|
In the past we were content with meandering through many worlds, slaying countless opponents, shooting nameless henchmen, and stomping on many a goomba without any serious thought to the moral implication of such actions. It can be granted we performed these feats with fevered enthusiasm but now many a gamer has come to expect more meaningful choices and meaningful reactions to those choices in the game world. Thus the injection of moral duality, attempts to make choices more difficult and make us carry the burden of such choices.
There are several ways in which morality has been applied in games, more often than not these choices are clear cut right and wrong, good and evil. In some cases there is the third choice of neutrality, however what is even less clear or less utilised effectively are choices shaded grey.
Grand Theft Auto attempted to blur the lines between good and evil with the unfortunate Nico Bellic. Here was a man trying to lose his demons, a man who wanted some closure on his past. Yet this depth is more of an exception as he mindlessly steals and murders most who cross his path. The choices we find ourselves with are merely dualities between kill or not kill, and while such choices can be quite powerful in the right character the game fails to bridge an emotional connection between us and Nico. Clearly the developers wanted to craft a mature, morally conflicted character yet it worked at odds with the type of game the player wants to play ultimately creating a hollow display of morality
However BioShock presented the dual brand of morality in a somewhat effective manner. After a challenging fight with a Big daddy the fate of one of Raptures' Little Sisters lay in your hands. Do you choose to harvest all of her ADAM thus murdering her, or do you leave take a portion of ADAM and let her live? While many of us would never harm a child, let alone a female child the game attempts to alter your perception by decrying these girls as abominations, individuals who are less than human.
This repeated choice decides the fate of Rapture but is ultimately an arbitrary choice as far as morality goes. While they attempt to dress up the choice with the dilemma of whether choosing to murder her now and wield instant rewards, or save her but leave ourselves genetically disadvantaged, falls at the seems. We receive gifts should we choose to save the Little Sisters, gifts that balance out our choice of "doing the right thing". It is certainly a good example of good game balance but yet is this a good display of morality? More often than not taking the high moral road results in less of a tangible reward, and more one for good conscience.
BioShocks' Rapture is one that has fallen to the allure of splicing our DNA to improve ourselves yet at the cost of our humanity. We see how a utopian vision had fallen under the egos of visionaries and underlying Social Darwinism philosophy causing such dystopic outcomes. Yet when we step into Rapture the decision to descend to their depths is barely given any thought. Why can't I play the game without splicing? While those decisions are explained through a clever plot device it is a missed opportunity in some cases. This of course is also a game design decision as you wouldn't be able to progress in the game without Plasmids, and furthermore it would obviously make this game fairly difficult and boring.
In life there are choices that are shades of grey, ones that require a heavy sacrifice or burden to be shouldered, but decisions that nonetheless are neither right or wrong but are feebly justified by our the limits of our language. This is none more illuminated in many of Mass Effect's own illustration of morality. Midway through the story you are given the choice to either save the last of a species, or return them to the pages of history. While it seems like a clear cut good and evil choice you know the species to be the cause of many deaths, a race that started a war, and while you are told that they had no choice it is still a decision that is difficult to make. Do you commit this race to genocide once again or do you risk exposing the universe to a potential threat by letting them live?
It decisions such as these that make Mass Effect such a memorable experience. You become attached to game world as you come to shape the direction the universe takes. They become a reflection of how the universe and the Council come to view and thus judge humanity as a whole. Ultimately you are constantly watched and assessed by your actions. While the moral conundrums you solve do not appear, so far at least, to amount to an overriding choice the moral choices nonetheless require a great deal of thought. Nonetheless they still fall into a duality, while many who have may argue that paragon & renegade are far removed from good & evil it is simply the same taste in a different bottle.
Yet there have been implementations of morality that have been less obvious, and possible even unintentional. In Mass Effect your morality is divided into paragon & renegade with two bars representing this duality but while handy this can not really considered reflective of how moral someones is judged. Looking back at Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell and SWAT 4 you are given the option of performing non-lethal attacks, ones that immobilise rather than destroy. For Solid Snake it is a tranquilizer gun, Sam Fisher a blow to the back of the head, and in SWAT 4 a tazer. Each of these methods are intrinsic in more humane ways of dealing with dangerous people, not by some flashing bar or visual discrepancy, but by how it is reflected in reality. While this still falls into the realm of 'to kill or not to kill' it does demonstrate how such moral decisions don't need to be so obvious.
