[Discussion] Morality in games

[Eriixas]

Hello everyone.

Lately I've been thinking about state of morality in video games. Limitations exist within the games we play and sometimes for a good reason. Games for kids shouldn't have extreme violence, but where does the limit for extremities lie in games for adults? Do we even need these limits to dictate how far our games can go? Events depicted in virtual worlds are contained in save files and in no way may alter reality around us, therefore, why is it wrong to murder virtual people, and not just the men, but the women and the children, too?

What do you think? I'd like to keep this discussion within singleplayer or base game experiences as multiplayer interactions with other players warrant entirely another discussion.

[SnarkyJay]

I have no problems with game developers putting gratuitous violence in their games, but if it's extremely disturbing, like Hatred, I might not play it. Just because I don't play it, doesn't mean I have an issue with others playing it though. I play games with gore all the time, heck, I love The Evil Within, and that game is crazy gory, but sadistic violence towards innocent people sometimes bothers me. I think it also has to do with how realistic it is. For example, The Evil Within takes place in a dream world, and the violence is so over the top unrealistic it doesn't bother me as much as a game where you are torturing and killing people in a realistic manner. The torture scene in GTAV bothered me, but I powered through it to play the rest of the game. If the torture in GTAV was a normal game mechanic as opposed to a one shot deal, I might have stopped playing however. In the end, video games are an art form, and I believe there should be no restrictions or censorship on art.

[Raiju Thunder]

Well I have noticed over the years that when given the “choice” the evil path is in a single word weak. Often all the perks the evil path has is weaker or penalize the players. The game called Infamous has a moral system, Idealy the Good path should be as strong as the bath path as you are free to choose what path you walk. If a person wants to be as powerful as they want the good path is the best option as they have the best abilities perks.

[Methpoodle]

I really think there should be no limit to creative freedom. When it comes to kids, it's really up to the parents discretion as to allow their kids access. It winds me up to no end to hear parents omitting all responsibility to what their kids are viewing.

I was playing Doom 2 at the age of 4 or 5. However I also spent a lot of my childhood with a home made bow and an air rifle. I was taught the realities of life and death at a young age and understood the consequences of taking a life (a small critters, we weren't that feral)

At some point we have to take responsibility for ourselves and those in our care.
I'll leave Loot boxes and predatory business practices out of this as I believe this to be a different facet entirely.

[ComradeBear]

There should be no limits from a moral standpoint. For me, it is up to parents to restrict access to media for their kids. As for adults the individuals who blame video games or whatever for their behavior usually if not always seem to have mental health issues which are the actual issue. I also do not like the rating systems because they take judgment out of peoples hands and people tend to rely on them over their own experience.

[BeoXS]

TL;DR - There are some real world possibilities for morals to be affected in games, but it's a messy mixed bag.

For those who LOVE to read:

I actually wrote a paper and edited a video for a class on this subject in Grad school, though a little less abstract. The research that I came across at the time (published prior to 2011) was mixed. To be fair, the research was centered around single player / campaign based gameplay and not on multiplayer. I think that if the researchers had combined the two it might skew the research some.

Seeing parents buy "Mature" rated games (17+) for children and knowing that parents were spending less time with their children, I was approaching the subject of morality in video games from the perspective of the repetition of actions being a moral teacher. To try and keep things short and sweet, at the time, it was a mixed bag. Case in point: 1) I found a story where a many was either hit by a car or hit over the head and mugged (sorry I can't remember and I don't know where my research is right now) and the people standing around recording him with their smartphones. The question raised here is why were they not helping the man? One conclusion, that I came across was the these people were only able to think about this type of incident through a screen, that they had to have their smartphones out. 2) I did an interview with a games developer who stated that her niece was playing a Fable game where she was going around being rude to everyone and noticed that her character was changing. One day she turned on the game and her character had become a demon. It scared her and she restarted the game, making different decisions throughout her gameplay.

