded the player vary depending on how 'good' or 'bad' they are. sometimes a player might like playing a certain way and the abilities afforded to the bad side just play to his/her strengths better. some people look at it as a moral choice, others look at it as a challenge, some look at it as total game completion (yea, i finished the game saving the little sisters, now i gotta play it and not save them), or in the same idea, just changing the game so its less boring (i saved 'em all last time, i want the game to be different, so i'll kill them every now and then when it suits me).
Honestly, if they do it, instead of giving negative names to bad choices and positive names to good choices, it should just be names biased to that side. like on the good side, you'd have titles like protector, savior, etc. and on the bad side you'd have names that people wouldn't mind having or that are 'cool' like dark lord or some ish.
The reason we can choose in games is so we can get a more interesting experience, not so we can be embarrassed by it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism
Sounds like Fallout 2, except more annoying.
I'm not as concerned about the moral ramifications of how my character conducts themselves in a game. Certainly there are games where you get tags for your accomplishments, like gnoll-slayer or some such. That can give other players some indication of what you're doing.
What I'd like to see are some relevant tags, like team-killer. I don't care how you play the game in a single player mode, it's up to you. But in multi-player games, it would be nice to know what behavior we're likely to see.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
If the action taken in-game will have possible negative consequences outside the game, then why would you even allow the action? To use the example from the summary, you're allowed to kill the "Little Sisters" in Bioshock for a reason. If the game developer wants to make a moral point, I'd prefer that he or she used the in-game mechanic, rather than obscure mechanisms from outside the game. To go back to the example, if I'm not supposed to kill the "Little Sisters", then tell me that as part of the mission objectives, and/or force me to restart if do happen to kill one of them. Don't do this obscure we'll-allow-the-action-but-brand-you-in-real-life crap.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Every one of these "video games as a moral measure" articles always mentions the downside. What if I do good?
Sure, you can label me as a hostage killer in CounterStrike for my occasional screw up in a firefight but does that mean I qualify for the G.I. Bill due to my fine combat record in Call of Duty 4?
And more-so, if I had friends that got bent out of shape because I don't lose sleep over the hostages I accidentally fragged I probably wouldn't want them around me anyway.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I don't play gamoes to have a socially-dictated morality imposed on me. Games are a sandbox for me, to let the most fucked-up aspects of yourself take over without hurting anyone in real life. Exploring ethical boundaries is a necessary process in our self-development. I see nothing wrong with it provided it does not deter from real life. I contend it's been benefitial to everyone I know who's ever gamed.
For many, games are an escape from the grind of life. The last thing I want in my games are things that tie back and bring me back to the reality of life. The reason why I picked up that game was to be immersed in the games fictional world, not to have the game world reflect society.
You play to be different a different person through your character, in a different situations, with different rules/consequences. Why would I want to play a game that related my in game decisions to what society thinks is right or wrong? That is not a game, that is life. A game, to me, is an escape from life. Are they mutually exclusive, games and 'life'? Probably not, but that does not mean they shouldn't be.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
The idea of social sanction to enforce moral behavior in games is not a bad idea... if the group we're talking about has any degree of social sophistication. But it's been my experience that gamers, especially the ones who care enough to be actively involved in gaming communities, lack many of the basic necessities of good socialization, such as how to properly express moral disapproval (or even what is and what is not moral, apart from some basic sense of egoism).
IAALS.
Ironically, if you tried to enforce moral consequences like this in real life, for real-life, proven atrocities (say, having 'child molester' tattoo'd on the forehead of someone convicted of child rape) the ALCU would sue you senseless.
Why should our virtual lives have consequences, when we don't have them in the real world?
-Styopa
Defcon being a prime example.
The first time I played it, a pirated version shortly after the release, I was genuinely touched. When my first nukes fell on Warsaw and Wienna, I was quite shaken. My friends live there. The music, the crying woman in the background, this all added to the game experience immensely. My conscience at work was quite strong. "Yeah, that's just a game", I'd rationalize, but I still felt for the virtual humanity.
