Morality in Games: Part 1

Morality, other than that thing that inconveniently stops us from stabbing our coworkers, is an issue, if not a dynamic,  that is very present in all games. We see explicit morality systems in many of the games we play, and these are implemented with varying degrees of success. Morality systems in games, however, are not the same as morality in games. The approach to morality shown in the games we play is not something we always think about, or even something we are encouraged to think about, especially when games do not provide feedback on in-game behaviour or provide some exploration of moral issues in the game's story. Many of our favourite games do not  provide true moral flexibility in player actions when the player is given only one way of accomplishing their goals (though they may draw attention to this limitation to wonderful effect in games like Spec Ops: The Line or even the first BioShock). This piece is the first in a series on morality.


The first kind of morality I've identified is not necessarily a game system, but a narrative choice: imposed morality. A game with some amount of characterisation and no morality that the player can affect through an explicit and mechanised morality system will impose a morality on the game's protagonist, and nothing the player ever does can change the narrative's idea of who or what that character is. Morality in games is often seen in terms of good and evil, and I've noticed three main groups of imposed morality: imposed good, imposed evil and imposed neutral.

Imposed Good

This guy.

In these kinds of games, the protagonist is good. His/her quest is established to be just, and, if deemed necessary, you are shown that they are a Good Guy through backstory, dialogue and other players' reactons to the character. Your actions in the game, if not restricted to such an extent that they must be good, do not change the way that the character is portrayed in dialogue/cutscenes/interactions. This leads to some laughable moral oversights, especially considering the hitty/stabby/shooty nature of so many games. Link can smash all the pots in Hyrule, but despite this rampant property damage, everyone still loves what a great guy he is. Other characters will mention what an honourable person the protagonist is, even going as far as to bestow mystical artifacts that can only be used by those who are pure of heart on the protagonist because their murder of all the people/creatures in the previous area was just so  pure and righteous. The murder, theft, vandalism and extortion, to name a few, that you commit to finish a game are done in a space that is removed from the game's story, in such a way that no matter what the player's actions are, the character remains virtuous.

Imposed Neutral

This is the space where the more interesting, or at least less hypocritical, protagonists are found. It is also where many "gritty" characters fit in. The protagonist is established as self-serving or having a dark past that explains their propensity towards more morally problematic actions. In other cases, the character is so underdeveloped that they have to fall under this type (is Pac-Man, for example, good?). In other games, the villain is made so clearly evil that your actions seem tame by comparison (or they're just a Nazi or something). This can also be done through setting. On Pandora, for example, where the Borderlands games are set, many people are self-serving, hardened and violent, but not many people are outright evil (that distinction will be made more clear later). The harsh world can make a morally neutral character's more iffy actions more understandable. These protagonists often have the advantage of a story reason for their attitude towards violence, theft or other transgressions, if the game world even recognises these as taboo. There is the most variety of characterisation in "neutral" characters, and most of them lean towards either good or evil or vascillate between good and evil (or even something else that I'll discuss in later parts), so it is difficult to pin down a particular type that embodies neutrality, except that they are not portrayed by the narrative as good or evil. The possibility of character development in this type of character is also clear, with players possibly moving into good guy territory over time, but the player's actions have no effect on the course of this progression.

Imposed Evil

Sol's really not such a Badguy once you get to know him.

Some protagonists are just evil. This, however, is one of the less common approaches. Games like the Dungeon Keeper series, Overlord,  Evil Genius and maybe Kane and Lynch all have evil protagonists. The main thing that distinguishes these protagonists' morality from the other types of imposed moralities is that the actions that the player is given are almost entirely limited to exploititative, self-serving, cruel or violent ones (the last one is true of a great number of games, though). Performing evil deeds often invokes praise for the player, and there is often no "greater good" that the actions serve. They are cruel for the sake of being cruel or because they are expedient. Sometimes the player is constantly reminded, as with imposed good, how evil they are being. Making this kind of moral stance likeable can be a challenge, but humour can be used to soften the cruelty in these games, or they can simply be sold as "edgy", which can be a hit or miss kind of thing.