There was some indication that some people were influenced by video game violence, however, was it because of the repetitive nature of killing people ad nauseam? Or is it because of something else? I have read that violent video games do not have a clear indication that the player will become more violent.However, in some of my research over the years I have found out that the Nazi party only had about thirty percent of the support of Germany. Meaning that only 1 in 3 Germans believed in what the leadership of Germany was doing. How is that possible? Hannah Arendt coned the phrase "the banality of evil." To understand this in the context of gaming we can look at loot boxes. Many, if not most, gamers think they are wrong. People with (problem) gambling addiction say that they are wrong. Governments are looking into it and some research has already come out to say that forcing loot boxes into games is wrong, and even violates some countries laws EA and the ESRB say that there is nothing wrong with loot boxes in games. They add to the overall "experience" of playing the games that contain them. What is at the heart of this problem, I believe, is the numbing effect of exposure, i.e., cooking a frog slowly.

My conclusion in my research (in a nutshell) was that games could be an effective moral teacher. The challenge with that is that you have to have a game that has simple mechanics that anyone could use and a story that allowed for multiple endings that showcase the good, bad, and indifferent consequences of the player's choices. There really isn't a good solid example of this. Mass Effect was able to do this to a point, but because of the nature of the controversial, and subtle, ending it causes more anger than moral discussion. In my paper-video I chose Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Not a perfect example, but it worked to showcase what I was talking about. There are multiple ways to a goal, multiple ways to handled the discussion for every mission, multiple different approaches in general - lethal, non-lethal, stealth or non-engagement. Being that there were a total of 12 possible endings, the final monologue changed based on your choices. Though admittedly, they favored stealth and non-lethal. This was balanced out more in Mankind Divided. However, not everyone wants to play an immersive sim.

My point is that there are some real world possibilities for morals to be affected in games, but it's a messy mixed bag. Many things have to work together to make a game that gives real world, honest, moral implications. While this post is a little all-over-the-place, it's because I care about this topic and have so much more to say on it. I'll just leave these highlights here and if anyone wants to read more on it let me know. I could look for my notes and go into more about the topic another time.

[Garrett]

Firstly, congratulations OP for getting your Star Wars prequel meme past all of these people without being detected. Secondly, you know how movie theaters have age restrictions on movies, with the exception that younger kids can attend with an adult guardian? The reason why that exception exists is that it's meant to indicate that the guardian has already explained or can help explain the difference between fiction and reality. Therefore that shifting of responsibility should allow any and all content to be depicted in any form of fiction. You don't even need to consider children in the equation because legally adults are always responsible. Games should be able to have any content with no restrictions. Age restrictions make sense, they are there for a reason, and children can have access to material ranked above their age in the presence of adult guardians that can educate them regarding the objectionable content.

You know what it tells me when Deus Ex lets the player kill any NPC including children? It tells me that the developers wanted to make a realistic game. Nothing more. You know what it tells me when Fallout gives you a permanent debuff for killing a child, or when Bethesda games simply have children be immortal? It indicates that those developers with a 100% certainty at one point did consider the act of murdering kids. Going out of your way to penaltize players for killing kids makes you more suspect than never considering such an act at all. The player makes the choices. The responsibility is on them alone. It's the same as with "representation." Truly coincidental random lack of accurate representation is less bigoted than the act of pointing out said lack of accurate representation.

[MadMummy76]

It is never the act that is the problem it's the depiction of the consequences. That's why my firm belief that not showing blood and gore at all, is actually worse than showing it.
Because you leave in the heinous act, but shield the player from it's implications and consequences. That's the worst message you can send, especially to children.
You can shoot people in the head indiscriminately nothing's going to happen.

[Murdersmith]

I feel like it would make a really good comic book, honestly.

[Baron Baldric]

Lootboxes produce addiction in real life. Yes, a game can influence behaviors in real life, that's why there are regulations.

