Morality +1

Gaming is increasingly becoming a mainstream phenomenon, from Xbox or eSports the gaming medium is gaining ground. Whether this is put down to technology, a maturing generation that grew up with pc games, or an increasing depth to the medium itself (though this I doubt), games are being played by more people in more ways. As games take a more central role as a method of telling stories or showing points of view, its time we, the gamers, do a bit of introspection.

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WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 1

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I just finished the first Mass Effect game (26 hours, medium difficulty), admittedly a little behind the times given that the whole trilogy has been out for some time, however, my initial exposure to the franchise lead me to conclude it was a Knights of the Old Republic clone and it wasn't until I found out Bioware were the developers that I made my peace.

Overall it's a reasonable RPG; the problem of why your character can gun down hundreds of enemies from day 1 is sensible enough (you start out as a special forces commander), and your license to wander round the galaxy sticking your nose into things is neatly provided via initiation into a branch of the galactic government with infinite authority.

((This is where the spoilers start))..

The ending is actually good enough to push the overall game from probably a 6.5 to a 7, if not a 7.5, and the reason for that is not just the poignancy and cinematic potential, it’s that you, as a player, actually have to make a difficult moral decision, interesting enough in fact to knock me onto a blog at 11pm to write about it.

We, as gamers, have got pretty used to having it easy in the morality department. Despite all the games that try to present the player with 'good' and 'evil' paths virtually none actually work. 'Good' acts normally mean helping people; either by doing quests or giving up money and items, however, since quests are the main reason we play the game, and the items and money and always paltry; as an example I got asked to give a homeless person some money towards the end of Mass Effect, the sum of 20 credits got me 8 "Paragon points" (on a scale of 0 to 320ish). At the time I was sitting on a bank balance of 2.5 million, with probably another half a mil in unneeded items. 'Evil' paths on the other hand tend to mean randomly killing plot-essential characters (making the game short and tedious), or borderline-psychotic acts like running over monkeys in a thirty ton combat vehicle. The choice therefore boils down to attaining a saint like reputation for virtually no cost (that freights with a heap of benefits), or having to work hard to make your game less interesting by playing a homicidal maniac.

Mass Effect made me pause because the final choice is actually a real dilemma. The situation is simple; a huge alien spaceship is about to take over a space station and in doing so bring about the invasion of the galaxy by gigantic killer robots that intend to purge all life from the galaxy (and this is credible threat). The combined fleets of the main sentient races (humanity not included) are engaged in a desperate battle around the station to try and hold back the alien, and rescue the Council (a political group standing for the peaceful corporation of the most powerful races in the galaxy). You get to make the call on what the inbound human fleet prioritises - do they ensure the Council is saved and then move on to attack the alien ship, or do they leave the 'friendly' alien fleets to their inevitable massacre, let the Council die, and focus everything on bringing down the evil alien and thereby saving the galaxy.

Since it’s a game you can probably act on the assumption that whatever you pick you'll still save the day (much props to any developer who actually write a game where you can lose right at the end!) and therefore save the friendlies, however, with an 'in game' hat on the ruthless 'strategic' thing to do is to let everyone else die so that the human fleet can destroy the enemy, thereby saving the galaxy. Fleets can be rebuilt, Councils replaced, an invasion of galactic mega-death-bots is a 'bigger picture' issue. So, I gave the order to leave the council to their fate and focus on the main objective.

But this was a real choice - sacrifice many to increase the odds of saving everyone else, or try to save everyone, and for forcing those 30 seconds of reflection, of immersion, Mass Effect justifies its list price. Fingers crossed the other 2 build on the strengths of the first instalment and tidy up some of the issues (like the same three buildings on a dozen different worlds!)

<<END OF SPOILERS>>


The only people who actually seem to talk about morality in games these days are the media and only then to blame games for every shooting, angry teenager, or driving accident they can. Apparently shooting people on games makes you a violent person. Having spent the last fifteen years killing everything from demon rabbits to civilians with weapons ranging from bare fists to nuclear submarine squadrons, and probably toting up kills in the hundreds of thousands (not counting DEFCON), I would like to say my own failure to turn into a rampaging madman puts the lie to the claim that games kill people.

However, games do seem to suggest a point of view where death and destruction are just one of those things. Most game characters have no issue with solving their problems with a bullet (or laser beam, or hyper-accelerated paint chip) between the eyes, and as long as this execution is preceded with the right conversation options we, the gamer, don't tend to get penalised. Does this subconsciously rub off on those who play games a lot? Are we more willing to accept death as a solution because we dish it out so readily in our virtual alternate lives? Unfortunately I can't really judge this since I can't be both control group and test group, but it's something I'd be happy to discuss with anyone who has some input.

Death aside though, there is one aspect of gaming which I think really has rubbed off - purpose. The characters we play in games are always part of great events, central figures to epic stories and conflicts that stretch across the worlds our e-selves wander. Play the Baldur's Gate games and you take on the role of the son of fallen deity, growing in power and influence from a child with an adopted father to a figure of dread and awe, carving your own fate onto the world around you, in Mass Effect you act at the direction of a Council that leads galactic affairs, on a quest to save all sentient life in the galaxy, in StarCraft you are part of the wars and intrigues that determine the fate of dozens of worlds and three races. Even in games such as Skyrim where you start off as 'just one of the people' you inevitably obtain great lineage and might as the story progresses.

And then when the games are over we have to go back to our 'RL' lives, where most of the time we (and everyone we know) spends their lives engaged in largely pointless activities for the purposes of shuffling round vast amounts of bits of blue, green and orange paper, or, increasingly, for the purposes of moving numbers about on a spreadsheet. When you compare the lives our fictional selves lead to those our actual selves lead the difference is soul-sapping.

I once read (and I'm afraid I can't remember where) that we are in danger of becoming a lost generation, why? - because we lack a great purpose. Over the last century there have been events of such importance and impact that they shaped the zeitgeist of a generation - the Great Wars (both of them), the Great Depression in the US, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War and so on. Events that perhaps gave a sense of meaning to the people living their lives in them. But what do we have? The UK seems to have sunk into a mire of 'greyness'. Out politicians are directionless and limp wristed, our wars happen far overseas and largely consist of 'fire and forget' engagements, the commercial dreams that drove men to risk their lives on the oceans of the world have become little more than number-crunching by vast multinationals. Even the dream of new lands and sunsets on unexplored coasts have gone, the world has been mapped and divided up. Is it surprising then that to find purpose I have to turn to the virtual?

Very few people ever get to make a 'great decision' that influences the lives of millions and generations yet to come (politicians do not count since, as far as I can tell from observation, they don't actually understand what they're doing or why, and don't so much make decisions as pander to one roar of the mob after another), and perhaps the lesson to take from that is that games are good - why? Because they let those of us who wish for purpose in life to find distractions from tedium of 9-5 existence.

/Z