Yesterday I got the original Defcon and played it for the first time in a long time again. I launched a mass attack. Tokyo, Cairo, New York, Mexico, London. And when they broke through the defences, I'd go like "Wow! Yeah!", I enjoyed the huge score and didn't feel the least bit sorry. I knew the counter-strike would wipe my country entirely, but cool calculation was "I have 100 mln people at -1 per million, I can lose at most 100 points. There's +2 for each million of enemy people I kill, so if I get to strike the biggest cities first, I'll reap enough points no loss at a later time will outweight. Screw all the defense, attack all big cities ASAP, hard." I won with over 300 points with the next best player getting just above 100 points. Considering the losses this translates to gameplay murder of about 400 millions people in the game. Yeah, the game was fun.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Most of the comments are negative, but I detect a patern, ALL of the NEGATIVE comments seem to be from people who don't want to get the label child-killer attached to them.
Nobody from the child-saver group of players seems to NOT want this label.
Just an intresting obeservation I think. Make of it what you will.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
My comment on this is I usually like to play through a game just to see the result of my various actions. In Fable for instance it was actually pretty fun to go through twice, once to see how evil I could make my character, and once to see how good. If there were reprocussions from playing through the evil (or good) side, that's a lot of game play I would have missed. The important moral choices to track in games are already available via your gamertag (on Live), or being outright banned from servers (in CS:Source, and most PC online games). I don't care if my teammates / other players are playing through in an Evil or Good capacity (Shoot that last hostage to win, I don't care, it's good team play). What I want to know is are they not spawn killing, team killing, hacking, or being genral ass hats. As far as the PC online community goes, I'm usually playing on a related set of servers (for instance the TnB servers). Usually you'll end up running into the same core set of players on the various servers, and if someone was a total jerk on one server, they're gonig to get booted from that 'community' of players. Like a lot of people have said already, gameing is role playing, and that's a very important distiction to make. I play games because there are choices and situations I can partake in that I couldn't experience in real life. Obviously, I'm not going to make the same choices in the game that I would in the real world. So I'm not sure how much good tracking those in the context of a game would actually do.
...not so that my friends or I can find out something deep and personal about myself. The moment a game has too many ties to the real world is the moment it ceases to become a game and it becomes a nuisance. Video games were created for entertainment. If I'm marginally entertained by calmly slaughtering the entire city of Skingrad when I'm playing Oblivion, that's my business, and reflects nothing about my real life. And I hope I saved the game before I did it.
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
When I was just a baby my mama told me 'son always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns'
But I shot a man in Bioshock just to watch him die. When I hear that whistle blowin' I hang my head and cry.
I have nothing compelling to say
Yes, and the telescreens will be able to tell us when we've been playing improperly and notify the right officials to come and re-train us!
Despite some pretty abysmal/buggy online performance last time I played (after 3-4 weeks ago), the rating system for C&C3 was pretty cool. It allowed you to rate opponents skill, sportsmanship (teamkilling I assume would be low) etc. I never really tested to see if you could filter out those who were jerks, but it would be a useful feature. EA had some good ideas there... now if they could only make the thing playable.
Why do these two have to ruin fun gaming experiences by bloviating about them for pages and pages like they're Citizen Kane in interactive form?
Calling your Gamertag "Child Killer" for killing Little Sisters would be annoying and sensationalist. These guys are supposed to be a link between video games and the mainstream media, and they don't get that having a bunch of 13-year-olds bragging about their shiny new "Child Killer" tag would be bad PR? (No, those 13-year-olds SHOULDN'T be playing M-rated games, but as anyone who's ever used Xbox Live can tell you, they do anyway.)
Anyway, let's see if I can one-up them on the blowhard meter: if we are to take seriously Kant's Third Critique, we would have to accept that aesthetic appreciation is only possible when the object of appreciation is of no immediate practical interest to us (but rather a "disinterested interest"). If we start salivating when looking at a picture of fruit, that's not "artistic" or "aesthetic" appreciation. If we look at pictures of naked women for sexual pleasure, that's not "aesthetic" appreciation. By the same token, if we're worried about our actions in a video game because we think they'll affect our real life in some way, like making us online social pariahs because of our Gamertags, that's not an aesthetic concern either. Introducing pragmatic interests to games makes them closer to porno than to DaVinci.
