I like “moral alignment” as the definition to where the game sits as a system to facilitate moral choices, directed by an author. And that good and evil are only good for now, because many of the choices between the two extremes are more a parody of moral choice than actual moral choice. “Moral Choice” meanwhile is the act of making a decition within the game, not the presentation of a game’s own morals. That is an important distinction.

Finally we have the players reaction to such a choice. In real life it would be concequences and they would have to live with them. In art it would be “introspection” to understanding the emotion.

I like that.

I knew context rather than mechanics were going to be the driving force behind good moral dilemmas and ethical codes in games. But I think the three step process you outlined is a more devloped explaination to what HOMM2 made me feel. The effect the seperation of context and mechanics, unlike Bioshock where context was a mechanic, wasn’t intentional. I’m glad it’s there anyway.

More thought will have to be put into this three-step idea.

If I may make up some terms to make this easier for me to process:

(1) You mention what might be called the “alignment” of a game’s morality-system. As with the examples you give, following, “What is moral and what isn’t is a subjective difference between people”, a game may fail to communicate its moral-paradigm and dilemmas due to failure of alignment. The “game’s morality” can be that of the creator as you note, and also may manifest itself I think often through the dialogue of the protagonist or reward systems etc.

(2) Your “Skellator vs. Mother Teresa” might be called the “resolution” of a game’s morality. We may be in alignment with the game’s morality-system, but a low resolution means that ethical qualms become ethical parody.

(3) “A player has to be able to put his or her own moral subjectivity into the game world” – meaning not only apply their own judgment, but feel that the judgments are moral judgments. This I would call the “introspective nature” of a game’s morality.

Originally I was under the impression that you were mixing a discussion of “how much does this resemble a moral issue” with “how much does this feel like a moral issue”.

Writing on the go, it seems like you’ve been consistent after all. I was intending to show how you were still mixing two issues, but it appears not. Per the 3-categories that came up:

(1) There was no issue of alignment raised (it would seem)

(2) Although there are (basically) only “good” and “evil”, the minimizing of choice options (there being only two option-events), it seems that the lack of resolution was not an issue. This is to say, the player is less concerned with choosing between the two and more with playing once the choice has been made.

(3) The fact that the game treated evil as a context and not as a mechanism is what made it possible to feel that the actions taken by the character are in fact moral choices.

I falsely separated the appearance of morality with the feeling of morality. It would seem that the game having allowed you to consider your actions as moral (and not, for example, as a means to getting more exciting powers) is what made it possible for a moral-introspection on your behalf.[/ramble]

Actually, I guess you could call it having a thin skin or whatever, but I actually did go physically cold at the realization. But yes I guess there is confusion about the discussion of moral choice in games in how to go about it. I would have to finding and rereading such posts to figure out the details, but from what I recall you are absolutely right about the discussion.

It stems from this. Morality is an inherently subjective topic. What is moral and what isn’t is a subjective difference between people. Polygamy is wrong for much of the world, yet the Mormons built a religion around it. Suicide is considered a mortal sin in the west, but Japan has a culture of it being a redeeming act allowing for an honorable afterlife.

That said, when it comes to art, the work that deals with moral situations is commentary by the author, either an affirmation of his own moral viewpoint or a condemnation of someone else’s. There are cases where an authored work, while trying to affirm or condemn a moral viewpoint may do the opposite for an audience based on their own standpoint and reaction to the material.

It gets a little muddy when it comes to video games that not only has a greater factor of audience participation, but also outright demand it. A player has to be able to put his or her own moral subjectivity into the game world. So we get a divide, the side where there is an author, no matter what thinkers like Clint Hocking may say, and that the work is an objective (I’m using objective because you did to show the dichotomy of criticism, it really isn’t the right word) because the game’s world is based around a single morality of the creator. Then there is the matter of emergent narrative and the game system allowing you to place your own moral compass on to the action.

This split wouldn’t normally be a problem. Which critical method to use would be based on the specific game? However, present game morality systems that try and impose an ‘objective’ morality fail because they end up being Skellator vs. Mother Teresa. There is nothing to comment on those morality systems in any meaningful way. On the other hand you get a game like Far Cry 2 that presents you with choice where most of the game is emergent in nature, but regardless of choice it presents a unified morality based on the world you exist in.

I don’t know what to do about it. In the case of this post, maybe giving the personal example was a bit much given the rest of the distant critical nature of the rest of the essay. And I accept that HOMM2 is not the game that convinced you that game systems can and should self-introspection of your own actions to convey morality.

I hope some of that made some sense and if not please tell me what didn’t.

Nice read; brings back some fond memories.

Take this as you will, but I’m curious as to your motivation for writing: “…I felt sick, realizing what I was doing in the context of the world… slaughtering thousands… desecrating their corpses…”

I presume (although do not insist) that this is hyperbole on your part, stemming from literary intentions. I presume that you don’t really feel “sick”, but rather that you came to a (cerebral) realization that the representation is a representation “of” something (morally, etc) sick.

The reason for my pressing this issue is that while I find your explanations regarding the treatment of moral choices here (HMM2) convincing, I nonetheless find your need to convince us that the same systems offers a presentation of visceral moral introspection less convincing and even distracting.

I think that this last is often a problem for those discussing morality in games. It is as if they’re not sure whether they discussing (a) the verisimilitude of [objective] moral choices in gameplay, or (b) the ability of game choices to elicit [subjective] perception of morality.

All the best, &c.