Moral choice in most games is pretty ridiculous anyway. In the vast majority of video games, the actions of play are already about doing unethical things (breaking into places you shouldn’t be, killing, looting, holding political office, etc) and the story or theming is just there to provide moral cover for why what you are doing is Good Actually ™️. Americans are great at justifying violence because our media trains us in doing it everyday.
If you tried to hold people to IRL standards of ethical behavior, the entire FPS genre would vanish. And that’s why these things don’t work well in games. You can’t punish bad behavior because it would feel anti-player. You also can’t reward bad behavior , even though that’s realistic, because it offends the miscalibrated normie sense of justice. And simulating the small-scale social consequences of immorality would also be immensely difficult and anti-fun.
In most of those, the alternatives are pretty weak and poorly supported. Also, violence isn’t the only kind of immorality, that is very much my point. And also… you have to name one that isn’t Undertale…
Moral choice in most games is pretty ridiculous anyway. In the vast majority of video games, the actions of play are already about doing unethical things (breaking into places you shouldn’t be, killing, looting, holding political office, etc) and the story or theming is just there to provide moral cover for why what you are doing is Good Actually ™️. Americans are great at justifying violence because our media trains us in doing it everyday.
If you tried to hold people to IRL standards of ethical behavior, the entire FPS genre would vanish. And that’s why these things don’t work well in games. You can’t punish bad behavior because it would feel anti-player. You also can’t reward bad behavior , even though that’s realistic, because it offends the miscalibrated normie sense of justice. And simulating the small-scale social consequences of immorality would also be immensely difficult and anti-fun.
There are some games where going out of your way to avoid resorting to violence is rewarded.
In most of those, the alternatives are pretty weak and poorly supported. Also, violence isn’t the only kind of immorality, that is very much my point. And also… you have to name one that isn’t Undertale…
Dishonored series was pretty good at offering and rewarding a peaceful playthtrough. It was definitely the more difficult option but usually worth it.
Which they made more of them
Deus Ex: Human Revolution!
In The Witcher games there are grey choices with hard to predict outcomes.
Geraldo: In a choice between two evils I’d rather not choose at all.
Also Geraldo: Does nothing but choose between evils.
To be fair, the game does give you inaction as a choice a bunch of times. It rarely leads to a good outcome though.