First time a game has gotten to me this strongly...Getting off the Normandy at the Citadel, a reporter stopped me and asked if she could interview me. I said yes. In the interview, I pointed out that Saren had something to do with the attack on Eden Prime. The instant Shephard said this, the potential consequences of my action began to sink in...what will the council think of this? Am I the cause of some media leak now? Will things on the Citadel start getting out of hand as the people realize that not only were they lied to, but a SPECTRE of all people led the attack? And how will they react to me, the first human spectre, releasing this information?
/offtopic rant
I genuinely started to worry. Yes, I know it's a video game, and yes I know some council of alien species isn't going to punish me...but when I play that game, I become John Shephard for the duration of the time that I am sitting on my couch. I truly began to worry about the consequences of making such a poor decision...first time a game has ever made me feel the emotion of worry and doubt about my decision.
Living With a Nerd
One game I hold singlehandedly responsible for my eating disorder: Gauntlet. It just HAS to go and announce to the whole arcade, "Red Wizard needs food, badly"
Shut up! Shut up! Don't shoot my turkey! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
(bastards)
You mess with the best, you die like the rest.
... called Fable?
Seriously, though, it would be nice to have games in which one's optional actions showed up with a halo or fiery flames above your head.
Oh, wait, wasn't this an xBox game
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In Ultima VII a friend of mine loaded my save game (very late in the game, fully geared with the black sword, etc.) and proceeded to fight and kill Lord British. Not only did the castle guards react, but everywhere the character went after that he was scorned and the guards were called. Rather intelligent coding, I though.
(***spoiler alert***) Ultima IX was a game that made me cry as the article's author asked. In the end the Avatar (me) not only sacrificed himself to save Britannia, but it absolutely closed off any chances of another game. Both thoughts brought tears to my eyes.
I think all of these are some of the best examples of how morality choice effects within games and how the games can affect the player.
"...what if everyone on your Friends List were notified each time you killed a Little Sister--or every time you rescued one--like the Status Updates on Facebook? "
There would be a surge in Little Sister kills.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Yeah, I agree with you and all that crap. No one should force a set of morals on someone and then enforce those morals by socially "branding" you because of a fictitious action.
But I think your objection brings up a good point - namely that Life does not come with an instruction book. We get the basic "thou shalt not" crap but in reality we are able to do anything. If we aren't caught then no one makes us restart or punishes us in any way. That goes for the big stuff like killing or rape or invading middle-eastern countries without a reason, and it goes for the little things like stiffing a waitress on a tip or surfing at work instead of actually working. The consequences of our actions are part of our moral code, but we choose what we want to do despite that code.
It would be interesting in a theoretical way to see how the moral 'branding' would change game play.
The single most important problem with games that try to include consequences for "moral decisions" is that virtually no one knows that there can be more than one idea of what constitutes morality. Most people in the U.S. who talk about morality take it as given that the Judeo-Christian ethos *is* morality. Not just one option, not just a view, it is the entirety of the subject. People take as given that self-sacrifice is good, self-interest is bad, "spirituality" is superior to "materialism", etc.
That is why these morality games will and must fail. There are no real moral issues explored, only a scorecard of how well you've conformed to the designer's idea of what morality is.
Games might very well become more immersive and emotionally involving. They will *not* become real-world moral laboratories. If the player's view of morality differs in any way from the designer's then that disconnect will destroy the entire illusion.
One man's religion is another man's belly-laugh. - LL
This sort of thing seems to me yet another effort to force games to be more culturally relevant than they currently are. Gaming will become an important part of society of its own accord. I don't think people sat around trying to figure out how to shoehorn philosophy into a book or a movie. An writer simply had a story to tell and chose a particular medium to convey it.
Ultimately any form of entertainment is escapism in one way or another. I suppose gaming will enable interaction like we haven't seen before because it allows a player to become a part of the story. But moral or philosophical questions should come as a natural part of the story, not as some lame, tacked-on mechanic.
I did feel a bit guilty one time when I accidentally killed a kitty in World of Warcraft, but I can't say I was emotionally attached to the game. Once, probably more than once, in Morrowind I've gone through and completely wiped out every last individual in some town. Then there were those captives in Blackthorn who begged for help but instead got a shotgun blast to the head. In Fable I kept my character good, but I did explore try exploring both extremes.
I'd like to think I'm not a violent person in real life. I generally try to be a decent guy. While I normally play a character in a way consistent with my personality it ultimately depends on my mood. So how exactly do my actions in a game have any bearing on what kind of person I am in real life.
