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A Question of Morality
During the Q&A period of the panel, “Writing for Fantasy Game Worlds,” an audience member asked a follow-up question about meaningful choices and ended with “Do you think games can teach moral ethics?” Taken aback, I blurted, “But who decides....” Is it really our role as game developers to make games that teach morality and if so, what kind of morality?
After all, in some games, you are a hero but also a psychopathic killer. “It’s all a matter of perspective,” said one developer to me. You’ve slaughtered beings by the dozens, but somehow, it’s OK because you were defending the plight of Light vs. Dark, A or B, or some other dichotomy. Alright, but what about that time when you hunted a species to near-extinction just because some dude asked you to fetch ten ichors? Or those villagers who pleaded with you, “Please save us!” and still, you went in and stole everything you could from the poor saps.
But wait... it’s just a game, right? So what if a bunch of pixels got wasted (or defrauded)? They’re going to respawn anyway. There’s no permadeath in videogameland. If I engage in homicidal thrills by killing everyone in the castle, I just have to press ‘Reset’ later. I may be involved in the bloodiest deathmatch ever, but I know that my buddy is sitting right next to me on the couch.
Certainly, games have explored morality before with your basic good, evil, and neutral. Those with D&D leanings may have more modifiers – chaotic neutral, lawful good, etc. Can games really nudge a person’s moral leaning either way? As the co-author of the book, Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform, I am aware of groups who want to use games in order to sway or enforce opinions. I’m all for presenting a point of view in games, but as for teaching moral ethics, games, particularly those with a simplistic view of life, may not be the best tool. If I choose an obviously evil/wrong dialog option, I may be looking for amusement instead of jumping at the chance to explore my moral code. C’mon, what’s more fun?
Offhand, I do recall a serious game about moral ethics, but more exactly, it taught you which activities would land you in prison if you got caught. While I’m not so convinced games can teach moral ethics, I do think that with meaningful choices, we could create game experiences that get players thinking about morality. As a game writer and designer, I want meaningful experiences. When I argue for more meaningful games, I’m not saying that all games have to be about weighty topics, but that I’d like to see entertainment games that provoke discussion beyond “How do I get that great loot?” or “Where’s a good walkthrough?”
If you make meaningful games, then you take care to avoid a conflict between story and game systems. Your game has a theme, a point of view that is not necessarily about morality, but it’s about something that elicits a response from people. If you want people to care deeply about characters made out of pixels, then you need an emotional hook.
But back to moral ethics: In 2006, I had the opportunity to work on a game that was all about moral choices. Hate it or love it, the Witcher did present situations that made people think about their personal morality. If you played without spoilers, then you just had to go with your gut and decide what to do because there was no right or wrong choice. Sometimes, you didn’t have all the information and you still had to make a decision. Kinda like life.
The Witcher was not about teaching moral ethics, but it did generate debate about moral ethics on the player boards. Players argued about the factions in the game and which side was more deserving of support. Players wanted to avoid killing dogs that were not doing anything but being dogs. Some even took considerable precautions to keep a tagalong dog from harm. Others created a mod so as to avoid the choice of killing Vincent the werewolf, an ally, for a superduper alchemical ingredient.
I am glad for all of that debate because in the end, it really is about the players. As much as game creators or academics can say that a game is meaningful, it doesn’t matter unless players interact with that meaning. If all the game press and public care about is the fun factor, graphics, and great sound quality, then games will never be considered an art form on par with film and literature. I’m not saying that fun factor, graphics, and great sound quality are throwaway features, but why not mesh it with meaning?
A co-founder of Writers Cabal, Sande Chen is a writer and game designer. Her past game writing credits include 1999 Independent Games Festival winner TERMINUS. In 2008, she was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award in Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing for her work on THE WITCHER. While attending the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California, she was nominated for a Grammy in music video direction. She has spoken at numerous game conferences on topics such as narrative design, serious game development, and women in game development.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I think if you care about the characters and the story, you will care about the choices you have to make (especially if those choices effect the characters). I can remember quite a few in Mass Effect that were hard decisions because I cared about the characters effected by those choices. SPOILERS!!! I really wanted Wrex to believe me that I was on his side (and was infuriated by the girl killing him while I was trying to talk to him (that made the decision about who to save between her and the other human ally very easy, I even was mean about it). That's just one of the simpler examples, but I definitely cared about what happened. Now, in oblivion, I didn't really care too much about the NPCs, so I had a lot of fun destroying them. I think if the game makes you feel like you're the main character (which really is the goal in most games) then I think you will naturally care about the people around you as well. LIke Mikail Yazbeck said, some people just enjoy carnage and blowing S**t up, those people won't recognize art in games, movies, or anything else for that matter if it crouch-jumped itself to their camping position and assassinated them.