These very broad types of imposed morality rely on the traditional distinction of good vs. evil, which can be simplistic and problematic when scrutinised. This is probably why the games falling under Imposed Good or Imposed Evil are quick to remind you on which side of this distinction the protagonist lies. Games that fall under the neutral banner, for lack of a better term, tend to allow for much more nuanced ideas of right and wrong, and make it easier to portray richer characters who are flawed without being hypocritical. They also allow you as a player to pit yourself against an antagonist for more interesting reasons than them simply being on the other side of the Goodie/Baddie dichotomy. Of course, there are many, many ways in which Imposed Good and Evil protagonists can be fun and engaging, and the stories and experiences linked to these kinds of protagonists can be as memorable as any other.

In the next part, I'll be contrasting this Good/Evil dichotomy with another prevalent moral distinction in video games, and talking about games where the player's actions affect the way that the game and other characters react.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

About Spoilers

 This post does not contain spoilers.

A few days before the release of BioShock Infinite, I read an article on a gaming site. I don't remember what the article was about, except that it was definitely not about BioShock Infinite. After reading the article, I scrolled down to scan the comments -- something not recommended on most sites, but hey, I'm a masochist.


And there it was. On the very first comment, blatant, unashamed and unsignposted: "Elizabeth is...[redacted] and Booker is...[redacted]". And it was like a punch to the stomach.  This was as spoilerific as a spoiler gets. Except I didn't know if this was an actual spoiler -- the game hadn't been released.  The other commenters echoed my thoughts exactly by replying to the poster with the sincerest, ugliest and most well-deserved abuse. I still don't know if it was a spoiler, a theory, or a fake posted by a heinous troll. It's agony.  I'll have to wait to complete the game to see which of these is true. I really, really hope that it's one of the latter.


I've been told a few times that spoilers don't spoil. That  the execution of a story is more important than the facts of that story. I love rereading/watching/playing my favourite stories to see how they've changed with foreknowledge (or how I've changed), but this claim is just not true. Not for me, anyway. Last year, I watched some really classic movies that I'd somehow managed to avoid seeing. Some of them were movies whose plot twists had so infiltrated public consciousness that mentioning them, even in polite company, would no longer be considered to be spoiling. Those movies were the Star Wars trilogy (the first one -- don't laugh) and Citizen Kane. As much as I tried to appreciate and perceive these stories as a first-time viewer would, I just couldn't. I wasn't really a first-time viewer. Sure, I could see the details and the buildup to the reveal, but that just isn't the same as being shocked and surprised in that fantastic way that fiction can shock and surprise you, or slowly reveal things to you in that way that makes you feel so very smart and perceptive (even if every other viewer/reader/player does too).


Part of the problem, if it even is one, is that this kind of information is just everywhere. Sites have weekly spoiler columns and previews, where people intentionally go to get more information on their particular pop-culture interests. I've been guilty of this data gathering myself, but I've recently begun to resist looking. Firstly, information gained from an online column is either sterile or biased, and is not the same as information gained within the context of a story and its own particular atmosphere. Secondly, this out-of-context information is bound to lead to misconceptions -- if you're gathering this information to decide on whether to buy a product, you may be deceived into thinking you're buying or rejecting one thing when it is actually another. A recent example of this is the furore over the rebooted Tomb Raider. People vowed not to buy the game based on a trailer that purported to represent the tone of the game. Anyone who has played the game since could argue that accusations of 'torture porn' need to be reconsidered, if not dismissed,  when the full context is provided.


Another part of the problem is that, as the saying goes, knowledge is power. Knowing what happens in a particular story, whether it be the Harry Potter novel bought at midnight and read immediately, the pre-ordered or leaked, if buggy, game, or the episode of Game of Thrones downloaded just minutes after US broadcast makes some people feel better than you. Malicious spoiling is just the demonstration of that power.


So, um, yeah. Don't spoil things. It's mean. But it's probably my fault that I waited this long to watch Star Wars.