Morality and video games

Does a video game ever crossed your moral code? What disturbs you in a video game?

I'm not an oversensitive gamer since I can rampage civilians for hours in GTA or kill without mercy in FPS tournaments - but there are some moments that disturb me:

1) When your character enjoys killing a soldier in military shooters calling him names (he is a soldier just like you and has parents or a family)
2) When your character has sex ingame without your consent (since I often identify myself with my character and I do not want it to have sex with that woman it breaks immersion)
3) Killing (like in Assassin's creed) can sometimes saturate me, and makes me want to play Batman who just knocks out opponents
4) Too much family stuff ("your mother is pregnant" and your have a satanic brother - F3ar)
5) Your character injects random weird stuff to himself without your consent - Crysis 2

 

As I said before, completing Suncoast in Terranigma ensures that every animal you met in Safarium during the first half of the game is put into captivity. In fact almost everything you do or don't do in that game has a consequence, but that one stood out the most.

 

Does a video game ever crossed your moral code? What disturbs you in a video game?

I'm not an oversensitive gamer since I can rampage civilians for hours in GTA or kill without mercy in FPS tournaments - but there are some moments that disturb me:

1) When your character enjoys killing a soldier in military shooters calling him names (he is a soldier just like you and has parents or a family)
2) When your character has sex ingame without your consent (since I often identify myself with my character and I do not want it to have sex with that woman it breaks immersion)
3) Killing (like in Assasin's creed) can sometimes saturate me, and makes me want to play Batman who just knocks out opponents
4) Too much family stuff ("your mother is pregnant" and your have a satanic brother - F3ar)
5) Your character injects random weird stuff to himself without your consent - Crysis 2

Basically everything you said crosses the line for me.

It never really bugged me to shoot down battle droids or stormtroopers in SWBFII

Also I don't like having to interact with poorly dressed women.

[this is why 95% of the game I play are in the world of Nintendo of SEGA]

 

they're games. i'm not affected

 

Does a video game ever crossed your moral code? What disturbs you in a video game?

I'm not an oversensitive gamer since I can rampage civilians for hours in GTA or kill without mercy in FPS tournaments - but there are some moments that disturb me:

1) When your character enjoys killing a soldier in military shooters calling him names (he is a soldier just like you and has parents or a family)
2) When your character has sex ingame without your consent (since I often identify myself with my character and I do not want it to have sex with that woman it breaks immersion)
3) Killing (like in Assasin's creed) can sometimes saturate me, and makes me want to play Batman who just knocks out opponents
4) Too much family stuff ("your mother is pregnant" and your have a satanic brother - F3ar)
5) Your character injects random weird stuff to himself without your consent - Crysis 2

Doesn't really affect me because they're just pixellated characters who don't know any better.

 

Some of the things in GTA make me uneasy. There's a mission where you have to murder someone's family and, yeah.. Anything involving animal abuse gets me too. If there's a game where animals are killable I do everything to avoid doing so. Also I have a lot of trouble responding negatively or rudely to things in game dialogue, even if I'm tempted to see what the alternate response of the person is. Other than that not much affects me.

 

Often, when a game confronts me with a choice involving morals, I'll select the option that better reflects my own morals. This is a way for players to sympathize more with, or project their own personality onto, the player character. A player's avatar is always connected to the player through the simple fact of control. In a small but certain way, you are your character, and your character is you. In Skyrim, this is empowering, and in Half-Life, immersive. But what if your avatar isn't like you?

Video game characters that break our own moral codes while under our control give us a new perspective. They aren't a psycho in a news report, they are connected to us through that control, and that urges us to identify with them. None of us (I hope) saw ourselves wholly reflected in Nico Bellic, but we understood why he did the things he did. So, total antimorality in video games can be enlightening, even when you have to step back and remind yourself it's only a video game, and that pile of burning babies is made of binary code.

On a more personal note, I can't remember a video game ever truly disturbing me. I often feel really shitty about killing certain people, but hey, my character in the video game did that. They're a monster, what an intriguing character, let's play some more.

