How Real World Morals and Video Game Choices Fit Together—Or Don't
It's a deceptively simple question, and yet one that manages to have no good answer: "do real world morals have a place in video games?"
Players New to Violent Games Feel The Need to Go Wash Away the Moral…
Many years ago, researchers confirmed the existence of the "Lady Macbeth Effect." The gist of it is that we humans really do associate metaphorical uncleanliness with the more literal sort: if we've done or witnessed something immoral or unethical, we are often likely literally to want to go wash or bathe in response.…
New Rainbow Six Might Be the Most Innovative Shooter in Years
While Ubisoft's still-secret, yet-to-be named Rainbow Six game skipped an E3 appearance this year, it is still very much in the works we're told.
Are Video Games Turning Liberals Into Virtual Conservatives?
Monica Potts a feminist graduate of an all-girls college that would never take her husband's name or dream of ending her career to raise children. In the Sims 3 she's a married mother that stays home with the kids.
Weighing Morality in Gaming
Philosophers and Theologians have been debating the mechanics of moral choice for millennia.
Chimpanzees Take Us Beyond Good And Evil
Annexing territory, sending out scouting groups, beating enemies to death, and eating babies. It may sound like a plot to a particularly violent video game, but it's really just chimpanzees, giving us some serious insight into human nature.
Alignment Error: Even Good Games Can Offer Bad Choices
Few things mar a game, especially a role-playing game, like being sold on creating a complex, even unique character and then being presented with tendentiously noble or evil choices to build out that role.
Army of Two: The 40th Day's Smartest Feature Guarantees Arguments
Before you roll your eyes at yet another game infused with an innovative morality system, consider the arresting E3 2009 debut of Army of Two's co-op morality.