Final Personal Enquiry

Morality Systems in games: The Good, the bad ugly

Howdy Folks!

Have you ever walked down a street on a fine day and you come across a lonely ant struggling across the pavement. You ponder whether you should let it be or put it out of its tiny misery. This my friends is a moral choice and these choices have been implemented in the video games we play and for this last personal enquiry I will be looking in depth at morality systems in video games.

Since the initiation of the gaming industry, morals have been the basis of the earliest story-based video games like the first of Super Mario, Metal slug, Sonic and resident evil etc. The moral system is applied through problem-based  puzzles, highlighting a clear goal- stop the menace, save the day. For instance, the main protagonist represents the good (courtesy,compassion, flowers etc.- all which is deemed socially virtuous by today’s standards) whilst the antagonist represents the ‘bad’ (darkness, close-mindedness, backwardness-a complete contrast). To a degree, the protagonist vs the antagonist can also be witnessed in some indie games today e.g super meat boy, animated films and every episode of Pokemon ever!

This struggle between good and evil has been a reoccuring theme in human history especially today. I believe it is the change in social conduct throughout history that has heavy influence on morality systems in games. Here’s a little history lesson.

The Romans and Egyptians kept slaves and the roman’s are most notorious for brewing slaves into gladiators. the Spartans abandoned Spartan children deemed unfit to join the army. The Aztecs orchestrated sacrificial rituals. So, ancient civilisations were pretty barbaric. Further on, the middle ages was also ‘a morally grey’ period. Social outcasts (e.g. witches, lepers, prostitutes) experienced severe social stigma, heretics were even burned alive. Pope Urban II, the head of the catholic church sparked the crusade wars, which led to the deaths of an estimated 4 million people.

Heretics burnt alive in medieval times.

Although,Churchill’s liberal reforms of the early 1900’s, paved the road for equality, human rights acts and converted the UK to a welfare state, the period saw the greatest two wars in human history.

In contemporary society, many people are a lot more open minded towards liberal and democratic behaviour,it’s part of being ‘decent’ people. I’m certainly not saying we are completely moral people ,websites like ‘worldstarhiphop’ have certainly proved this, but we’ve definitely come far from our barbaric ancestors who once roamed the earth.

Subsequently, I believe the games I spoke of before are a reflection of our change in moral behaviour. Games could be interpreted as -the protagonist (contemporary society-moral) vs.the antagonist( the old age-immoral). I draw my hypothesis from every game were the villain is an ancient evil.

Yet, as technology advances, artificial intelligence improves and game artist become...more ‘arty’, morality systems are being incorporated in video games in new ways in the video games of the progressing 2000’s. Ultimately, the concept of morality is exposed from different perceptions. I will be looking at two ways in which developers have done this: realism and choice making.

Comi-con convention goers

In many, if not most-story based action games, the main protagonist is by no means pure good, in fact I would go as far to calling them ‘anti-heroes’. Take the main characters of the best-selling action games Soap Mactavish, Drake, Niko Bellic and Solid Snake, Primarily,they are all murderers, but we don’t necessarily view them as such. Even in comic books, super heroes fight crime but break the law. The main aim in the video game ‘Payday’ is to rob vaults and kill cops. Although it is virtual, we hardly address these protagonists as evil characters, in fact we celebrate them, just look at comi-con conventions.

Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)

I believe this is what blogger ‘Rabbithen’ coined as ‘competence porn’. This is the theory, that humans are fascinated in observing people who are very skilled at a particularly interesting job, because we ourselves would like to have such control ourselves regardless of whether it is a good or bad act. This is a very valid explanation for why characters like Walter white, an outstanding drug maker/ dealer and tactician are also very popular in the tv world. It is this aspect in today’s media and our behaviour to it that reflects that Aristotelian view on morality written in ‘Nicomachean ethics’ where Aristotle suggests virtue lies in human excellence ‘activity of the soul’: human completion and happiness.

