308: Ethics Without a Net

[BloodSquirrel]

Thinking about this.......

Minecraft doesn't offer any moral choice, but it's nearly impossible to not suffer the consequences of your actions. No matter what, it saves what is going on. You can't quit the game without it saving what you have done up until that point, even if you use task manager to kill it.

In order to undo what you have done, you basically have to start your world from scratch in order to not do what you did.

Games with moral choices could learn from this system.

No, you just copy your save file. Which I do religiously, if just to avoid it being corrupted.

 

[Jachwe]

Funny thing utility is mentioned. Ever read Jeremy Bentham or John St. Mill? Utilitarianism is as valid a system to judge morality as any other action based system or intention based system. Maybe the majority of gamers use utilitarianism to determine which action is good. They as a sentient being are the only ones who matter and if they are happy with bigger stats than "impact of emotions" so be it. If you are happier with impact of emotions than bigger stats so be it too. This of course takes the morality system out of the game and into the real world. It does not matter what morale the game world does persue. You are not in the game so stop talking about morale and weight as if it mattered. It is a constructed world that has definite rules and a definite morale. Live with it or do not play the game if you are unhappy because that would be moraly bad (according to utilitarianism, you get the idea and now go read a book (on utilitarianism, because utility matters))

 

[Roboto]

Well, if in mass effect I could pull a massive 100,000cr loan from the Galactic Bank (which I'm sure is only like 1/100th the cost of the Normandy(2)), I wouldn't have need to search every container I come across. Unfortunately, loans are boring and realistic, so why would we want that?

My own argument is invalidated in that mining for minerals is also boring and realistic, which they were oh so happy to include.

 

[BrotherRool]

Gameplay itself is very hard to connect to a morality system because whatever we've decided rules us morally in our life just doesn't apply. Games are terrible about bringing about the immersion required to start applying your morality system because we are all to aware we are getting a programmed response and our actions have a designed outcome.

So I think, really only games like Heavy Rain will ever work, because the entire game is the story and the immersion and we don't get given the power to break it, whereas the gameplay of a game like GTA is directly at odds with whatever morality system they choose to implement.

So I think you're right that it shouldn't be about the rewards. Doing a good action for a better reward is no different from being bad and making the same choice because the reward is better. Only when the reward is having made the choice and seeing where it takes us can the morality have a meaning.

But even then, too often in becomes a problem with the programmer not being flexible. The natural and correct moral response when put in a difficult solution is to find another way, and you just can't make games work like that. All the moral choices in Mass Effect 2 were ruined, by shoe-horning the decisions into a good/bad system and not allowing us to take middle options which would have solved the system better. Instead of making a genuine moral choice we're just answering a survey the developers have given us that doesn't have enough boxes. That itself breaks from the immersion and turns it back into a game

 

[beema]

Great article, really gets to the core of the problem with morality systems in games.

I think games employ morality/choice mechanics in order to make the game feel deeper, more complex, and meaningful, but often times they make the game feel even more artificial and absurd because of the extremely unrealistic manner in which they work.
Certainly something I'd like to see more time and thought put in to before it continues to proliferate.

Loving issue 308!

 

[vxicepickxv]

I think there's one game series that's actually missing, but should be mentioned from this list. That series is Ultima.

If you can find Ultima 6, you are asked a series of questions with no wrong answers, but with difficult moral choices. Do you steal coins from a cash delivery job so a family can eat? Do you abandon your guard post to assist your allies in a war?

This is the kind of hardcore consequences for every action, sets the tone for how you are, and actually changes your stats at the START of the game. It's quite impressive, especially given how old the game is. I quite enjoyed it on my parents early generation 2x CD ROM system on their PC.

 

[Captain_M]

It's funny that you bring up "Red Dead Redemption."

I recall when I arrived in first city. I went into the bank, I strolled behind the counter, and as soon as I did the 'outlaw' light started flashing and the marshalls shot me dead. I restarted from my last save point. I reasoned that, since I had my gun drawn at the time, the marshalls might have misunderstood me. So I went back to the bank without my pistol drawn, went behind the counter....same thing. The morality system of the game was telling me it's wrong to go behid the counter...but I didn't do anything wrong, and, as a matter of fact, those marshalls were shooting me dead without even questioning me. I learned in the end not to ever go behind the counter, but it wasn't my morality that was askew.

 

[Vornek]

I'd just like to point out that the "3-minute-mages" link leads not to...well 3-minute-mages, but to the wikipedia site on JC Denton. The one that is supposed to lead to JC denton is correct though...ugh i'll try to be clearer, becuase i have no idea what i just said.

Page 1

All the talk about Damage Per Second, Heal over Time, or 3-Minute Mages proves that the mathematical foundation of the game, which is supposed to serve the larger experience, has for many players actually become the experience.

