Why In-Game Morality Doesn’t Work

After recently completing Fallout 3 (or what apparently passed for a conclusion) I’ve been thinking about the growing popularity of adding a system of supposedly moral choices to games. We’ve seen it a few times over the past year or so with not only Fallout 3, but in games such as Bioshock and GTAIV which provide opportunities to make decisions based on the player’s own moral compass. I’d like to take the chance to explain why this rarely works in the way the designer seemingly intended, using the above three games as examples.

In order to add a moral system to a game, a designer has two basic questions to ask of themselves: should the player be made aware of the consequences of their actions, and to what degree should their moral decisions affect the game’s mechanics? Before answering these questions we need to think about what it means to make a moral choice, and the differences between moral systems based on guilt and regret versus legal systems based on punishment. In order for a choice to have any true morality attached to it, the person making that choice must take into consideration their own values and beliefs, applying them regardless of the situation. A good example would be internet piracy; the decision to pirate or not is almost entirely based on the moral values of the individual in question.

Moral choices inserted into video games rarely follow this formula. Fallout 3 was a prime example: killing an innocent person or giving clean water to the sick was never a moral decision. The player is aware of direct gameplay effects that result from their decision such as access to certain quests or the support of a particular NPC. By devaluing the player’s choice in this way they are no longer making decisions based on their morality, they are making a clear choice between two in-game paths. The much vaunted ‘moral’ system becomes no more a matter of morality than the decision to go left or right in Gears of War.

Bioshock was another game guilty of adding a misleading set of decisions which were branded as moral in nature. For those who aren’t aware, players are presented with young female NPCs called Little Sisters. The Little Sisters hold a precious resource that can only be accessed by capturing them at which point a choice is made whether or not to kill or save the girls. Killing results in a higher initial boost to your resources where saving provides only half the reward. Clearly a moral decision right? Wrong. The game very quickly makes it clear that by saving the girls you will curry favour with another NPC who will routinely leave you a greater number of resources than would be gained through killing. This fails even to offer the choice that Fallout 3 provides, distorting the in-game morality to the point where there is no choice – just an answer to an in-game question.

This brings us to the last game I mentioned: GTAIV. Ignoring its flaws and focusing on its use of morality, GTAIV is probably the most accurate depiction of moral variability. GTAIV  offers the player a choice to kill one of two characters at several different points. The player is not made explicitly aware of what rewards might await them depending on their decision, unlike the previous games. Thanks to a fantastic script and voice acting, it manages to portray the characters whose lives are in your hands with enough depth for you to feel that you know a lot about them as people. Further, what few in-game rewards you do get still have to be worked for and are not merely dropped into the player’s lap. By keeping the player in the dark about the consequences of their actions, the purity of their moral choices are maintained. I found that I made decisions based simply on who I thought was the most decent human being and resulting in a much more engaging experience.

In short, the more you tie in-game rewards to a player’s actions, the more you cheapen the moral status of those actions. It’s the contradiction at the heart of trying to give a player a greater connection to the games they play by inserting moral choices. If designers take the time to write decent dialogue and develop the characters that players interact with before determining the fate of those characters based on the player’s morality, we could see more profound experiences in games. Sadly all we’re offered at the moment are a series of crude equations.