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?"

Comments

No, silly

[Debello]

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.

Re:No, silly

[Some_Llama]

"But what if one of the tags was Team Killer?"

Can we have one for confirmed cheaters? and then a address listing and google map link?

Moral based Gamertag Blues

[Cathoderoytube]

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.

The Real Problem

[Capitalist1]

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.