How Morality Can Affect The Gaming Expereince

Effects of Morality

Morality plays a crucial role in our everyday lives. Our morals are what guide our actions and decisions, rule our everyday interactions, and shape the foundation of who we are as people. Morality is the principles concerning the distinction of right and wrong. Most people choose to lead a moral life in the eyes of the law and society. It has always interested me, the idea that we strive to be morally just people in life, yet when we assume the roles of characters and avatars in games, we have such a tendency to act immorally. We often choose to portray the villain, performing heinous acts we would never deem acceptable in the real world. So why is that we have such a tendency to act immorally in games, if we are moral people in real life?  This blogs aims to outline the effects that moral choice can have on the user experience, what guides players decisions, and best practices to implement moral decisions in games.

Morality can go a long way in having an impactful experience on the player. The use of morality in game design allows the player to have another level of emotional investment to the experience. Morality is a useful tool, whether it used as a theme to compel the narrative, or directly in the games mechanics, moral choice can have a profound effect on the player, only if implemented correctly in a game. Note that I said only if implemented correctly, this is key because morality can also be easily detract from the user experience, if implemented in such a way that it adds nothing to the game. It is very important to understand as a designer, the user’s perspective on moral choice in a game, and the factors that influence the decisions they make.

Guiding Player Decisions

Several influences act on a player to shape the outcomes of our in game choices. Based on personal experience, I have found there are three major factors that have the heaviest influence when making tough moral decisions in game, these include, guilt, reward, and consequence.

Guilt can go a long way in causing a person to choose the moral path. Players may encounters this concept of guilt when faced with a tough decision in a game, it is a sure fire sign that the designers and writers have done their job correctly. The beautiful thing about video games is that none of it is real, the consequences of our actions in games do not exceed the virtual world, so why should we feel any sense of wrong doing when playing a game? Guilt is often always tied to emotional investment; a player will have a very difficult time feeling anything toward a character if they have no emotional investment in. So how does one evoke such a strong feeling from the player? Create characters that the player can relate to, and feel for on an emotional level. This is why narrative plays such a key role when designing for moral choice in games. Games with weak narratives that feature moral choice as an obstacle for the player, often times prove as an easy hurdle, leaving little to no impact on the user experience. Through strong character development, compelling narrative, and good design, developers are able to evoke very strong feeling of emotion within the player.

Consequence is a powerful tool that can be leveraged by designers to make decisions tough for players. Consequence is the fear of the outcomes, stemming from immoral action or wrongdoing. From a design standpoint, it is important to take into consideration how severe the outcomes of actions are. If the penalty is too severe, you may intimidate the player away from ever making a certain choice, which is not ideal. However, make the consequence to less, and players will not feel the impact that their actions have upon the game world. When designing for consequence in games, it is important to strike a happy medium. You never want to strip a player of the feeling of freedom by condemning an action to severely, but also want to maintain the sense of importance for the players choice by having meaningful outcomes.

Reward plays a key role in shaping the decision of the players. What is interesting about reward, is it can be used to incentivize both moral and immoral behavior. The extent to which rewards effect the player will differ amongst people. However, rewards can prove to be very useful when trying to make decisions difficult for players. Whether it be a piece of loot, a stat boost, or to unlock a new item for players, rewards heavily guide the decisions players will make. Reward is something you must be careful with however, because it becomes increasingly easy to ruin a decision for the player by simply rewarding one outcome of the decision to greatly. You never want to create a situation in which the moral choice is too easy to make, reward can play a big role how easy the decisions will be for the player; therefore, it is vital to think from a player perspective, and create situations that will create interesting dilemmas for the player.

Make Choices Matter

Remember when I mentioned that the overall effectiveness of moral choice in games would depend entirely on how they are implemented? Well what I mean by that is that choices need to matter. It is far too often that you see designers pepper moral choice into their games for the sake of giving the player some input. This is not effective; it does not add anything to the user experience other than an unengaging obstacle the player will begrudgingly have to overcome. The purpose of providing the player with the ability to choose the outcomes of certain situations is to give the player a sense of power. When players see that the outcomes of their choices have real impact on the game world, it provides them with a sense of power to guide the narrative, and forge a unique player experience for themselves. This helps not only in making the player feel more emotionally involved, but creates a more immersive experience. Although, if the outcomes of their choices do not have any real impact on the game world or gameplay, it cheapens the experience. At that point, designers are essentially presenting this illusion of choice to the player simply for the sake of having choice in their game. This also goes for situations, which the choice presented, is too obvious or easy for the player. If a decision is too clear cut, it undermines the impact that real moral dilemma can bring the gaming experience, ultimately taking away from immersion, leaving the player feeling disconnected from the game world. To avoid this, the decisions in games need equal weighting, so that it stops to make the player think before proceeding.