 

Read if you wish~

Spoiler

"they're games. i'm not affected"
"Doesn't really affect me because they're just pixellated characters who don't know any better"

Break down what a game is, and it is information : maybe story, music, art, and interaction...
Remove the bias of what a game is; what to play is; and realize how books, art, music have changed all our lives. Inspired people to alter their lives because of ideas witnessed and passed on throughout history.

I'm just trying to say, don't underestimate information, even in the form we call games.
In the end, the effect information has on us, is dependent on what we are willing to let it have.

Games can be devestating, wonderful, or they can mean nothing. It's up to your interpetation.

I've let some games disturb and damage me for instance. What disturbs me?
Suicide... torture... hurting or seeing someone you care for get hurt. Extreme hallucination and paranoia... Some games with story that I enjoyed had parts that were painful.

Even if it is just a fantasy, games can have a powerful impact. Though, in most cases I think mainstream games are rarely too extreme in these aspects. Afterall, society has acceptable standards that it imposes... You don't release games that are extremely disturbing to the public and expect no repercussions!

That doesn't stop people from slowly testing the boundaries though...

"Does a video game ever crossed your moral code? "
Yes, of course it has. I've pursued my curiosity and have constantly bent my moral code, at least in terms of fantasy, in the pursuit of new possiblities.

 

When I see my ally get hurt in a game, and it's not my own doing, I do feel for them in a way. But when my character hurts someone on my side or does something immoral, I think nothing of it, because it's just a game. Some people have different ranging opinions on causing your character to do something immoral.

When I was younger, I used to have fun shooting my own allies just to see their reactions and overpower them when they realize I've betrayed them. Once when I was ten years old and my brother was fourteen, I was consistently doing this, and my brother got annoyed and eventually told me to stop. I dismissed him and kept shooting my own allies. My brother insisted that it was annoying and counterproductive, and I told him that given that this was just a silly game, playing the game like it was meant to be played was absolutely no more constructive than staying in the same room, killing my own men, killing myself, and then respawning to a checkpoint where my men are still alive and repeating this process over and over again. I also pointed out that he had never criticized me for doing things like this in more innocent games, so why in this one? He responded that due to the more realistic nature of this game, shooting your men and them seeing you as a traitor and then trying to kill you in return just seemed wrong. He felt that it was a mentally unhealthy practice for me. I then responded that the marines I was killing were not real at all and just part of a program on a computer that's engineered for the user to perceive real people whose lives mean something to them, that my in-game actions are meaningless, and that to feel that the fact that I'm doing immoral actions in game have any effect on my character in the real world and to even have any sort of sympathy for virtual characters is foolish. He was devoid of being able to make anymore counter arguments, but he still wanted me to stop. A while later, he conceded, and ceased to bother me about it.

Some people are bothered by stuff like this, and some aren't.

 

I'm one of those people who uses a mod in Skyrim that lets you kill the kids... obviously I can't and won't imagine doing so in real life. The reason I do so in the game is because they are annoying little brats. But there are games like The Binding of Isaac, which the trailer actually disturbed me a little and I often don't like super rude gore toon stuff or weirdly demonic scenarios. I can totally play something like Alan Wake with no problems, but when quirky and demonic mix, I stay away, because it disturbs me. I don't know why, it just does.

Something like children running away from some murderer and crying out "mommy", then getting caught and brutally murdered? That would affect me and I'd stay away from any game that would have something like that. And, I think it was a CoD game, but I also hated this one part where you have to fake being a bad guy and you basically mow down a ton of innocent people in a mall? I might be remembering it wrong, but that disgusted me, especially since they were all screaming and stuff.

I used to play a nascar game and it was sooooo boring to race... so I always went backwards and tried to see how many cars I could take out with a strategic hit. This was perfectly enjoyable for me; no problems, only joy. XD You could also paint the cars and name the drivers, so I would name some as my friends and others as people I didn't exactly care for, and I'd try to smash into people so that my friends won and those others got really bad placement. This was also totally enjoyable. It was actually pretty challenging playing this way... now I really wish I still had that game.