Irrefutable proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aYN5XpWzpM

But it is not the reason why games have moral limitations, morality in games is necessary because it brings coherence and context to a story. For example, in The Witcher 3 you can't attack defenceless civilians because the main character is a hero, the opposite happens with GTA where the character you are roleplaying is a criminal sociopath, but when you commit a crime the police chase you.

Sometimes morality is badly applied, in Fallout 3 you can destroy an entire city as soon as you start the game with children living there, but the rest of the children are immortal.

In The Stick of Truth you can see a child practicing an abortion on an adult man, and you are attacked by Nazi zombie fetuses, what else do you want?

[Onideus]

Studies have shown time and again that it's not the CONTENT of the games that's importable but the PLAYABILITY that matters. You make a game that's frustrating to play... and you will breed anger in your players. You make a game that's fun to play and engaging and... you can have whatever content you like... blood/guts/violence/etc.

Beyond that though, the whole point of a pseudo-reality virtual environment is to explore what you CAN'T do in real reality in a truly consequence free environment. The DANGER comes when you start teaching people to actively blur the line between reality and fantasy. For example "zero tolerance" policies at schools that teach kids that a gun gesture or a drawn gun is just as real as a real gun and brings about the same kind of consequences/punishment. This would be the adult equivalent of saying that a joke about raping someone's hair with shampoo should be treated exactly the same as a verbal threat to rape someone (call to action) which in turn should be treated exactly the same as ACTUAL rape.

When you destroy the underlying fabric of CONTEXT you create the conditions for ANARCHY.

[Vladash]

For me, gaming is about immersion and the chance to experience things far removed from my daily life. If every game has to be bound by real world morality then what's the point? Even if you prefer to play as an angel in open world RPGs, that decision means nothing if you have no other choice.

[Eriixas]

As long as there are enough people interested in generally amoral games, where you can be the bad or outright evil guy (and that's not all amoral games are all about), there may be opportunities to make games for this niche. Many games hold player's hand and tell them what is right and what is wrong. A lot of people hate that, they do not want to be told what to do or to be forced into being paragon of morality. It doesn't have to be a game varied with extreme amount of choices to give some freedom to them.

Now, when it comes to age regulation, kids are nothing like adults. They aren't fully developed, their point of view is lacking and their opinions are based on the small world of theirs. They are extremely susceptible to outer influences as well. While developers aren't responsible for educating children, certain tones in games can be too much for kids to handle requiring either age restriction or removal of certain elements (I prefer the former).

"You cannot stop people, they always find the way" argument falls short, even in this case, when you take into consideration piracy and various crimes. It doesn't add any weight to what you are trying to say. Why charge money for games if pirates can always find a way to download them for free? You can use that argument for virtually anything, censourship, alcohol, murder, rape, so on and so forth. Moreover, "better than a real person", I don't see how you can compare killing virtual and real people in this one. A real murder requires mechanical action to do the "thing", while in a game all you need to do is to click mouse button. Everyone, who has been playing games for a while, has killed NPCs, animals or other things already, plus, on top of that, players are free of consequence in real world after killing virtual people.

[matsudaira]

There shouldn’t be a bar. Who is in charge of it? That includes for kids. Every individual is different. There are kids more emotionally stable than 40 year old adults. I was 100% in support of the game Hatred. If you don’t like it, don’t play it. I don’t believe in limiting vision. Yes, that includes taboo topics. Better than a real person, right? Some people just need an outlet, and media can be sufficient. You’re never going to stop those with complete intent anyway. They always find a way.

[Musou Tensei]

I do not think there should be any restrictions on the games but an overhaul of the age rating systems and how they are enforced. Here in germany it is illegal for a seller to sell 18+ rated content to minors, thanks to these rules we have since around 2010 the once rampant censorship of violence in games we had (going as far as turning human characters into robots, Probotector anyone?) is a non issue these days and even once censored or even "banned" games are now available uncensored.