Another common pitfall when designing for moral dilemma in games is the options presented to the player are very black and white. Often time’s players are faced with a tough choice that only has two outcomes. In some cases, this is all you need, but it is often best practice to try to give the player as much freedom when deciding on how to handle situations. Now I realize that this cannot always be the case. Sometimes, designers need to force player to make structured choices to further the narrative, and as long as this choice is implemented in a meaningful way, this is okay. Although in certain types of games, specifically those in the open world RPG genre, providing players with as much freedom to tackle tough situation is often the best route to take. Although, if players are going to be forced into making one of two decisions, it is vital to make sure that the outcomes of those decisions coincide with the values of your character, and make sense within the game world itself. Forcing a player to make a decision that contradicts the game worlds rules or characters persona, can be very jarring the user and further remove them from immersion.

Immersions Effects on Moral Choice

The effects of immersion on the morality of player behavior is an interesting topic that I have noticed emerge with advancing technologies over the years. As modern games, continue to push the technological boundaries, creating more realistic and ever more immersive experiences, is it effecting how we as people are acting within these games? Now I can only speak for myself, but I believe immersion is directly tied to how morally we behave in video games. I first really began to notice this effect with the release of Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto V. When Grand Theft Auto was first released on last generation’s consoles, it was a traditional third person open world game just as the other installments in the series. I ran around this detailed open world, committing horrible crimes without even batting an eye. However, when the game was rereleased for current generation hardware, with the addition of a first person mode, the game felt fundamentally different. I chose to replay the game entirely in first person mode the second time around to get the most immersive experience the game could offer me. This is when I noticed something, I found myself doing the exact same things I was doing in my previous play through, killing without thought and just generally being a bad person. Except this time it felt different, the first time I walked up to a citizen on the street and took their life, I actually felt bad. Experiencing the immensely detailed world through the eyes of my avatar actually changed the way I played the game. I was not as drawn to preying on the innocent, I even found myself sometimes obeying traffic laws. The new sense of immersion I was experiencing made my immoral actions feel increasingly visceral, and ended up shaping my playstyle.

This extends even further with technologies such as virtual reality. Virtual reality is the next frontier of gaming, creating the most immersive gaming experienced to date. While virtual reality is still a new technology and his limited games, you can still begin to see the effects of immersion on the behavior of players in game. Most people whom have experienced the world of virtual reality online will note that the communities generally act more civilized and polite. This is largely attributed to the immersion of virtual reality online. Many game lobbies allow you to move around the 3D environment with other players and interact with one another. When another player’s avatar is looking you right in the eye, you have a tendency act more as you would in real life than if you were in a typical game lobby. When interacting with another player in virtual reality, you can feel their presence as if they were standing right in front of you. This feeling has contributed to creating a kinder community overall. While I am not saying immersion is the sole reason for an increase in moral behavior in the online community, I do feel it is a major factor. I find it interesting that an increase in immersion has a tendency to lead player to behave more as they would present themselves in the real world, rather than the persona they take on through their characters and avatars.

Video Games are a Unique Medium

Lastly, I would like to answer the question I posed in the introduction. Why is that we strive to be moral people in real life yet tend to act so immoral in the games we play? I believe the reason it is so easy for many players to act immorally in games is due to the large disconnect between the player and the game world. As players, we know that our actions in games will not extend into the real world. This is why when you begin to bridge that gap between player and the game world; you will see effects on player behavior.

Video games provide us with a medium in which player have the unique ability to explore alternative moral choices. Video games give players the opportunities to fulfill their wildest dreams and fantasies. They provide a mental escape in which players can engage in a world of wonder to explore their most imaginative ideas. They allow us the freedom to vicariously lead separate lives through our characters and avatars, becoming someone we know we could never be. I do not believe that a person’s morals can be judged based on the decisions and actions made within a virtual world. I believe it is human nature to fantasize about taking on an alternate personality, and video games provide us with the ability to do so.