Class Dismissed

“It is our job to raise moral questions, not impose our own moral judgments.” – Game designer James Portnow, formerly of Activision

 

Why is there widespread dissatisfaction with the moral schemata popular among game designers? Well, plenty of people have answers, and it would be well enough to give my own and let it waft on the current of its acumen to the sunlight above the canopy of confusion, but I'm interested in having as great a variety of fun games to play in my lifetime as possible, so I'll first burn down the forest of bad answers hampering its ascent.

Here is the genetic code of the seed from which the forest grew, the commonest account one will find of our moral malaise: “In real life, no one knows what the hell he's doing, and can't. He doesn't know whether to tell his wife the lie that she's thin or the truth that she's fat, whether to take a job as a second-assistant bookkeeper or a deputy-apprentice file clerk, whether he'd like fries with that or just the sordid-looking hamburger.

“Video games, though, give us simplistic problems that any child possessing the rudiments of a proper, progressive education can solve reflexively. The only way to redeem these childish black and white choices is to make the good painful and the evil pleasurable, but greedy publishers have eyes only for money, and are afraid, perhaps, to dampen the experience of anyone who might choose to give grandma the last of his gold for her sustenance instead of an ax to the cranium for her inheritance. This cowardice leaves us with obvious and easy choices in video games, and that's just bad.”

Such is the nature of our plight, as told by everyone. There are two important premises to tease out of this explanation. The first is that there are no logical solutions to moral problems, and the second is that, if we choose to indulge in delusions to the contrary, our solutions must hurt. We can't answer moral questions, but if we do, we better show our work in blood, preferably our own.

There are philosophical reasons why these assertions are wrong, but I want to focus on why they are inappropriate for inclusion in video games. Consider what a video game is. What is the essential that differentiates a video game from other forms of entertainment? Like literature, it can have text. Like music, it can have sound. Like painting, it can have images. Like film, it can have moving images. Unlike all of these, however, it can have you. Video games are unique because they are interactive. This is an obvious point, but its implications are apparently not fully understood and inconsistently abided.

Video games offer specific scenarios with ostensibly fun means of achieving concrete goals. This means players' thoughts are of how to apply principles, not discover them. There may be applications for interactive software in modeling environments from which inductive generalizations about ethics may be made, but as long as “fun” is the first bullet point on the back of the box, didacticism is out.

Morality games, then, give players the opportunity to experience the consequences of their abstract judgments. Kids play games only after finishing their homework, and likewise, everyone must make decisions only after learning how to make them. If you want to work on your personal philosophy, read a book, but if you want to experience its rewards, play a video game.

Since games are uniquely suited to allow a player to live his convictions, making them ambiguous or painful is vicious. Presenting players with dilemmas is precisely what games should not do. Virtual choices ought to dramatize and reinforce principles applicable to their quotidian counterparts, not take the form of inexplicable and inconceivable nightmare problems, otherwise games become an enemy of, rather than a complement to, real life. Trolley problems and lifeboat scenarios are not proper subjects for video games. To paraphrase Ayn Rand: life is not a perpetual emergency.

As for the worship of pain, it should not be considered insightful to note that a code of ethics dealing in anguish will necessarily attenuate the enthusiasm of its practitioners. If game designers want to promote their own beliefs, and they should, then rewards are practically and justly distributed to the good, and punishments to the evil. Note that I agree with my hypothetical idiot who at the beginning of this essay proffered that one moral decision be more difficult than another. The difference is that I don't find the spectacle of a bovine repeatedly charging a barbed wire fence romantic or particularly interesting, unlike Mr. Portnow, whose psychological motivations I do not care to consider.

It is worth pointing out that morality games have certain minimal standards for enjoyment, as do all activities. One cannot be a nihilist and enjoy creative work, and one cannot have contradictory values and enjoy pursuing them. Having fun acting morally requires a morality that is fun to act. By the nature of reality, it is impossible to make self-abnegation pleasant.

Conversely, there are innumerable ways to make real the benefits of a positive morality. Think of The Sims. It simulates the so-called "drugdery" of daily life, yet attracts millions of fans. How? Merely by increasing life's tempo. There are outrageous elements in The Sims, but its core mechanics concern the “mundane” aspects of civilized life. It fast-forwards to the good parts, and shows the player what all that working, bill-paying and skill-improving gets him. Its trick, the only one it needs, is to compress years into hours.

There are other methods, of course. I have indicated that dramatization works. The same motivation that leads someone to vote will lead him to play a game in which he is the focal point of governmental action. The same satisfaction an ornithologist feels cataloging birds will drive him to pick up a certain franchise and become the very best, like no one ever was. These serve as indications, but the connections are endless.

Challenge is also important. I don't mean the stupidity of making the right choice prohibitively painful, nor impossibly confusing, nor meaninglessly ambiguous, but of making it tempting, of providing the player all the evidence he needs to abstractly make the right choice, but all the immediate and concrete enticements necessary for his subconscious to lurch toward the wrong one. Overcoming that kind of challenge makes one feel proudly human; immolating oneself for the sake of NPCs does not.

Morality games have the potential to be wildly fun and tremendously engaging, but designers must understand that for consumers, games are properly played, not studied. Injecting pain and ambiguity into our ethical arteries will not provoke fruitful contemplation, but frustrated clotting. It is only a prescription of relevant, rewarding, dramatic, accelerated and legitimately challenging moral alternatives that will give us the flowing vitality we need to live and flourish.

(Republished from The GameSaver)