Morality.

[Jack Joe Tip Toe]

Quick question. Do characters who do terrible things to other people in games get to you? Or do you not mind? I have a rule when it comes to morality in games. If the game sacrifices morality for the sake of being fun (Saints Row. GTA) I'll forgive it.

 

[Dirge Eterna]

Depends on what they do honestly. I can watch innocent people being killed but I hate seeing kids hurt. Since it is a game I let most things go since they are just imaginary, I usually have a tougher time with books than with games or movies portraying death or violence. I think I get more into a book than a visual art because I am imagining everything in my head and not watching someone elses interpretation of it. Same reason why I usually have a hard time with watching movies or shows based on a book I read. Plus when I know I am playing a game my mind switches into the psychotic fuck mode that I can't activate anywhere else and I do things I would never even think about in the real world but its all imaginary so who cares.

 

[Full]

Generally in games, I guess I don't mind. Rather, I can't really think of any game character that made me go "wow, this guy's a dick, better stop playing this game." Maybe I'm just not experienced in that facet of games, but I also don't think there's too many shock games to base this on in the first place.

Things could still go... a bit too far depending on the context, I'd wager. Really depends on what the creators do with the subject matter.

If the game is based around dicks being dicks, and they don't sugar coat it, then I don't think there would be much of a problem. I'd actually like subject matter like that to be worked with. I wouldn't be forced to play it, and there's just that much more variety in games.

Maybe I'm biased, though, because I tend to like "dark stories that take unexpected turns."

 

[BQE]

Morality isn't a concern for me in games, I can differentiate between reality and fantasy. I wouldn't care if I had to flay children in a video games, it's a video game.

That being said, games being immoral for the sake of shock or simply for no particular reason at all bother me. The morality needs to scale to the context, I would consider 40k one extreme polarity, with something bloodless like Mario at the other.

A good story and context will have you appreciate the gravity of the atrocities taking place, something done to horrify and nothing more has no place in gaming or storytelling in general.

Suspension of disbelief is key.

 

[Caiphus]

Oh, it depends on how cruel we're talking, what kind of game it is, all that.

I mean, I never really like the internet debates that the subject causes, but the common extreme given would be controlling a character that rapes someone, right? I think that would probably make me uncomfortable.

But being uncomfortable isn't necessarily bad. Maybe it'd be a bad sign if I really enjoyed it, right? People praise Spec Ops for making them feel uncomfortable. Same reason, I guess.

But, you know, I mostly play RPGs where I get to be the goody-goody hero. So that's just me.

 

[Sarge034]

Morality isn't a problem so long as the story supports it. If I'm playing a bad dude doing bad things and it fits with the setting then all is well. That being said, a consistent tone does not mean I will enjoy the story. I hate the GTA series, but I am all right with the actions in GTA. While I love the story being told in Spec Ops: The Line, I hate myself when I play through it.

Edit- Loved The Last of Us to death and loved how Joel was portrayed. I approved of everything he did. When he was...

Spoiler

torturing the dudes after Elli was abducted I literally said out loud, "You had better kill these sons of bitches!" And then he did.

 

[Zhukov]

Depends what they do and, perhaps more importantly, why they do it.

For example, Joel from The Last of Us does some pretty nasty shit, and that's not even counting the brutal violence he dishes out in combat. However, since the game gives you plenty of context as to what kind of person he is and why he does it, I have no problem with it. Hell, I actually like him as a character.

As for "games that sacrifice morality for the sake of being fun", while they don't bother me, they just bore the shit out of me. Killing random pedestrians was enough to entertain me when I was nine years old. Now it's just juvenile and boring.

They only way that would bother me is if I stop and think about the fact that somewhere out there a miserable little nerd fuelled by a lifetime of powerlessness is playing his favourite civilian-massecre-em-up while breathlessly masturbating.

 

[EternallyBored]

It depends on the story and how into it I am. In a parody like GTA, where everything is over the top and the story acknowledges this I'm probably going to have no problems no matter how reprehensible the characters act. In a game that gives me choice and asks me to do something truly evil to characters I like and care about, it's going to be a lot harder. If the game doesn't give me a choice a la Spec Ops, then the emotional impact tends to be muted, I got what the story was trying to tell me and thought it was executed ok, but I felt a lot worse about shooting Mordin in Mass Effect 3 than anything Spec Ops did.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I apply the "suspension of disbelief" aspect of gaming to morality as well, meaning I suspend my personal moral code. To a degree. Generally when I play a game I will take on a role, much like I did back in my amateur acting days, which my character's viewpoint may be radically different than my own. I do however still feel morality shocks in some game situations (SpecOPS is a great example). Divorcing myself from my personal views though does also help me to garner a degree of understanding (even if I don't agree) of diametrically opposite viewpoints.
I love to test my own views and do it on a daily basis, sometimes my mind changes and sometimes I stay where I'm comfortable.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I don't think i've cared enough about a character in a videogame to be offended by their morality. But i could imagine having a problem with something like that, i had problems enjoyong the end of Once Upon A Time in America because Robert DeNiro turns into such an asshat during the course of the movie. And i've had similar experiences in other movies, so yeah, if i care enough about the story and the characters then it could be a problem to me.

And it's not because i see the main character as myself, it's more a thing where i prefer it if i like the characters in a story. If they turn into unlikeable asshats then i stop caring (unless there's an interesting message to be found in their transformation, i didn't have a problem with any of this in Something like The Libertine). If a story wants me to root for an asshole, then they slowly start to lose me.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Well, since it is a game, it is difficult to make the argument that there is any real morality to be sacrificed. Though, I do see your point.

As for me, if things get really violent, I tend to prefer over-the-top portrayals, meaning that no one could possibly take what is going on seriously, and the whole thing becomes a satire of reality, more or less like Saint's Row. My problem comes when games have a pretension to gritty 'realism,' which is silly in the first place, but becomes much more distasteful when the actions taken by the characters show no real thought or restraint. The characters become totally unbelievable under these circumstances, and I begin to dislike them, ruining the fun.

Note that I then dislike the game more for poor characterization than for moral reasons.

That said, I do enjoy a good moral tale, where characters struggle to make the right choices, but those types of games usually fall more into a narrative-type of game rather than a sandbox-type.

 

[Zhukov]

dishonoured had an interesting mechanic where you had the opportunity to get a sentence or two about everyone and pretty much everything in the game. it often changed how i dealt with guards

I remember that.

It was pretty simplistic and the lines would start repeating after a few levels, but I found it surprisingly effective.

It's hard to want to cut Generic Guard #103's throat after you've heard, "When not on duty he searches for his little sister, missing for a week now." Or Street Thug #08 after, "He feeds a stray dog every evening. He named her Billy."

 

[Trippy Turtle]

If its in a game I'm fine with it either way if that's what your asking. It can make me dislike a character (Which in turn makes me love them for getting a reaction out of me) but only in the sense of he's a dick, not that hes a badly written character.

The more games that have characters that genuinely disgust me, or any other reaction, the happier I am.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I don't think there is any universal rule here. I can hate a character for what they do while still love them for just being a well-written character (yes, I know I basically just stole from Jim Sterling here). I may be strongly against judging a game based on the quality of its characters' morality in such a way as to indicate that the characters in the game are in any way equivalent to real world people (ex. all the recent controversy with GTAV's violence even from more serious gamers). However, in the moment of placing myself in the game's world and story, I may dislike what a character does and feel rather uncomfortable with their actions, but I'm not going to go ahead and criticize the game for it. On the other hand, if the game is just using itself as a backdrop to have a lot of fun with no "serious" writing involved (ex. Saints Row), then I probably won't even be uncomfortable with them.