>> If all the game press and public care about is the fun factor, graphics, and great sound quality, then games will never be considered an art form on par with film and literature.
People with no imagination need to be told if something is art or not. They need to organize a committee, to vote for a list, and then put in a book to decide if something is 'art'. The motions of sophistication complete, these dim, unfeeling people are now art critics.
Whether or not games have built in moral dilemmas to elicit debates and 'think-sessions' before a button press is sort of moot, why?
Well because anybody who picks up a game, be it Bioshock, Mass Effect, or The Witcher(all listed for their obvious inclusions of excellent debatable elements) plays those games with a certain level of involvement.
I personally play games with very personal attachment and my choices in the game usually(say 90% of the time) reflect who I am in real life.
I played The Witcher and Mass Effect multiple times, and I cannot tell you how hard it was for me to make the alternate "evil" choices per se, just so I could see the other content.
On the other hand...
You have some people like some old roommates of mine, who will never be interested in any dilemmas, story, emotion, or intrinsically artistic value a game has in it.
They are just playing to have mindless fun, to look at pretty graphics and shoot things.
A choice quote comes to mind while I watched them play Bioshock.
"Oooh snap dawg you just wacked that crooked B*tch with lead pipe, dats tha dopest sh*t
I ever, etc, etc...."
The point is you can't bet on all your customers to understand your aim as a game designer or story teller. So in essence your focus needs to be on all fronts.
In my book I have many names for types of players, casual, bored, buffoons, loudmouth critics, etc, etc.
Those same people you quote are the same people who walk into a Museum and complain about having to be there. They are the same people who consider a quality Movie to be Die Hard 4.
There will always be people who don't appreciate art no matter what its form.
There are also people who can appreciate this work. I meet them all the time. I am one of them. I look for the cunumdrum faced by the protagonist. I read between the lines of the story to find out what is really going on with it.
I also love entertainment with strong commentary in it. I really enjoy games that make me think about real life counterparts to in game events, people, and places.
There a lot of different players of games just as there are a lot of different types of games. We will see more in the future.
Is it adequate to speak of meaning as a property of a game? Isn’t meaning something you create yourself while playing by allowing your emotions and mind to accept the conditions at hand and play along?
If meaning(fullness) is viewed as a property of a game then questions concerning morality definitely become something to put on the top of the agenda. “A meaningful game” is then predefined as something morally justified (or not) already from the beginning. But we know that meaning(fullness) and morality not necessarily stand on the same side when it comes to rationality. The rational choice has different motives depending on situation, and the choice can be seen as guided by meaning but not necessarily by any morality at all.
The player is of course limited in his or hers actions by the structure and the core concept of the game but I think one should be careful not to equal that structure to an expression of moral preferences or predefined “meaning”. That would be to simplify the issue too much. But if publishers really want their game to “tell” something or to create a situation for the player “where you have to choose between this or that and face the consequences” because they have something to convey, then they have to take the full responsibility partaking in the discourse of morality in (their) games. And the argument “it’s just a game” becomes invalid as there are morally sanctioned instrumental factors intentionally put “at play” in the game. And this irrespective of whether the player is aware of these factors or not.
As I see it, it all comes down to intentions. Last week there was a demonstration outside Ubisoft’s San Francisco office where protests against the “America’s Army” game were in focus. The game is free and developed by the US Army to teach the values of the army (so it’s said) and even to be used as a recruitment tool. The protesters claimed the game targeted underaged teenagers and flashed a banner which said “War is not a game”. The whole project is funded by the Dep. of Defense and one of the reasons why the demonstration was held outside Ubisoft is because they administer the console versions of the T-rated game. Teenagers waging war in a game which is made for recruiting soldiers seem to transform into an activity with different implications than “just a game” when intentions and concept teeter on the brink of illegality.
The moral war is something that needs to be waged but perhaps in a different way and with different actors than the ones encountered on the screen. The responsibility that weighs heavily on a publisher is the self assessment of its place in a bigger picture than just a unit producing entertainment. Being aware of – and taking the responsibility for – the fact that games mean a lot to a lot of people is important, but that doesn’t mean the games themselves need to be laden with meaning.
Games can be laden with meaning regardless of any moral war, just like film. I think it's important that they are allowed to be, so that the artform can be moved forward.
Absolutely. But there’s a difference between moral intentions and art when it comes to meaning (even though some people never make a distinction). The first charges the game with predefined values and should therefore consequently call for moral responsibility, the latter is an expression of creativity and is subjectively justified “in the eyes of the beholder”.
Philip Arcan