Should games have bad/antisocial/psychopathic moral codes

[Yopaz]

That's because he's not a game reviewer.

I know that its just i think having a fun game is more important then having historically accurate or good moral game.

Well if you are reviewing a game you still need to look at moral aspects of a game, so that is never to be excluded. However Extra Credits was not reviewing the game so their opinions on the game was a whole are irrelevant for the video. Talking about gameplay would be like a game reviewer talking about the box art. No matter how interesting they make the box art review it doesn't affect the quality of the game.

 

[Aegis A'Sha'Se]

Games like Dragon Age and Geneforge didn't have morality systems, they had an influence system. They were just as effective as any morality system, if not better.

That is a good point, but I personally found games like Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic one and two, and arguably Mass Effect to be more interesting, because while there was influence with the party members and so on, you could ignore the influence entirely and just do things your way, which was where the morality systems shined.

And it added relative replay value, just to find out how things would happen if you went around kicking orphans in the shins instead of giving them lollipops.

Actually, come to think of it, I want to see a game where the morality systems uses an blue-and-orange morality, instead of a black-white.
For example, kick the orphans in the shins so they can't go on a bus trip to the place you are going to blow up or something abstract like that.

 

[Daffy F]

A world war 2 game where you play a nazi

This wouldn't be bad if it were just like a 'Call of Duty' style of story, where the plot is advanced by the gameplay, and as such it doesn't really matter what holds the gunfights together, as long as it plays well.
However, this would have to tip-toe around some nasty topics, such as being forced to execute jews, say, as some normal German soldiers were ordered to do during the war, or things in that area.

I think the reason games can't handle more mature content is because Games are designed to be escapist experiences, which are exciting, or fulfilling in some way. I don't think a game where you were forced to execute jews as a Nazi would be a particularly fun escapism, do you?

That said, I do think Games as a medium can probably handle more adult themes than they seem to be allowed in the current climate. I think this is because developers in general at the moment seem to prefer a guaranteed sale to any kind of thought-provoking deepness to a game.

 

[Xanadu84]

If a game is ironic, that excuses an anti-social moral code. The purpose of the game is catharsis, and entertainment does not need to have redeeming moral value to be enjoyable. Art is a very broad concept, and has room for simple power fantasies.

If the games moral code underlies some deeper philosophical point, that also excuses an anti-social code. In Bioshock, you can murder little girls. But this enforces the criticism of Objectivist philosophy underpining Rapture. Objectivism is being put through the ringer, and so killing little girls reflects poorly on the Objectivist who can do so and remain philosophically consistent with Objectivism. Other times, it is more Academic, such as simply exploring the point of view of a Nazi. That shooting enemy soldiers feels remarkably similar from the perspective of a Nazi is an idea worth exploring. And lastly, at its most basic, Immoral choices simply stand in contrast with the moral ones, and moral choices only have weight because immoral choices exist.

And so, that explains away almost all criticisms of all games as being immoral. In fact, the only major release game I can think of that fails at doing these things is Call of Juarez: The Cartel. That game is a genuine piece of racist trash.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

It's not a problem with games's morals but more with the politically correct which forces the game developers to tone down the "immoral" content. Even films aren't immune to that.

 

[Forgetitnow344]

I don't know if the ending had any redeeming qualities (because I can't remember), I'm pretty sure Destroy All Humans! was an antagonistic perspective. I mean, I don't know what constructive purpose there was for picking up a truck and slamming it into buildings for hours on end, but that's what I did.

On the topic, were the sequels as fun? I'd love to play them.

 

[lacktheknack]

Games like Dragon Age and Geneforge didn't have morality systems, they had an influence system. They were just as effective as any morality system, if not better.

That is a good point, but I personally found games like Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic one and two, and arguably Mass Effect to be more interesting, because while there was influence with the party members and so on, you could ignore the influence entirely and just do things your way, which was where the morality systems shined.

And it added relative replay value, just to find out how things would happen if you went around kicking orphans in the shins instead of giving them lollipops.

Actually, come to think of it, I want to see a game where the morality systems uses an blue-and-orange morality, instead of a black-white.
For example, kick the orphans in the shins so they can't go on a bus trip to the place you are going to blow up or something abstract like that.

That's kind of what I was referring to.

No one has actually played Geneforge, it seems (;_, and it had my favorite decision/consequence system. The game gave you a moral quandary ("If our own creations become sentient, are they equals?"), gave you multiple factions who weighed in on the subject, then sat back and gave you a bittersweet ending no matter WHAT you do. You could do your own thing if you wanted, and sometimes your actions could have unexpected results, but the game didn't have a clear line drawn in the sand. Sure, acting one way would net you goodwill and anger from the different factions, but there wasn't any clear canonical "the good ending is this" path (the series refuses to call any ending of any game canonical, often carefully retconning ALL the endings to get that across).