So is the inclusion of morality in games creating more meaningful choices? Clearly from the games so far they are utilising morality as an integral aspect to the games story, mechanics and characters, but it is not enough. Truly meaningful choices are so few and far between that they are leaving the weight of such decisions hollow. We need to feel that our choices are not only affecting the game world and the characters within it but connect with the decision such that we come to regret or even relish in our choices. Until a game is willing to sacrifice elements of gameplay for deeper moral choices, ones with no clear right or wrong but rather a justified choice that would seem feeble if explained and carry that throughout the game, then we may only ever hit the cusp of a moral game.
But what do you think? Should games include more moral ambiguity? Or do we need to stop yearning for more serious games?
|
The basic issue with morality plays in a game lies in the fact that, in a game, the morality is not based on player morality, but on character morality. The 'morality' of humanely dealing with a threat exist in a game because there are no conscientious objectors, and there are no pacifists. You are thrust into the misunderstood 'morale' of a character who regards violence as an ultimate means to an end, and have no other options, for the most part.
Until there is a game which allows a player to actually play with real discernible repercussions and moral reactions that resonate with a 'real person', there won't be any true 'moral' reactions from a player.
Great read.
Bioware has long been ahead of the morality curve. Especialy since Jade Empire used the open hand and closed fist philosophies; both of which could be good or evil depending on how they are used. To the casual observer they seemed pretty much a clear cut good and evil (I blame the color scheme and the placement in the UI) However I found myself being a closed fist; due to my existential tendincies. I found it much more enjoyable to play the 'other side' than I normaly would. Mass Effect used a similar scale or renegade vs paragon; basicaly showing what kind of soldier you are and where your loyalties are. However both of these systems still had problems since you ran into some problesm where it was pretty much a good or evil decidion.
In Bioware's next title; Dragon Age, they are doing away with morality all togather. In an attempt at stark realism; there are only consequences to your actions (and lots of blood, sex, and ' whatever 'dark heroic fantasy' is). I already know I'm going to enjoy making decidions I think are right and having them play out for both better and worse (I can only hope that dragon age will support this).
to switch gears to other games;
In Deus Ex they clearly had issues and conflicts in regards to philosophies, but didn't always force the player to make a specific decidion. in a way it was inadvertaly ahead of most rpgs by just having conseqences for certain decidions. Although most of the decidions were pretty shallow till the end of the game.
Then there was also Tachyon the Fringe. In that game they had you choose what side you wanted to play on for certain missions, and you ended up becoming aligned with a faction. While this circumvents the moral aspects (there is no real good or evil, possibly just corporations vs colonists) it does create a meaningful expereince and makes my choices mean something instead of making numbers on a chart go 'up' or 'down'.
P.S. Oddly enough all these games are available on Steam (except Dragon Age which hasn't been released yet)
On the other hand, we have serious problems doing character-to-character relationships outside of combat because of the simulation complexity required. Façade, the state-of-the-art research work on the subject, has jarring gaps in fidelity that aren't going to close any time soon. Hence the vast majority of games with a player avatar directly controlled in a simulated environment will contain combat. Alternative means of content tend to favor assets and linearity over dynamic simulations.
If the form of the game is asset-heavy, or if it's abstracted from specific characters, the opportunities for morality improve considerably: The asset-heavy game can obviously write in moral options at any point(via dialogue, scripted events, etc.), and the abstract game can define a simulation wherein actions contain moral consequences, stepping around the high fidelity required of individual people.
But so long as you are making a game in which the protagonist mostly engages in violent conflicts with opponents, morality during gameplay is going to remain mostly in the realm of "kill or be killed," supplemented by a clever narrative. We aren't going to get emergent morality any time soon.
However, the main strength of such games is also the greatest weakness of Western games, namely story and character writing. Many of the games, even relatively simple and short ones, take a long time to introduce and develop charcter relationships and backgrounds compared to Western offerings. The West has exceptions from time to time (The Longest Journey comes to mind, for example) but they are few and far between due to the Western market's misguided notion that gaming requires "challenging" and "action-based" game mechanics. This is not true if the goal of the game is to draw the player into the story and create an empathy with the characters. I have no clue as to why the Western market and developers continue to embrace this mistaken idea about game mechanics being the most important aspect of gaming. I find it analogous to film makers embracing the idea that all film must have incredibly deep, complex messages about relationships or some other topic. The latter is not true, of course, and audiences do not always wish to experience a film with such content. The same is true for games; people don't necessarily want to be challenged, at least not every time they decide they want to play a game.