So, I guess it really depends. I like games to be a bit unrealistic, I don't like realistic torture and I don't like it when games try to make horrific or gory suffering funny. That kind of stuff makes me disgusted and angry at the people responsible for putting that in the game. Few things in games upset me though. In Counter-Strike, I shoot my allies if they were stupid in the last round, and then I occasionally shamelessly t-bag 'em after shooting them. I have no problem with it because it's not realistic, they don't beg you not to kill them or any stuff like that.

 

Generally speaking, anything that involves being unnecessarily mean to pretty much anything is rather taboo for me. I never toss Yoshi into a pit in Super Mario World, if I do I jump right down with him. I always release the legendaries (and most common Pokémon) after registering them in my Pokédex unless I'm actually going to keep them on my team and treat them well and stuff. So far, this has happened with Mew in Red, Ho-oh and Lugia (which were always staples of my team in younger playthroughs of Gold), and Aeon (a Latias currently on my team in Emerald). There are probably other things I can't be bothered to remember...

Also, trying to portray cruel or terrible things in a humorous way is a good way to make sure I don't play it.

 

I always release the legendaries after registering them

this has happened with Mew in Red

I always release legendaries

Mew in Red

I released Mew in Red

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Um, no. I mean I've used Mew in Red. Pretty much every other legendary besides the ones mentioned I've either not gotten ahold of or released.

 

Really the only time this happens to me is when an enemy gets down on his knees and begs for his life.

I think the only game I've seen do this is Postal 2 and that's pretty much a murder simulator anyways, but even there I think it's just one step too far. That's the kind of stuff that would be really happening but you like to forget about when you're playing a game with any kind of violence. it's practically unwritten code to leave out that facet of realism in games, so it's just incredibly disturbing when a game takes it to that level. It's just far too real.

 

Really the only time this happens to me is when an enemy gets down on his knees and begs for his life.

I think the only game I've seen do this is Postal 2 and that's pretty much a murder simulator anyways, but even there I think it's just one step too far. That's the kind of stuff that would be really happening but you like to forget about when you're playing a game with any kind of violence. it's practically unwritten code to leave out that facet of realism in games, so it's just incredibly disturbing when a game takes it to that level. It's just far too real.

At first I read that as "Portal 2", and I was taken aback on how the rest of the post made zero sense.

 

For me its in pokemon crystal when I was a kid losing my data when my I dropped it. I lost my Typhosion, my mew and charizard. I was heart broken that day.

 

Has anybody played the game "OFF"?

It explores a bizarre world where you control a character without knowing that character's true motive until you're a good ways in. It's creepy as hell and very interesting.

Also, trying to portray cruel or terrible things in a humorous way is a good way to make sure I don't play it.

Polaris.... Don't play TF2. :U

 

OFF is amazingly ambiguous and interpretable, I love it to bits

TF2, though, is really cartoony and unrealistic. I haven't played it, but I don't think I'd have too many problems...

 

Has anybody played the game "OFF"?

It explores a bizarre world where you control a character without knowing that character's true motive until you're a good ways in. It's creepy as hell and very interesting.

Polaris.... Don't play TF2. :U

(this post contains actual spoilers)
Best example of questionable morality:

Spoiler

beating your wife and defenseless child to death

Also in retrospect, I realized that Dangan Ronpa kind of disturbs me. It's an overall good game and I find the concept interesting, but like then again it's kind of disturbing. Humourous, but really morbid. Just pitting teenagers against each other and toying with them psychologically

Spoiler

meanwhile while the outside world is even more fucked up

And some of the executions (especially the last one) were a bit...woah. I know the internet generally thinks of it as BRUTAL AND COOL XD but seriously some of it made me question the creators' mental state. I can honestly say that the game disturbed me more than your typical gorey video game (even though the blood is fucking pink)

 

For me its in pokemon crystal when I was a kid losing my data when my I dropped it. I lost my Typhosion, my mew and charizard. I was heart broken that day.

Because that has everything to do with morality. For me, it's kind of ridiculous, to the point that I jump off a cliff in inFamous if I accidentally capture a civilian. It just disturbs me, seeing them stuck to the ground, trying to escape.