It is supposed to lead to http://www.wowwiki.com/Three-minute_mage
(or something similar that explains 3-minute-mages)

But it leads to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JC_Denton

The same link that this leads to:

Deus Ex's stealth options were a better reflection of the values I wanted to express through J.C. Denton, but the shooting options were more in line with what I wanted to play.

-V

 

[Steve Butts]

Funny thing utility is mentioned. Ever read Jeremy Bentham or John St. Mill? Utilitarianism is as valid a system to judge morality as any other action based system or intention based system. Maybe the majority of gamers use utilitarianism to determine which action is good. They as a sentient being are the only ones who matter and if they are happy with bigger stats than "impact of emotions" so be it. If you are happier with impact of emotions than bigger stats so be it too. This of course takes the morality system out of the game and into the real world. It does not matter what morale the game world does persue. You are not in the game so stop talking about morale and weight as if it mattered. It is a constructed world that has definite rules and a definite morale. Live with it or do not play the game if you are unhappy because that would be moraly bad (according to utilitarianism, you get the idea and now go read a book (on utilitarianism, because utility matters))

When Bentham and Mill speak of "utility" they meant a largely abstract and subjective sense of "happiness" or "satisfaction." So Utilitarianism is meant to lead us to actions which are likely to cause the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Which would you prefer: You and nine other people get ten dollars each? Or you get a hundred dollars and nine other people get nothing?

If you want to argue that NPCs aren't people according to this reading, we have to part ways. Part of the illusion of playing games is pretending that what we're doing matters. Once you step away from that, no consideration of morality of virtue will ever be relevant.

Utility in the sense I'm using it, simply means "usefulness" or "practicality." An earlier draft of this article explored the concept that the mechanics-driven decisions of certain World of Warcraft players does constitute a kind of morality, but that morality is NOT Utilitarianism.

 

[Wolfram23]

Because of this, I definitely like games that take care of saves for me. There's no quick save, no option of reloading just before some big choice happens. Of course this only offers a fun experience if there's enough checkpoints that you're not going to lose major progress by dying. I think Metro 2033 is a good example of it, and LA Noire seems to be pretty good with it as well although unfortunately the major plot point that revolves around some sort of morality (mind you I'm on the 2nd arson case so not finished yet) is completely out of the player's hand and in fact has very little development.

 

[The Random One]

I remember reading, a long time ago, someone talking about creating a game with a heavy focus on grey morality. That someone mentioned the letdown when he discussed the idea with game designers and was told that most players wouldn't really care for the weight of the choice and would just 'game' it, that is, take whichever choice gave one the most rewards (or if each gave equivalent but different rewards the one which fit their playstyle the most) or ignore its significance entirely if there were no rewards.

But I remember more a quest that did the morality system perfectly. It had two factions, neither of which were in the right, a lot of evil ways to complete it, and a single 'good' way that ended up backfiring. It was subtle and realistic and had weight.

Everyone fucking hates it.

I'm talking about the Tenpenny Tower quest in Fallout 3, of course. I unfortunately was spoilt of this quest beforehand, but feel that it's one of the few quests that actually puts the game's morality system to work. It does have a 'good' ending, yes - as in one that nets you good karma - but it doesn't have a really good ending. Because, you know, sometimes our actions have unforeseen consequences. Sometimes trying to do good ends up doing evil. Sometimes we trust people who betray our trust - and not even out of malice, simply of a completely different view of what that trust entails. It happens.

And, as I said, everyone fucking hates it. Everyone hates that they didn't see it coming (even though Roy Philips might as well be wearing a 'psycho of the year' tee). Everyone hates that they kill Dashwood as well (even though if he was spared that would cut the emotional impact of the whole thing to a tenth and he wouldn't sit idly or merely escape as it happened anyway). Everyone hates that the 'good' solution of the quest doesn't turn the world into rainbows and unicorns.

Sometimes that makes me thing gamers don't deserve mature games after all. What would they do with them?

But then again, even though everyone hates it, everyone also feels something about it. Even people who admit they see the game as the mesh of numbers and odds the article also mentioned will talk about how pissed off they were at that. That feeling? That is what a good work (a book, a movie, a song, a game) is supposed to make you feel. The burning means it's working. We need more of that.

Even if everyone will hate it.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

The problem as I see it is that I doubt video game morality systems can ever be anything but consequentialist, yet attempt to force an illusion of deontological ethics and objective morality onto the player. When a player sits down with a game that has multiple morality "paths", they've made a decision prior to playing about how they're going to play and all else is pursuant to that final cause. Moral choices in the game are not made in and for themselves, which is what the game would have the player believe, but for what consequences it will have.