Creating meaningful moral content requires good writing of characters and stories. Until the West focuses on this aspect and relegates gameplay mechanics to basic, simple techniques that merely move the story along, I don't think we'll see anything change as far as actual emotional quandaries or impacts from Western-developed games. This is also why it concerns me greatly to hear some major Japanese game makers claim that they want to embrace Western development processes. I can think of nothing sadder for the overall global industry. I hope that this does not progress too far before there is a move to simply meet each other halfway and share ideas while maintaining the diversity that the overall global market has seen up to this point.
@ Gord Cooper: Unfortunately many of us (me included) find it hard to see games without violence as a core mechanic. In some regards this would mean limiting player actions, or creating avenues for less violent means of combat. Metal Gear Solid does this quite well with the tranquiliser gun, we know its function and what we associate it with and even better it fits in with the game world. Furthermore it is an option, not one that is weighed by a changing status simply one we associate with real life, i.e tranquilisers don't kill (well if taken in responsible doses).
@ Tommy Hanusa: I haven't really been interested in Dragon Age but after reading your response I might look into more.
@ Alex Chiang: I can see what you mean having just gone through GTA 4 a second time and I found many of the supporting cast quite interesting. The lack of redeemable qualities in many of the characters really made them easier to accept and relate to. I personally liked Nico, even with the contradictions between the gameplay and the story.
@ Jay Johnson: So am I.
@ Dave Endresak: I see your view on Western Developers really focusing on the mechanics more than the story and hopefully this will change overtime. As Tommy Hanusa's response reminds me Bioware seem to be one of the few exceptions in the West.
I do think that the East as well as the West needs better writing and deeper characters in their games, not necessarily in all of them but I'm hoping that as our Western and Eastern developers learn from each other we might finally see this come to fruition.
@ James Hofman: It would be hard to develop non violent solutions in games, especially since many if not all of us use games as an escapism to engage in actions we would never perform in reality, that is why they're games. However it would be an interesting risk, not a profitable one, but an important one nonetheless to take, even if it was a low budget game.
hp)
I think you're quite right when you say that the obvious duality of most moral decisions in games renders them much less effective. I definitely agree with what Gord Cooper says; he echoes much of what I said in my article on the topic, especially the importance of non-violence. The real problem, to me, is that morality is presented in games as an aesthetic option, making it ultimately meaningless. Do I protect the farm from the bandits and get "good points" or do I attack the farm with the bandits and get "bad points"? It's pretty much the same thing either way, the game just changes the skin of the model I'm attacking.
Too often, I feel most games set us up to simply fill bars and gear up without any real energy or thought being dedicated to experiences which involve real world situations. Unlike a video game, the real world is not a controlled environment where the lines between good and evil are clearly defined.
From my research, some of the reason people are attracted to games is the definite control of the environment, there's something comforting in knowing if you put in X, you'll get out Y.
I see the addition of morality systems as a definitive sign in the maturation of gaming as a medium of art and storytelling. With this maturation it seems natural that the plots, characters, and subsequently, morality systems, would begin to mirror the complexities of "real" life.
There will be some people who run away from these complexities for the same reason they do in their own life, again the comfort that comes along with all over-simplified ideologies, however, the maturation of the medium will continue to march forward for those who play games for the same reason they read books; to think.
By "blurring the lines" you add a dimension of complexity to the game which makes the player have to stop and think of something besides leveling up, acquiring resources, and overcoming physical challenges.
I welcome the change, and I look forward choices ahead!
Mass Effect rewards the player for being a Renegade or Paragon by allowing character development options that wouldn't otherwise be available. In Fable 2, if you donate money to the temple of light, you will receive an increased Good rating. BioShock lets you choose whether to get more ADAM now by harvesting a little sister, or other goodies later by letting her live. The player isn't choosing between good and evil; they're choosing between strawberry and chocolate.
