Over on ChristianDevs.com I noticed a conversation involving a video discussing one of my favorite topics here on ICE...video games and morality.
Brownboot of CDN had this to say:
"This is one of the better video's from these guys and I think they point out a lot of the key failings in morality systems in games.
I think a lot of the reason the sort of linear good/evil scale exists is a carryover from the early Richard Garriot Ultima Games.
I can also see making the arguement that defining good and evil helps build a secondary objective that will move a player forward. Does this actually remove the introspection from moral choice? Ya probably, because the player is constantly being reminded that he is GOOD or EVIL based on his place on the slider instead of simply being and making a choice based on his own feeling towards a situation.
The issue gets fuzzy though because we don't play ourselves in a game (necessarily). Even in a RPG we're playing a role, we are not directly interacting with the world we're presented. And there's something sort of cathartic about being a dark lord of the sith. Games are an escape so it is wrong to consider this sort of "evil" as being "bad."
All that said can you create an interesting moral discussion? Definitley. Are there many good examples? Not at all, lol. If you haven't played Braid get with the program and check it out. It presents a mesmerizing discussion of desire, wonder, obsession, destruction and loss.
If we consider the classic visual storytelling media, film and theatre, they do a much better job at confronting us with moral issues. This works because we can only react within our own space we are not expected to participate or impact the world beyond our internal discussions. I think Braid succeeds because while we've been mastering its gameplay it has been getting us into the mindset and thought pattern its story is working in so that by the time of its big reveal we're setup for it. It also doesn't give us a choice, it just connects the seemingly disparate dots you've encountered along the way. As a result it asks "What do you think about this?" as opposed to "What are you going to do about this?" which is sort of implied because we can't unknow it and have to consider it apart of our being moving forward.
I'm continually underwhelmed by these guys. Last week was pretty good and it almost restored my faith but this was pretty bad.
Maybe bad is the wrong word. It's not bad, its uninspired. They're disturbedly optimistic about the future of gaming (don't get wrong, its why I'm in the business) but the statements they make are so obvious and shallow they aren't furthering the discussion in the least.
Though there have been plenty of videogames that have provided players the ability to make moral choices, none have managed to capture the many complex decisions that occur in that gaping divide between sickeningly good and seriously evil. There’s more to portraying morality than slapping a halo or devil horns on an avatar, something that BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins seems to understand. In a recent interview with Destructoid, lead designer Mike Laidlaw discussed not only why moral choices in games so often disappoint, but how Dragon Age: Origins plans to deliver more than a superficial heroes and villains simulator.
“I think it’s difficult because the raw morality you’re presented with in a game is a very narrow slice of life, a narrow experience band,” explained Laidlaw. “We often lose the ability to dive into the internal monologue, a lot of those things that act as ways to help morality and that kind of choice are less effective in games, or at the worst scenario, they haul you away from being a videogame anymore and they take control away from the player.”
Laidlaw continued, saying that “aggressively” grey moral choices of Dragon Age: Origins is “the closest that BioWare’s ever done. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of challenging you in situations where there’s no easy answer…Ideally, we end up with players with different mindsets and different thoughts and if things are really humming, then your origin story has helped to paint the world a certain color, giving it a certain tint that helps you tackle the world from a different angle.”
BLOGOSPHERE 
