Leveling Down

Does being good or evil even matter in video games?

I’ve created a new section for Leveling Down called Discussion. In this section we will be posting gaming related discussion that either cmfl3x or I may have from time to time with members of the gaming community or even just between ourselves. In some ways, this isn’t really different from one of us posting an article and the other one commenting on it but we’ve structured it in such a way that we expect the other to sort of reply – at least to have somewhat of a conversation. These posts may be nothing more than idle chit-chat, but I guess this is what aging hardcore gamers chit-chat about. Feel free to jump into the discussion with your comments as well.

This first discussion topic was suggested to me by cmfl3x, as he asked me how I felt about how morality was currently handled in video games.

cmfl3x: One thing I’ve been thinking about is how different games handle “morality” issues – the strengths and weaknesses, where we hope games can go, etc. Like, what differentiates the morality choices in different games like Fable, Fallout, Mass Effect, or even Bioshock? How does the way the game handle choice enhance the experience or cheapen it? I dunno, something like that. Haha, do you have any idea what I am saying?

espion4ge: It’s funny to think about games with morality, because for me, it’s a no-brainer to always go the good route. I think that’s inherently my nature since maybe I read too many comic books as a kid and believe in good always prevailing, justice, and all that. I actually have trouble playing games like GTA just because I don’t really get much enjoyment running over pedestrians and such.

But when it comes to the games you mentioned, I feel that they are really at in their infancy or aren’t handled completely well yet. What I don’t like is how in games like BioShock and Fable 2, you pretty much are more rewarded if you go the “good path”. it’s almost like there’s no reason to go the bad path and the game conditions you so with all of the positive feedback you get back. Why kill a Little Sister when you can save her and get basically the same reward? It would have made more sense if you decided to save the Little Sister and not gotten anything out of it – then it really comes down to you deciding morally that you want to do it purely out of conscience than because the reward is greater. Fable 2 is practically the same way – if you do bad things people will react differently towards you, you’ll grow horns, have flies flying around you, etc. I’m sure there is a certain type of gamer that likes that, but why do you have to be ugly and generally disliked just because you’re playing an evil path? You can still be cool.

Mass Effect and Fallout 3 do a little bit more of a decent job on handling morality, in that the games have a more neutral stance on the matter instead of “wanting you” to play good. But honestly, perhaps Mass Effect was too symmetrical because you were often given the option to either threaten or persuade someone, and they basically led to the same result. The Karma system wasn’t too bad in Fallout 3 – I liked that you could pick up followers depending on what type of moral standing you had but it was all still just number crunching anyway if you wanted to change morality. Want to be good when you’ve been bad the whole game? Just give bottled water to the beggar until you’re good. Want to be bad when you’ve been good the whole game? Just kill citizens over and over.

I don’t think we’re quite there yet in terms of gaming, but hopefully gameplay elements become more interesting because of it. The problem is, it’s difficult to set it up well in a game. I don’t like how some games have achievements for playing the game good and then evil, only to discover that they’re practically the same.

cmfl3x: In a gameplay sense, I agree that it’s annoying that you are rewarded for being good, because in that kind of system all choices are not created equal. At the same time, I don’t think I particularly want to see games rewarding people too much for being bad. Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t think that’s a message we should be imparting on our youth, especially in a more realistic setting. That’s probably why games like Fable make you fat and ugly when you’re bad, to turn you off from that. What you propose though, getting no reward for being good, could work.

Fallout 3 is definitely one of my favorite moral choice type games, even though like you said you can “change your karma” more or less whenever you want. What Fallout 3 does is it puts you in a world full of characters who already are morally predisposed one way or another and allows you to choose the role you play in that world, as you alluded to in your review.

The Capitol Wasteland is a messed up place, and its residents are all over the place morally. Some are trying to rebuild a functioning society, others are just trying to get everything they can for themselves. Your choices in each quest affects the communities that have been formed, for good or for ill or sometimes both. You have a real sense that your actions matter, even if its only on a small scale. A few times I found myself just staring at my screen trying to decide what to do, because like reality, sometimes it is not clear what is “right” or “wrong” in Fallout. Sure you can reload a save, but that takes away from some of the immersion factor.

I would love to see a game that builds on these types of choices by not only affecting NPCs but the game world itself. Imagine a city as well developed as Liberty City where you aren’t constrained to playing as a gangster. GTAIV’s moral choices boiled down to shoot or don’t shoot someone or choose who out of two people you want to shoot. The choices are okay in and of themselves, but imagine if the world changed depending on your choices. In Fable, your look changes depending on your choices. How cool would it be if the game world looks, sounds, and feels different depending on your choices?

Obviously, it’d be tough to pull a game like this off, especially if some of the changes to the game world are more unexpected (e.g., kill a gangster, but instead of the city getting better, another gangster who is much worse takes their place). But I think it would give a real feeling of importance to the gamer about their choices.

It would have been cool if Bioshock 2, a prequel, was designed like that. Rapture is going to a dark place as we all know, but as a character in Rapture, am I going to work to slow down the process or speed it up? I’d buy a game like that in a heartbeat.

espion4ge: Actually you are right about Fallout 3 – maybe it’s the best game out now that explores moral choice. When I think back to it, while I do think the Karma system was a little silly, even if you were to strip that moral indicator completely out of the game you could have still played it as a very evil character since there were plenty of things you could do. And in a certain context of the game, Fallout 3′s setting really allows you to do that since sometimes you have to do what is considered “evil” simply to just survive.

Thinking back – yeah Fallout 3 had a lot of things you could do if you so inclined – killing anyone you wanted, stealing practically anything, enslaving people, lying to them, etc. I guess since I rarely went down the evil path, I never really saw the other side of that game nor was I curious to try it out. And if you were to really think about it, what gives you the right in the game to even take another man’s life? Just because he enslaves other humans, is that really your call?

I do agree with you though that maybe games do have sort of a moral responsibility to teach kids to be good. While you and me are adults already and can play Grand Theft Auto games without influencing our real lives, kids may not know better. In fact, with each of us probably having our own kids eventually in the future, I would probably prefer that they got any sort of conditioning from media outlets to be a good person. Seeing how big the game industry has me thinking that there should be some responsibility to bringing up kids to be good people too, if possible. It worked with comics didn’t it? Kids like Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, etc. and thus are more excited to do the right thing.

Perhaps exploring the concept of moral choice in video games might not be a good idea if children of the future may become influenced in a bad way. Or maybe they could learn from seeing the consequences of their actions in videogames? Ugh – analyzing the role of morality in videogames is tougher than I thought. You could probably write a college research paper on this subject and it still probably wouldn’t be completely unrefutable.

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