Players won't start to make moral decisions until we give them real decisions, hard decisions. I think Adam Bishop already hinted at this. The true moral choice is the sacrifice that's made with no promise of tangible reward.
So far, such choices have been the exception rather than the rule. In The Witcher, for example, the player discovers that the old man living in the swamp is actually a cannibal, and is given the option of killing him or letting him go. In the latter case, he's killed by carnivorous plants outside his cabin - a moment of karma that, in my opinion, makes the player's choice all the more significant morally. You know there's no way he's going to appear and help you out in the final boss battle. By giving the player a free choice with no monetary incentive either way, a real moral decision is possible.
So for instance, a strategy game doesn't have to work too hard to point out how one of a players units has performed consistently well and give is some recognisable characteristics, by giving it honours, naming it, emphasising its leader, or somesuch. Then the player gets to feel emotion when he decides whether to throw the unit into a bad situation, rather than just treating it as a tool and making a purely analytical decision on its utility.
Similarly, Far Cry 2 made efforts to ensure that the decision whether to save one of your mercenary friends or to preserve medical supplies is emotional. Portal also has something similar, though no choice in that case I don't think.
Having to choose between preserving or risking the reputation of your character (e.g. for trustworthiness) is a similar mechanic in many ways, but only if its fairly clear what sort of effect reputation may have in the future.
I think this suggestion may not be what most of the previous commenters were thinking of - the Witcher example above for instance only matters to a player very wrapped up in the story he's creating, because the designers haven't risked allowing the choice to matter - but I think they are moral choices that the player is likely to take seriously, and interesting for it.
Also, as a side point, I think most of these mechanics work best in open-world games. The more the player feels like they are being pushed down a predetermined script, the more they are going to wonder what the writer wants them to do (or assume that it can't matter which they choose).
Anyone remember Quest for Glory 3 and the thief in the game? There was a point in the game where you are imprisoned next to a thief. When you were set free (busted out of prison i fuzzily recall) you had the option of setting the thief free too. At the end of the game if you saved him, the thief pops out of shadows and diverts a mini-boss encounter that would weaken you before you have the final main boss confrontation.
If its done well, everyone likes it, but if it misses the mark then the game dissapears into obscurity. Morality gameplay has always had a place in gaming (hello, alignment systems in PnP RPG's), and is simply a mechanic that will always be around just like any other gameplay mechanic. There are games that have zero combat mechanics, so seeing games that have zero morality mechanics is no shocker. If its a well developed and fun mechanic, then by all means include it in a game, but if its disjointed and detracts from the game at large, then leave it out.
So, yes we should have morality mechanics in games, and the seriousness of them truly depends on the individual players and how they and their respective perspectives interpret the mechanics. Before we ask should we make games more serious, we should ask how serious is a game of chess, checkers, or tic tac toe?
Some variations on this that occur to me include making actors ethically ambiguous (GTA IV is "shades of gray"), or adding content that recognizes and rewards play that is consciously ethically neutral (Fallout 3 has a minimal implementation of this variation).
But maybe the most interesting approach is to let there be clearly good guys, clearly bad guys, and apparently neutral guys. Then let players make choices that have different consequences on multiple individuals and groups. In other words, allow both "good" and "bad" consequences to flow from a single action.
In this model of ethical play, players can choose to perform an action that is overtly "good" from the perspective of one NPC or group, but which will hurt another NPC or group. By choosing to help one person, the player knowingly chooses to harm another person. Deus Ex followed this model, and BioWare (as noted) seems to have embraced it pretty enthusiastically since at least KOTOR.
It's worth noting that what makes an ethical decision challenging is knowledge of what might happen depending on the choice one makes. The greater the perceived benefit and bane to others, the more ethically difficult the choice becomes. Picking one person or another for a game of touch football is probably innocuous, but having to decide whether to save the life of one person at the cost of a hundred others...
All of which is probably pretty obvious. The tricky part seems to be figuring out how to integrate meaning-based story choices into a utility-based system of gameplay rules. If one of the options of an apparently difficult ethical choice has clearly greater gameplay utility than another choice, many players will choose the former option (though some might hesitate) and never see the alternative consequences. At the same time, if every choice imposes equivalent good and bad consequences, players may eventually tire of the lack of clarity in gameplay direction.
