Morality Choices in Gaming

My introduction to moral choice in a video game was Fallout 3. As first impressions go, it wasn’t the most ideal. I wasn’t a massive fan of the game when it first released and it was only when Skyrim came out that I became open to the Bethesda formula and tried it again. I enjoyed my time with Fallout 3, but personal reasons make it hard for me to enjoy and play the game again.

           

My issue with Fallout 3’s moral choice system, however, is quite simple. It is too easy to be good. 

The problem with a lot of the choices in the game is that to be ‘evil’ you truly have to make an effort; you have go out of your way, travel half-way across the wasteland and find a very obviously evil rich man and another obviously evil suit man, and push a button to literally nuke a city. The problem with this evil choice is that one has to make a genuine effort to choose to do something they know is evil, and not only that, make more effort than the good choice would be.

The problem is that being the ‘good guy’ is the easier choice in Fallout 3, and that doing the more ‘evil’ choices are so evil that nobody would genuinely pick them unless they were playing an evil character. When taking the choice between installing a poison into the water supply to cause the genocide of all mutants, many of whom you have met and engaged in conversation, or simply turning on the machine and creating a reliable source of clean, free water for all in the wasteland, it seems almost comically ridiculous to pick the ‘evil’ option.

           

There needs to be more ambiguity in the moral choices that we make in games, if we are to answer the questions that should be asked by the inclusion of a morality system. It is not enough to have a moral choice, but one has to make that choice feel meaningful. We need more options where it is easier and less obvious to be evil. Not ‘if you choose not to step on the puppy you’re a hero’.

How about instead of the poison option in Fallout 3 the decision is more grey. Perhaps the water purifier doesn’t have enough power. It would have enough power if you can install a module, but the installation means that you would poison the water for mutants. 

The choice would then be a lot harder, and more real, if either choice had a real negative consequence attached. Either you fail, or you discriminate against hordes of mutants. Of course, this choice has issues; between irradiated water for all or clean for some, I’d certainly be okay flipping the switch if it meant clean water for some. But this is just one example of how we can alter the morality choices to be more meaningful; by altering the consequences involved.

           

Morality choices and storytelling in general have a far way to go in games. Perhaps some storyline decisions will be incompatible with gaming as we know it. Maybe in offering the kind of open-world choices that seem so stylish today, game developers are keen to let players have their cake and eat it by experiencing a power fantasy. It is possible to save everyone. It is possible to make the right choice.

But if gaming is to continue to tell gripping stories that will blur the line between art and entertainment, then we need to be more evolved in our approach to morality. In films and books, many of the best stories have come about from the hero having limitations, or from showing impossible choices that people have to make.

We need to feel more comfortable limiting the gamer in their moral choices. Instead of making them go out of their way to be evil, we need to make 'evil' the more realistic choice at times, with real impact in making the game easier or more difficult. Perhaps we can even make storylines where there is no good and evil. Given the directions that Telltale games seem to be going in with their storylines, there is certainly a trend toward more morally ‘grey’ choices.

Morality in itself is an interesting idea in gaming. The notion that one can measure their current ethical standing is intriguing. But how do we reconcile this with reality? By having the labels ‘good’ and ‘evil’ on our actions and by measuring one’s position on a straight line, we’re not doing justice to a complex issue. 

In the real world, morality is not measurable and it is not so easy to tell evil apart from good, as much as politicians and newspaper companies would like you to believe otherwise. Perhaps we need our stories to reflect this, and modern trends are now shying away from traditional notions of good or evil, focusing instead on the consequences of our actions rather than a strict black-and-white moral dichotomy.

It will be interesting to see how this impacts morality in gaming. Given that games are ultimately computer programs, I don't envy games developers in having to come up with systems to emulate such hard, complex issues as morality. However, I am very interested to see just how they can manage this in the future.