Plus, it has MORE replay value. Black and White and even Blue and Orange morality gives you at most three endings: Good, Bad, and Neutral. Geneforge 2 had:

1. Sentient creations are subhuman, all glory to our leaders
2. Sentient creations are subhuman, down with our leaders
3. Sentient creations are equals, all glory to our leaders
4. Sentient creations are equals, down with our intolerant leaders
5. Sentient creations are BETTER than their creators, DIE EVERYONE DIE
6. OMG THIS IS AN ABOMINATION DIE EVERYONE DIE (yes, really)

...Plus half a dozen adjusting factors, such as whether you participated in wildly illegal activities or not, even for a good cause.

 

[Batou667]

Games where you play as Nazis have been around for a while. Take the original Battlefield: 1942 for example.

A game with a Nazi *protagonist*... now that I'm not holding my breath for. That's not to say it couldn't be tastefully done or even a solid and fun game, it's just that "Nazis are bad, mmm'kay" is so deeply entrenched that the more reactionary segments of society would start doing backflips in disgust at the mere premise.

 

[Darkmantle]

My base point is, are there any movies like it? if so, go nuts.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

IMO, its one thing for a game to be absent a moral code, like GTA, Saint's Row, Prototype, etc. Those games allow you to be evil, but you are only as evil as you want to be. My Saint's Row character might be a mass murderer and a sociopath, but he's not sexist or a pedophile. Its quite another for a game to go out of its way to portray something like Nazism or racism and force the player to support it. I'd feel very uncomfortable with a game if the main character, say, was a child molester, and the game didn't condemn it, and even expected me to support him by keeping him alive or accomplishing his goals. I simply don't see the point, when so many stories can be told that don't need that.

Its like the whole "For/Against killing Children in games" I've nothing against killing children. I mean, its not like it never happens in real life. However, I don't feel that ANY game would be at all improved by the addition of child killing, nor would any story be improved by making you kill a child.

 

[Terminal Blue]

A world war 2 game where you play a German soldier is fine. Heck, submarine simulations have been doing it for a while, occasionally even inserting subtle political commentary or glossing over issues of war crimes (a lot of people apparently asked why the Silent Hunter games never included lifeboats or survivors, the developer response was basically that they'd set out to simulate the tactical elements of submarine warfare, not to promote the ideology of total war which allowed for real enemy combatants to be shot or left to drown. It was a fair enough explanation - and one I respect personally, as my grandfather served in the British merchant navy).

A world war 2 game where you play a concentration camp guard or a member of the einsatzgruppen, or where your character casually murders Jewish children. Gratuitous and not so cool.

I'm actually a fan of the Paragon/Renegade system, because whichever side you play in that system your actions make sense. There are a couple of dodgy decisions here and there, but overall you can see how either method represents a viable way to accomplish your goals. It's just whether you do so by assfucking everyone with a shotgun or hugging them and telling them it's not their fault.

What bugs me is that in the majority of moral choice systems, one or both of the decisions will often make no sense. Sometimes they're just dumb, and other times they just seem to have a really odd notion of what constitutes good and evil. Why would an 'evil' person go around randomly being a dick to people, as opposed to being superficially nice to them and then using and discarding them like a cold blooded psychopath? For that matter why would a 'good' person necessarily want to 'befriend' or 'save' people who don't live up to their moral standards anyway?

I guess what I'm saying is that inserting 'evil' stuff just for the sake of it is immature, and it's a phase gaming as a whole seriously needs to grow out of. Include it when it makes sense as part of a developed story, not so angsty beta-male teenage boys can touch themselves as they think about shooting the big boys who beat them up.

 

[Swifty714]

You have a mighty large pair to put this up.

On with the topic now.

As you can see, some games have already tried such things, and failed. We all know of the game called 'Custer's Revenge'. This game, while still 8-bit, was less than morally acceptable, and was quite racist. This caused a big stir-up. Other infamous games such as Mortal Kombat and Night-trap have put us back, and only caused the stereo type that video-games mess with people's head (And fit your description for what needs to be made). To name a more recent title, Dante's Inferno, caused quite a bit of ruckus. i won't go into details, but lets just say EA pissed quite a few groups off.

In short, our medium just cannot afford to produce these games, and give our 'art form' a bad name.

 

[Batou667]

We all know of the game called 'Custer's Revenge'. This game, while still 8-bit

You sure about that?

 

[Azure9]

Thanks for all of responses

This discussion was very enlightening

 

[Gregg Lonsdale]

Video games should follow the exact same moral code that film and television follow, no more, no less. I could elaborate but I don't feel it's necessary

 

[Daffy F]

A world war 2 game where you play a nazi

This wouldn't be bad if it were just like a 'Call of Duty' style of story, where the plot is advanced by the gameplay, and as such it doesn't really matter what holds the gunfights together, as long as it plays well.
However, this would have to tip-toe around some nasty topics, such as being forced to execute jews, say, as some normal German soldiers were ordered to do during the war, or things in that area.

