Moral choice in gaming

Would many of you be willing to play something that truly challenges you, not just in the conventional ways, but also emotionally and spiritually?
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I would relish the opportunity to pit my real-life "boring square" persona against the fiend that sometimes emerges in the games I play
in a way that would teach me more about my dark alter-ego.
 
beating up hookers is fun,... but would you do it if the graphics become so real it looks like real person? The movie Brain scan comes to mind,,,,,
 
I most often find that when playing along my own set of moral and ethical rules i end up the atypical goody goody. This happened especially in older roleplaying games where things are black or white. In more modern titles, though still good, i did not become the shining light as in so many other, older, titles. Heavy Rain is one of my personal favorites also, evoking very strong emotional reactions from my own in-game actions. Read Here

I do think that game where there is no good or bad but merely shades of grey could well reflect the players own moral standings. In Bioware's Dragon Age Origins there is a point where u, the player, have to decide who dies, the mother or the son. Neither of which has the potential to give a larger benefit that the other. This particular question had me mauling over it for almost a day.

In the upcoming Deus Ex Human Revolutions it will once again be possible to go through the entire game without killing a single person. There in lies a deep moral choice, will you choose to slay henchmen by the thousands or spare the lowly security guard his fate, choosing instead to simply stun him or slip by completely.
 
Certain aspects manifest themselves - the characters in the game are my enemy. They therefore die. If I am given the choice to spare them, I usually don't.

This comes back to most peoples fantasy of being evil - particularly if you're not in real life. The choice to be the merciless bastard you wish you could be for a day.

On the other hand, I don't know if I'm the only one - I never harm animals in games, even though I know they're nothing but pixels and paint, it's just not something I would ever do in real life. (Another moment that had me stop for a second was during COD WaW, I didn't want to shoot the soldiers surrendering - but the AI went and did it for me anyway.)
 
Well there is allways the option of going multiple routs and doing thing differently each time around.

Tachyon: The Fringe, a space sim, is a simple example. At one point in the game you get to choose if you wanna go with the Corprates and make the entire galaxy rich, or you can go with the colonial rebels and fight for indipendance, or you can do one, and than go back and do the other.

Black and White. I had three games running at the same time at one point. One where I would do every as good as possible, another utterly and completely evil, and another neutral-ish.

Fallout, the little bit that I played at friends place, I was mostly playing it good, and than I blew up Megaton.

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I would routinely kill lone stalkers because I like his gun/need ammo, but in the same breath I would allways help injured stalkers, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Basicly thats what games are for, to give a safe outlet for your fantacies, even if thier utterly cruel and twisted. The greatest good is that there not being acted out on real people.
 
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Biggest was in the first Fable. Finished the game completely evil horns, got the sword and then after credits went on a redemption path. Sold all my stuff, donated to the good temple, bible style, only wore the apprentice robes. Interesting experiment.
 
OmegaFenix22 said:
There in lies a deep moral choice, will you choose to slay henchmen by the thousands or spare the lowly security guard his fate, choosing instead to simply stun him or slip by completely.
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See, I don't mind killing oke like that, well because it's fun (in the game) and I'm lazy and not always lus to figure out how to bypass the dude. But when it's moral choices that I might actually face in life (I'm probably never going to have to decide to off some bad guys or not in real life) then it becomes more interesting.

Another thing I also have is my wife for instance when playing Red Dead, she refuses to kill any animals and gets upset when I do!! Small things, but merely illustrates the point that people all have different morals when gaming.
 
pantsula said:
Biggest was in the first Fable. Finished the game completely evil horns, got the sword and then after credits went on a redemption path. Sold all my stuff, donated to the good temple, bible style, only wore the apprentice robes. Interesting experiment.
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Sound like a Catholic
 
I almost always make a point to try and play bad unless the game makes it unnecessarily hard to do so. There are exceptions though based on my mood at the time.

Interesting thing is that so many of us keeping saying "It is just a game", when confronted with negative articles concerning gaming's influence. But one needs to consider that we often find ourselves influenced in profound ways by our gaming (or other media included). May not notice it at first, but it is there. So maybe these arguments that games can create serial killers or the like may need a reconsideration by many?
 
Games or books or movies or whatever media might influence people, but the greater problem still lies in the person itself in my opinion. You should as a human being know that to go all Columbine is decidedly wrong or yanking people out there cars and riding over prostitutes is not ok, no matter what you may have seen or heard. A lot has to do with parenting.

If nothing else, surely you must know it's illegal to kill, maim or whatever your twisted mind thinks up or replicates what you've played. No, don't blame games, blame the person.
 