This problem is compounded when game designers craft labels, which add a sense of objectivity to the game world being crafted. If a Shepard is paragon or renegade in Mass Effect, they are such because the designers have deemed a particular course of actions such. When incentives, alternate character growth methods, or plot paths for adhering to a particular moral path, and make deviating from that or playing in alternate ways detrimental (as, again, is the case in ME1/2), designers encourage or outright force players to adhere to the morality they've enforced upon the game.

That, by the way, is the reason KoTOR2 is one of my favorite games of all times when it comes to morality systems. Chris Avellone deconstructed the hell out of Star Wars' innate morality system, illustrating the would-be deontology of the Jedi is far more nefarious than advertised while showing the Sith to be far more deontological than expected, and I loved every second of it. Add in the fact Kreia is a notoriously unreliable narrator, known pathological liar and manipulator, yet pushes the character to elect morally-grey choices which forsake morality-based incentives, and you end up with a fourth-wall shattering deathblow to the light side/dark side mechanic.

The only solution as I see it is to chuck the whole idea out as holding game morality back. Throw out the illusion of deontology, get rid of incentives tying the player to a designer-enforced path, and let the player make up their minds for themselves whether their character is doing the "right" or the "wrong" thing, and whether their characters are good or evil. Dragon Age and New Vegas did a pretty good job of that while maintaining some vestiges, and they were dramatically better off for it. Let's get some postmodernism up in this bizzatch.

 

[weirdee]

People hated it? I thought it was freaking hilarious.

Another example from Fallout 3 being those people trapped in those stasis tubes by the psycho girl...

 

[Bostur]

I got the feeling that maybe ethics end up feeling inconsequential because we get too much freedom.

If a game dictates that we are the good guy or the bad guy, and the player then needs to play that role to the best of his abilities, maybe the smaller choices would matter more. Then to mix it up the game could face us with a variety of grey area options. I think in this way the game could combine utility and simulated morality better than trying to give us ultimate freedom.


Lets use the Star Wars setting for this example. In a game that puts the player in the role of playing a Jedi Knight, turning to the dark side would mean losing the game pure and simple. This wouldn't be much fun if we only were faced with goody goody options, or if the choices we face are black and white. But if we sometimes only have various degrees of shady options ethics might end up having more bite.

Imagine this situation:
Our saintly Jedi Knight is stranded on some remote planet. In order to save the world and kick some evil arse he needs to get off the planet.
Choices:
1. Steal a spaceship from an old lady.
2. Work with a known smuggler to get passage on his ship.
3. Rob some locals to get enough money for a ticket.
4. Do goodly deeds forever and let the bad guys take over the galaxy.

Now all of a sudden, ethics starts to bite bit a more. Being the good guy suddenly isn't the easy way out anymore.


I think this could easily work. One important question comes to my mind though. Is it fun? Do we really want that degree of ethics in a game? Or is ethics better of being simply another metric of success, another mechanic to be played at will?

 

[Jachwe]

When Bentham and Mill speak of "utility" they meant a largely abstract and subjective sense of "happiness" or "satisfaction." So Utilitarianism is meant to lead us to actions which are likely to cause the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Which would you prefer: You and nine other people get ten dollars each? Or you get a hundred dollars and nine other people get nothing?

If you want to argue that NPCs aren't people according to this reading, we have to part ways. Part of the illusion of playing games is pretending that what we're doing matters. Once you step away from that, no consideration of morality of virtue will ever be relevant.

Utility in the sense I'm using it, simply means "usefulness" or "practicality." An earlier draft of this article explored the concept that the mechanics-driven decisions of certain World of Warcraft players does constitute a kind of morality, but that morality is NOT Utilitarianism.

I see the error in my comment. That is I have put the word utility at the beginning and at the end without realising it. At the beginning I use it as you used it because the word was a nice label to an entrance point. At the end I used utility as in the concept of utilitarianism.
Well I think we have to part ways. If you think that morality does not matter even if you take a step back from the game your sense of morality is broken. Morality always matters. I have just showed how easy it is to have morality, real world morality, matter in a game. By evaluating how much fun the method of playing is for you, how much happiness and fulfilment it grants you and than according to your decision to persue the chosen method. I acknowledge differences in the quality of enjoyment that different people take from the same action.
You use the word "illusion" which is nice. You want to immerse yourself in a fake world and escape reality. Escaping for a limited amount of time from the rest of the world is fine. That is what alcohol is so popular for and yes also videogames. But to lose yourself in a constructed fake world to project yourself into the avatar of the game which is not you is a dangerous game you are playing. You always, always have to be aware of yourself, your real self, not a pretend self in form of a videogame character or some lelel 13 elven mage in a role playing game.
So no I will not step whole into the game world but always be aware that I am playing a game as I am always aware that I am watching a movie or reading a book. I am able to extract something out of it but taking part in it is just an illusion that videogames do better than other mass media. That is why videogames are so dangerous to young children who have yet to learn to differ between reality and fantasy. But this problem is not exclusive to viedogames.
But the good utilitarian I am I am obligated to allow you to fool yourself if it makes you happy.