Another way games are developing morality in video games is in choice mechanics. Games with choice e.g. ‘Bioshock’, ‘Mass Effect’, ‘Fable’ allow players to occupy a more invested role in the game world. Choices like deciding who lives or dies are moral questions albeit very simple. The more evil choices you make in Fable 3, the more your physique takes the form of a Satan-esque character and vice versa. Subsequently, they are a fair interpretation of moral dilemmas that exist today.

However ‘fair’ may not does not necessarily mean ‘true’ and with influences from the works of Daniel Flloyd, James Portnow and Chris Rio, I’ll explain to you the problem of morality systems in games and why they are imperfect.

Firstly, thinking logically morality systems in video games are difficult for developers to design, for a major reason...Money. Think about it, choices creates more options/ variables which leads to more content, more content requires more developers or longer working hours, thus costing more money.

That lovely green stuff

Secondly, choices which are simple to make, such as ‘save an old man’ with the reward of xp/ money take away from the invested role players had. The game almost urges you to do the right thing, so the system of morals is bias. I’ll give you an example [Spoiler!], in the penultimate mission of ‘Saints Row 3’ you must decide whether to save shaundi or pursue killbane and achieve revenge. it is an interesting decision yet the song ‘ I need a hero’ is playing in the background. Thus, the choice crumbles into an easy to solve puzzle than a moral decision.

Furthermore.not only are good decisions easy to make in games, I always notice how evil decisions are always more radical. Writer Chris Rio calls this the ‘save the puppy, kill the puppy paradox’ and explains “when faced with a decision, the bad decision tends to be way more extreme compared to the good option. the good option is basically ‘neutral’ or something that any decent person would do in real life’. being the bad guy sometimes is, it always feels like fan fiction. Clearly the ‘good’ endings are the ‘right’ ones. But games have the potential to be the most innovative storytelling medium in history, and we should explore more beyond binary choices”

In ‘The Categorical Imperative’ famous Philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) states “it is impossible to conceive anything in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without limitation, save only a good will”. In other words only acts done with a good intention are good. Therefore shouldn’t an evil decision done out of sympathy be good? alas, many games don’t recognise this.

Alright, Alright so Morality systems are not perfect, but how can they be resolved?

If the issue is money, Floyd suggests that developers could hide statistical value of choices made, just as Dayz has done or re-use content showing the effects of the players decisions. Both ways are cheap and interesting, the former allows players to create their own perception of morality which is realistic because morality is arguably subjective, whilst the latter allows players to take up a more invested role in the gaming world.

Floyd states “ what makes moral questions interesting is how endlessly debatable they can be” which could lead to another option of implementing choice into games, adding consequences to every decision regardless of its moral nature. For instance, faction based games , ‘Fallout: New Vegas’, ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R’., ‘Everquest’, ‘Dragon Age’- show your impacts in the world have positive and negative effects to certain people. For instance, choosing to cut down a tree might build a house for dying human orphans but that tree might be a wood elves home. Decisions like these address real human dilemma.

Lastly, just’ remove the damn ‘good vs evil’ scale from decision making! The world does not need to see this, instead replace it with ‘The needs of the many vs. the rights of the few’ argument. This is a more interesting and a dilemma that every country addresses, in fact Floyd comprised this diagram  to show how choice should be operated. 

An example of this debate put to work was in ‘The Pitt’ expansion of ‘Fallout 3’. [spoiler alert] towards the end of the game you are faced with a decision, to kill an innocent infant whose genetics hold the key to cure the slaves or kill the slave leader and stop a child being taken from its parents. It’s this type of decision making which are much more practical and convincing moral decisions reflective of contemporary moral dilemmas.

The child of 'The Pitt'

Phew! that was a lot to think about, thanks for staying with me.

Therefore I will conclude, morality systems in video games are a wonderful concept and a few games pull it off, but like the ‘Dayz standalone’ it’s not quite there yet. Morality is a complicated topic for humans to solve and in video games it should be treated as such. However, if developers follow in the light of games like Fallout who have developed morality well, perhaps video games may be able to do some...good for society.

Thanks for reading..oh and don't go killing any ants, unless its the queen of swarm of mutant killer ants, then kill the bastard!