OmegaFenix22 said:
I most often find that when playing along my own set of moral and ethical rules i end up the atypical goody goody. This happened especially in older roleplaying games where things are black or white. In more modern titles, though still good, i did not become the shining light as in so many other, older, titles. Heavy Rain is one of my personal favorites also, evoking very strong emotional reactions from my own in-game actions. Read Here

I do think that game where there is no good or bad but merely shades of grey could well reflect the players own moral standings. In Bioware's Dragon Age Origins there is a point where u, the player, have to decide who dies, the mother or the son. Neither of which has the potential to give a larger benefit that the other. This particular question had me mauling over it for almost a day.

In the upcoming Deus Ex Human Revolutions it will once again be possible to go through the entire game without killing a single person. There in lies a deep moral choice, will you choose to slay henchmen by the thousands or spare the lowly security guard his fate, choosing instead to simply stun him or slip by completely.
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Not really on topic but there is a third option for the dao quest. You have to go to the mage tower for it. Its the least evil of the three, only found out about it in my third playthrough.

For me personally on my first playthroughs in a game I try to steer as close to the choices I would personally make if it was really me in the game. After that in further playthroughs I like to play different character types, from totally evil to totally nice,ect.


tehNihilist said:
I almost always make a point to try and play bad unless the game makes it unnecessarily hard to do so. There are exceptions though based on my mood at the time.

Interesting thing is that so many of us keeping saying "It is just a game", when confronted with negative articles concerning gaming's influence. But one needs to consider that we often find ourselves influenced in profound ways by our gaming (or other media included). May not notice it at first, but it is there. So maybe these arguments that games can create serial killers or the like may need a reconsideration by many?
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Everything influences you. Gaming is not going to push you over the edge unless you are already heading in that direction and if that's case then there is a multitude of other factors that could do the same. Watching the news,reading the newspapers,ect can have the same influence.

The normal person isn't going to turn into a serial killer from playing games. The disturb guy/girl might .
 
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tehNihilist said:
I almost always make a point to try and play bad unless the game makes it unnecessarily hard to do so. There are exceptions though based on my mood at the time.

Interesting thing is that so many of us keeping saying "It is just a game", when confronted with negative articles concerning gaming's influence. But one needs to consider that we often find ourselves influenced in profound ways by our gaming (or other media included). May not notice it at first, but it is there. So maybe these arguments that games can create serial killers or the like may need a reconsideration by many?
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Like DenSweep said. Out of all the millions of gamers while is there so few who go nuts and commit such acts of violence? Realistically is it even 2% of the total gaming demographic? More than 2% of the entire human race have commit acts of violence in one way or another. Though gaming, movies, comic books, musical could be considered a factor it can not be named sole reason for said person going bat-shit crazy. If had not been a gamer maybe he neighborer's kid, the kids at school or any one of a million other things could have set homicidal idiot X off.

At the end of the day we may all be influenced in different ways by our beloved past time, but just like reading the bible in stead of Mein Kaumph (Spelling) isn't going to make u a saint, playing GTA instead of with the other kids isn't going to make you a killer.
 
Could the influence gain any momentum as the format develops? As they become more realistic and the writing gets better will they impact us more? And what could be the end results?

Gah, sorry, too many questions :p
 
If given the choice I usually just opt for what will give me the most rewards. Surprisingly, that's the 'good' role in many games, so I'm usually good. However, if rewards are the same then being evil is just a lot more fun because nearly all games today have you playing as the good guy or gal all the time.
 
Being a good guy in real life is bad enough..lol...Nice guys finish last ect ect.

So I tend to take on a more evil approach when gaming. Saying that though, I don't think I get emotionally envolved when I game. Wich is a great thing, I make enough moral and emotional choices during every day life. Gaming is for relaxing and for letting loose at the end of a long day. That's why I usually take the bad guy role..I don't want to be bothered helping a little pixel child find his mom..rather shoot it and carry on with the game..

That's just me though..lol..and I'm special:)
 
For some odd reason I can't go the Evil path I tried a few times but about 1/4 the way I change back to good since it just feels right to me.
 
I find it very artificial when games force you on a good/evil dichotomy. You end up deciding to be one or the other then making all the very obvious conversation choices or whatever that you know will have a determined outcome. The best examples of morality in games are when you are forced to question actions that in other genres are automated - Shadow of the Colossus being a prime example. Even Pikmin had a more effective moral system than...say Mass Effect, since the choice to save your creatures or throw them away and watch them die on the altar of your progress was at times genuinely difficult to make.
 
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