 

[matrix3509]

The problem as I see it is that I doubt video game morality systems can ever be anything but consequentialist, yet attempt to force an illusion of deontological ethics and objective morality onto the player. When a player sits down with a game that has multiple morality "paths", they've made a decision prior to playing about how they're going to play and all else is pursuant to that final cause. Moral choices in the game are not made in and for themselves, which is what the game would have the player believe, but for what consequences it will have.

This problem is compounded when game designers craft labels, which add a sense of objectivity to the game world being crafted. If a Shepard is paragon or renegade in Mass Effect, they are such because the designers have deemed a particular course of actions such. When incentives, alternate character growth methods, or plot paths for adhering to a particular moral path, and make deviating from that or playing in alternate ways detrimental (as, again, is the case in ME1/2), designers encourage or outright force players to adhere to the morality they've enforced upon the game.

That, by the way, is the reason KoTOR2 is one of my favorite games of all times when it comes to morality systems. Chris Avellone deconstructed the hell out of Star Wars' innate morality system, illustrating the would-be deontology of the Jedi is far more nefarious than advertised while showing the Sith to be far more deontological than expected, and I loved every second of it. Add in the fact Kreia is a notoriously unreliable narrator, known pathological liar and manipulator, yet pushes the character to elect morally-grey choices which forsake morality-based incentives, and you end up with a fourth-wall shattering deathblow to the light side/dark side mechanic.

The only solution as I see it is to chuck the whole idea out as holding game morality back. Throw out the illusion of deontology, get rid of incentives tying the player to a designer-enforced path, and let the player make up their minds for themselves whether their character is doing the "right" or the "wrong" thing, and whether their characters are good or evil. Dragon Age and New Vegas did a pretty good job of that while maintaining some vestiges, and they were dramatically better off for it. Let's get some postmodernism up in this bizzatch.

Heh...I remember the first time I played KOTOR 2. There I was trying to be your generic goody-two-shoes Jedi Knight, stalwart-hero-of-the-land etc. Then BAM! Kreia blows my fucking mind by showing that my actions inevitably hurt more people than they help. Still one of the most profound moments I've ever witnessed in gaming.

 

[HellenicWarrior]

Come onnnn Black and White 3!
Let me build an amazing world and then burn it to the ground in full HD!

 

[Steve Butts]

Well I think we have to part ways. If you think that morality does not matter even if you take a step back from the game your sense of morality is broken. Morality always matters. I have just showed how easy it is to have morality, real world morality, matter in a game. By evaluating how much fun the method of playing is for you, how much happiness and fulfilment it grants you and than according to your decision to persue the chosen method. I acknowledge differences in the quality of enjoyment that different people take from the same action.

You use the word "illusion" which is nice. You want to immerse yourself in a fake world and escape reality. Escaping for a limited amount of time from the rest of the world is fine. That is what alcohol is so popular for and yes also videogames. But to lose yourself in a constructed fake world to project yourself into the avatar of the game which is not you is a dangerous game you are playing. You always, always have to be aware of yourself, your real self, not a pretend self in form of a videogame character or some lelel 13 elven mage in a role playing game.

So no I will not step whole into the game world but always be aware that I am playing a game as I am always aware that I am watching a movie or reading a book. I am able to extract something out of it but taking part in it is just an illusion that videogames do better than other mass media. That is why videogames are so dangerous to young children who have yet to learn to differ between reality and fantasy. But this problem is not exclusive to viedogames.
But the good utilitarian I am I am obligated to allow you to fool yourself if it makes you happy.

I'm confused. Or maybe you're confused. I can't tell. You say in your first post that morality in games does not matter, then in your second post to say that it always matters.

Whatever the case, you're missing the purpose of immersing your identity in a videogame character. You say I'm fooling myself but isn't that the whole point? Art is meant to broaden your perspective, but you can't do that unless you're willing to invest some of yourself in another point of view. Yes, a healthy mind understands that the sublimation of your self into another character is an illusion, but the fun of it is in taking the illusion seriously while it lasts.

 

[Panayjon]

One of my favorite games ever is Way of the Samurai.

It had lots of avenues but was short enough that I didn't feel intimidated by my choices. Everything you did had consequence but because one play through could be finished in a few hours at most, I wasn't afraid to just do what I wanted.

My problem with games like say, Fallout, is that the freedom of choice and myriad of moral choices is just too overwhelming for a 40+ hour game. If I want to see the long-term consequences of what I do, I'll have to wait A LONG time. Even if I had nothing but free time its still a lot to ask of a curious player.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

It wasn't a major point of the game. The overall consequences of taking the action or not don't change at all, beyond an easily aquirable and expendable healing item. But dangit, I still remember the old man calling me out in Chrono Trigger's Trial for eating his lunch.