Making Moral Choices in Video Games

Video games can provide immersive experiences in fantasy stories of good and evil. as players become agents in their complex narrative arcs, they develop skills of moral perception and decision-making. more importantly, they may experience what J. r. r. Tolkien calls " eucatastrophe. " S hould we treat video games—at least some of them—as objects of art worthy of serious study? We tend to dismiss all of them as silly and commercialized entertainments, as colossal wastes of their players' time. Yet, despite these common dismissive attitudes, there is a growing trend to take some of them seriously. They may provide not only new artistic possibilities as a form, but also a medium for exploring important ideas. In " Philosophical Game Design, " Lars Konzack suggests the most interesting games are those that not only present " immersive experiences " but also express a " consequential philosophical system, a coherent cosmology. " 1 Such video games, he thinks, can be platforms for thoughtful exploration of theories about the human self, the universe, and God. Following Konzack, I take many video games seriously as works of art that express and explore philosophical ideas. Some games create elaborately imagined other worlds in which characters pursue intricate plot-paths that require important moral choices. I have in mind titles such as the Fable series and the Mass Effect series—role-playing games in which narrative progression by characters through a created world is a crucial element of the play. 2 These are an obvious place to begin in taking video gaming seriously, because among video games they are closest in structure and content to traditional literary fantasy.