Thu 23 Aug 2007
Moral dilemma #1 is, Do I skip work to play more BioShock ;)
I picked up a copy of the extremely well-received BioShock on Tuesday. Sadly, I’ve not had much time to play and have only cleared the second section/level (ie, Medical Pavilion). (Quick aside: Wow, did that sneaky “dentist” splicer make me jump off the sofa!) Many are touting it as the top contender for game of the year and discussing how it elevates the art form of games.
Part of that praise comes from the serious social commentary weaved within the story, and also how the Little Sisters present a moral choice to the player. That’s all fine and good, but most gamers (?) probably look to any such choice as purely a game system to be optimized: harvest option = 160 Adams, which means I can upgrade more plasmids, etc; rescue option = 80 Adams, but I get a gift of 200 Adams from Tannenbaum for every three sisters I save, plus extra tonics (oh, and there’s a 100 gamerscore Achievement if I rescue them all) - and so on.
So, while I can certainly appreciate (and enjoy) the dilemma from a story point of view (and my understanding is that there are different ends depending on which path you choose), very quickly it moves to a games-systems-optimization equation, if even subconsciously.
Anyway, was just a random thought. Hmm, I’m sure some smarter folks have written on this topic. Maybe Raph covered it in Theory of Fun? Also, seems like Ken Levine is saying lots of interesting stuff over at Shacknews, but I haven’t had the chance to read it yet…
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
you are right on spot on your observation about systemic balance and morals. A bit of shameless self-promotion: I wrote about that in my PhD dissertation, only related to KOTOR, which seems to share the same principle.
When is a choice a moral choice? Or better, how can we make gameplay choices also ethical choices?
I think this is the most interesting design challenge current-gen is facing. Then again, I may be biased.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I’d love more of these choices in games. Killing faceless enemies always, in a way, reminds me of the Austin Powers scenes, where a phone call goes to the family of “Guy who died last scene by man eating seabass” - the guys have families! Friends! likely don’t enjoy their job very much! Poor sods…
Don’t get any choice most of the time though.
Always pains me when killing those poor bandits/security guards/bodyguards/policemen/army guys in a lot of games. Why can’t I spare their lives or at least arrest them/tie them up/knock them out, not kill them?
I hope NPC’s start being given morals and intelligence enough too, both so they’d give up if really would lose, and would not always go for the kill of other NPC’s or the PC. Too many suicide NPC’s (and PC’s!) around.
It’ll be interesting to see how it goes, I do also wonder if making the kills statistics based (and achievement based!) just turns it all into a numbers game, either for or against killing something, there is always a numerical award it seems instead of a less tangible one (like praise, help, or just a nice feeling you’ve done something right (in your opinion, heh)).
August 26th, 2007 at 9:56 am
I agree, Jason. This is why we always say that traditional gameplay and story cancel each other out. If we really want to express moral choices in games, we need to get rid of traditional gameplay and come up with other forms of interaction, forms that amplify the content of the choice rather than obscure it.
Raph Koster does indeed touch on this subject in his book. He uses this phenomena to defend violence in games: a gamer does not rip off somebody’s head with his bare hands, instead he scores points in an abstract game system. Raph, did not, however, come to the same conclusion as we have. He still seems to believe that traditional game structures are capable of expressing any subject matter.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I found the moral dilemma to be a poor one. Knowing the outcome of your actions before choosing the action is something that that is an important component for discerning whether a moral choice is good, bad, or somewhere in between. Sure killing little girls is generally going to be seen as bad, but this is a game world where different rules often apply. Thus, I have no clear proof that harvesting the little sisters is truly a bad thing at the point I’m required to make the decisions. Even if you don’t buy that argument, I’ll point out that my decision to harvest the little sisters was strengthened by noticing that every character talking to me via radio or recorded messages, no matter how sane they seemed at the time, ultimately turned out to be an insane freak that you (in many cases) have to kill to progress. The game is actually teaching me that I can’t trust anyone even if they seem normal, thus I can’t trust that I’m really saving these little sisters even if they appear “normal” afterwards. This is further reinforced at the end of the final boss fight - seemingly normal little sisters jump on and drain the last Adam out of the final boss. At that point, the moral dilemma has lost any amount of substance it may have had - the girls are ultimately monsters no matter what. Unfortunately this is then contradicted in the “good” ending, which suggests that the little sisters are truly saved after all. Don’t get me wrong - the game was great - but I think they way the moral dilemma pans out in this game is seriously flawed.