Ultimately, any such feature would be nothing but a glorified method of keeping score. Players would just try maxing out both good and evil scores. If a game developer wants emotional impact they need to write better stories and remain faithful to that story in the game design.
Anyone who has played with average gamers today knows that having tags like "Child Killer" attached to their names would be seen as "awesome", not a deterrent. I'm sure this would inspire a race to collect as many "bad-ass" tags as possible rather than prevent immoral behavior. It's only when your choices actually affect gameplay that morality will be considered.
I want to kill everyone and everything. If it is a chemical process I want to remove every catalyst it has and if it still reacts I will make sure that it never reacts to anything but it's death right away. oh score one for the home team.
my captcha is micron -- next gen
"If I thought I was being judged on moral grounds when I played a game I wouldn't play. There would be no point."
The game of life has no opt out button.
"I believe I am ethical and moral in my real life, why the fuck would I want to be that way when playing a game? Isn't the point of a game to do things you would not ordinarily do."
So does that mean that there can never be moral or ethical games? Is it everyone's secret desire to be their worst, but society will not let them? So what does that mean for a collapsing society where there are no longer any restraints?
"For many, games are an escape from the grind of life. The last thing I want in my games are things that tie back and bring me back to the reality of life."
Guess those Palestinians or Jesus games are barking up the wrong tree.
Because everything should be allowed in the game world - the only penalties and rewards we need are those in the game itself. I tried to play one of the Splinter Cell games once - it was unspeakable. I'm trying to stop a madman from detonating some unholy terror weapon and killing hundreds of thousands, and my controller calls a halt to the mission because I accidentally shot a civilian. Yeah, sorry and all, didn't mean to, but let's have a little perspective here. Let me finish the mission - give me the silver or bronze achievement award instead of gold, let me go back and try and do it perfectly when I feel like nailing all the gold awards, but when I'm trying to save hundreds of thousands, cut me some slack over one accidental death!
Mercenaries was another one, there's one particular mission where there's a huge firefight going on, and suddenly, up comes a message saying I'm due them $100K of my earnings because I shot the CNN reporter. Wow. I didn't even know there was one there! There's seven different automatic weapons going off over here, but you're sure it was me? What the hell was the idiot doing sticking his head up in the middle of a gun battle anyway!?
Those events were crap enough - don't go adding Civilian Killer to my gamertag as well.
Olivia will give you all she has!
You guys are pathetic. I come here and read a hundred posts about how games aren't inherently moral; they're used for escape, play, entertainment. Did any of you stop to think that this guy's definition of "morality" is so inherently flawed, even the biggest douchebag among you looks like a saint. In his world, "morality" means fear - not even fear of long-lasting censure, just fear of being called names, like some kid at the playground - and he considers us immoral?
I wouldn't blame the developers who'd rather give the player more of a free-will, "happy fall" scenario. Personally, I quickly bore of games where I constantly run into invisible walls and get "multiple choice" sections in which none of the choices appeal to me nor bear much difference from one another. I have always been delighted when an action attempted out of whimsy without expecting results (shooting at non-enemies, interacting with objects in an unconventional way) has actually yielded some sort of reaction (one of my happiest gaming memories: Zelda OoT, shooting at a distant Gerudo guard in a fit of pique and doing a double take when she actually collapsed). I'm not defending the sort of moral grand-standing mentioned in TFA, but I think reducing the players' options is the absolute last thing gaming needs.
If you're going to allow the player to do that, though, then don't try to moralize anyway through their GamerTag labels. If you're going to have consequences from the action make them in-game consequences.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
What's so different about gaming? Gaming is always being pointed at while television, film, novels, comics, music, art all deal with exactly the same issues -- often more intensely and graphically. Why must gaming defend itself?
Gaming mimics culture and other forms of media & entertainment.
If you have a problem with gaming you have a problem with the world.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I hope it logs when your knight kills the enemy queen in chess games, because that is totally violence against women. In a GAME no less!
Poor ol Koopa's been killed millions and billions of times by Mario Fans for about 2 decades now... so has Gannon in Zelda...
and I guess we can all be called pervs too for wanting to rescue the princesses in these games so that she can be all ours for the taking.