I think the reason games can't handle more mature content is because Games are designed to be escapist experiences, which are exciting, or fulfilling in some way. I don't think a game where you were forced to execute jews as a Nazi would be a particularly fun escapism, do you?

That said, I do think Games as a medium can probably handle more adult themes than they seem to be allowed in the current climate. I think this is because developers in general at the moment seem to prefer a guaranteed sale to any kind of thought-provoking deepness to a game.

In World At War there was a part where you could burn Nazis soliders alive as they were surrendering. Even though they died regardless the choice was still there. Not to mention No Russian in MW2.

There's already games like that, for example you have Ethnic Cleansing, a game were you can murder blacks, hispanics, asians (I think) and finally jews. As WWII games were you play the nazis, I think RTS like Company of Heroes come close to that (of course, we get treated with german soldiers trying to defend their country instead of mass murdering nazis). As for sick fetish games, I think RapeLay it's one.

EDIT: I remember another morally poor game, but I'm not too sure about because I haven't figured out how to run it on my pc, it's called Harvester.

This is just plain ignorance and stupidity. Not every German Soldier was a mass murdering Nazi, and not every Nazi took pleasure in the killing of Jews. They were ordered to.

I suppose you make a valid point. I think 'No Russian' in MW2 is a better approximation to that of the level in WaW, as in that the Russians were killing soldiers that they considered to be responsible for the damage done to their homeland earlier in the war, 'No Russian' was about the mass murder of innocent civilians who were running for their lives.

 

[Chalacachaca]

I'm hoping for a Brother In Arms style game where you play as the Germans.

Sticking to a moral code is stupid. However breaking a moral code too far will kill a game. If a game is clearly disgusting and appalling it makes a very small target audience so it's not worth making. There's also the ESRB that has to approve games before release. Manhunt 2 was almost never released at all.
However I don't see anything wrong with a World War 2 game where you're a Nazi, most soldiers were just doing their job. However most gamers want to be on the winning side. After completing ll the missions of a game and doing a good job of getting it right you don't want to lose the war you were fighting. Games based on real wars are usually trying to have a minimum of realism so Germany winning the war is ruled out.

I guess you are all right. These games would sell bad if they were mainstream. I am glad myself they are not. The reason why i thought of this topic was because i was watching an episode of extra credits and during this episode the narrator kept saying how horrible certain games were because they were historical incorrect or immoral. Oddly I wasn't thinking that, I was thinking about when will he get to the part about how bad or good the gameplay was and he never talked about that part.

The game he was talking about was call of juarez the cartel

That's because he's not a game reviewer.

That's a pretty poor example to come up with. Plenty of games have endings were the protagonist doesn't win. Plus it's a chance to show just how the losing German Soldiers were handling the end of the war.

A world war 2 game where you play a nazi

This wouldn't be bad if it were just like a 'Call of Duty' style of story, where the plot is advanced by the gameplay, and as such it doesn't really matter what holds the gunfights together, as long as it plays well.
However, this would have to tip-toe around some nasty topics, such as being forced to execute jews, say, as some normal German soldiers were ordered to do during the war, or things in that area.

I think the reason games can't handle more mature content is because Games are designed to be escapist experiences, which are exciting, or fulfilling in some way. I don't think a game where you were forced to execute jews as a Nazi would be a particularly fun escapism, do you?

That said, I do think Games as a medium can probably handle more adult themes than they seem to be allowed in the current climate. I think this is because developers in general at the moment seem to prefer a guaranteed sale to any kind of thought-provoking deepness to a game.

In World At War there was a part where you could burn Nazis soliders alive as they were surrendering. Even though they died regardless the choice was still there. Not to mention No Russian in MW2.

There's already games like that, for example you have Ethnic Cleansing, a game were you can murder blacks, hispanics, asians (I think) and finally jews. As WWII games were you play the nazis, I think RTS like Company of Heroes come close to that (of course, we get treated with german soldiers trying to defend their country instead of mass murdering nazis). As for sick fetish games, I think RapeLay it's one.

EDIT: I remember another morally poor game, but I'm not too sure about because I haven't figured out how to run it on my pc, it's called Harvester.

This is just plain ignorance and stupidity. Not every German Soldier was a mass murdering Nazi, and not every Nazi took pleasure in the killing of Jews. They were ordered to.

Yeah I know, that's why I stated that before someone would say that you could control a group of mass murdering nazis. There's still people who believe that germans in WWII were all evil psychopaths while forgetting groups like White Rose or the Edelweiss Pirates, and even certain germans who risked their lives just so they could help unjustly prosecuted people (not only jews, but also minorities, ethnic groups, non-heterosexuals, etc).