So what are some rules of thumb for deciding which approach to ethical choices a particular game should implement?
You asked, "So what are some rules of thumb for deciding which approach to ethical choices a particular game should implement?"
What if moral choices were not tied to gameplay rewards/punishments but instead narrative paths? If properly designed, players should know which path each decision will take them down and focus on their personal moral values to decide which path to go down. The content of the path they chose is the "reward/punishment" without it affecting the gameplay progression.
But, I tend to think of the kinds of games that would have appropriate moral choices more like adventure games rather than a straight up FPS. Similar to what Kimberly is suggesting. A new genre that is designed around the gameplay of moral choices so that it doesn't conflict with the gameplay of another genre. However, I do think moral choices can exist in other genres, it's just more challenging.
But these games do already exist in an adventure/RPG construct -- the Japanese visual novel adventures mentioned by Dave above.
In the best (and even the not so good) of these games literally every choice you make can impact how the game plays out. Stay to study after school and you will find yourself only interacting with those of similar ilk; you will not uncover the nature loving girl/boy in the park or the 'bad eggs' hanging out at the bodega. Try to interact with everyone and you will not build an extensive relationship with anyone.
Have a bad first impression and one may never get as far as they would like with an individual. Be sweet with more than one person and unless you are going for one of the super secret harem endings, someone will eventually get hurt. Just pray the innocent darlin' you turn down does not show up at your door with a knife or sawed off shotgun.
And while all this is going on, you better still make time for your studies, time with family, a job and perhaps a bit of sleep.
- It should be clear what effect the decision might make, but not certain what difference it will make to the player, in the long-term at least.
- The morals must make sense in the game. People want to live in the game world, and that's usually a different place to the real world, so not all morals from the real world will translate naturally.
- The moral decisions should matter to the gameplay. Just briefly varying the story isn't enough for me.
- The moral decisions cannot have right/wrong answers. If they do, then they are just puzzles set by the writer. They can be left to regret a past decision, but they should still have a reason to keep playing. Suicide/Reload isn't good for immersion.
- Encourage some emotion from the player. Make picking how their character lives their life in the game a matter of visceral interest, not just a cold search for a good strategy.
The first point is probably the key for me. The rest are just my preferences.
as much as i understand the need of game design to leave choices to the player and be as open as possible i would really support the idea of "teaching morals" as long as you leave out religion or at least make a new one up for the game.
i also really like the approach dragon age is taking - it's much better to have NPCs react to your choices rather than knowing first if your choice will drift you further towards evil or good. it's a game but from a moral perspective this is far more advanced. after all you don't always know in RL whether your choice is good or bad!
one might argue that it's just a game and people don't want to be bothered with tough decisions. but i think since gaming takes up a lot of space of our social lifes there is somewhat of a responsibility to deal with the issue and give some substitute for the social input that people miss out by playing
"...i would really support the idea of "teaching morals" as long as you leave out religion..."
Then keep an eye out for my next blog article. I've been working on it for a couple months and it's about how to make a game that teaches moral life lessons through a tight coupling of narrative and gameplay.
@ Jonathan Lawn - "The moral decisions cannot have right/wrong answers. If they do, then they are just puzzles set by the writer. They can be left to regret a past decision, but they should still have a reason to keep playing. Suicide/Reload isn't good for immersion." I think this point is actually the most important one.
@Kimberly Unger - I think you're right that including moral decisions in an FPS would counteract that type of game and ulltimately please no one. I still believe an action game, not of the FPS kind, but a game that has levels of violence can have suitable moral choices that aren't black or white.
@Louis Varilias - you might be onto something there. Having choices emerge from play, rather than being predefined or defined in such a way that it is obvious but merely provide consequences for whatever actions are possible within the game. This exists in some regards already though, in GTA4 you notice how whenever you perform a crime more often than not the police will already be swarming to arrest you.
i'm cool with made up religions - i just would be very reluctant towards using real ones because they hold too much potential of pushing someone into a certain lifestyle. although ultimately a game that treats actual politics and religious questions on a really high level could be absolutely groundbreaking i think it is something we are still quite far away from.
the problem there being mainly that games just take a long time to make. maybe a game that comes in episodes of an hour or two worth of playtime once a month could do this but oh hell...would that be a lot of work....