Morality Part 2: Senseless violence, or fighting for what's right?

This week we’ll continue our look at the research done by Tilo Hartmann and Peter Vorderer on the concept of morality in video games. Once a degree of believability has been established, a player’s actions will begin to reflect on their satisfaction while playing. Earlier work by Hartmann shows a trend in the connection between their actions in the game and the level of fulfillment they get while playing. Hartmann’s previous studies showed that “if a user violates his or her internal moral standards by doing harm to video game characters, dissonant feelings like guilt and disgust are likely to emerge.” It is assumed that if you feel guilt or disgust while playing a game, odds are you aren’t enjoying yourself as you play. It is also noted that “players reported that disturbing situations interfered with their enjoyment.” One player remarked that if he accidentally shot an innocent bystander (like a kid) while playing a game, it would definitely hinder any fun he might have.

Obviously, developers want to avoid alienating the player and make sure they stay immersed in the game. As Hartmann and Vorderer wrote, “game designers seem to design violent game play to be enjoyably guilt-free.” There are two methods developers can use to reduce any guilt the player might experience for committing a violent act in a game. The first method is to give the feeling of moral justification for one’s actions. If you are killing vicious aliens or Nazis, chances are you won’t feel sorry for such a clearly-defined enemy. But if you’re a criminal mowing down pedestrians, there’s no way to approach the situation as morally justified. The second method is to dismiss the consequences of one’s actions. Killing enemy characters won’t feel like much if they simply vanish into thin air. But if you see a pile of bodies twitching on the floor after you kill a room full of enemies, you probably won’t feel too proud of your actions, even if they’re in a video game.

These two methods are what Hartmann and Vorderer examined in their experiment. To make a long write-up short, they manipulated these two variables in a level they made for the FPS game Operation Flashpoint. Participants were instructed to either attack or defend an enemy torture camp (morality), while the characters they killed would either die realistically or simply disappear (consequences). The results of the study seem both obvious and surprising. If the violence was framed as justified, then the player felt both less guilty and had fewer negative reactions to what they were doing – this much seems like common sense. But what’s odd is that justification had no effect on the player’s enjoyment of the game. Hartmann and Vorderer suggested that justification may not even directly affect the enjoyment one gets from playing a video game. Interestingly, players who felt justified in their actions and saw the consequences of violence enjoyed the game almost exactly as much as players who wrought havoc and had no moral justification but did not have to see any consequences.

I think moral justification is what a lot of the controversy surrounding video games arises from. As long as a violent situation is framed in the right way, it will completely pass under the radar of most parents and anti-video-game activists. The wildly popular Halo series has you playing a super-soldier that kills thousands of aliens to defend humanity, and nobody seems to be offended by this. But games like the Grand Theft Auto series get people up in arms, condemning the game for the violent criminal acts it features. However, the player is the one who controls what they do in a game like GTA4. They can choose to be as kind or as bloodthirsty to bystanders as they want. What matters is the way the violence is framed, and if it’s seen as unjustified, then people will take notice and maybe get upset or disgusted. Game developers need to be careful how they set up the scenarios in their games, and they must take into account both the public’s reactions to violence, and the enjoyment the player will get from playing their game.

Morality Part 1: Believability in video games

Last week, I discussed violence in video games and the effects it can have on the player. But mainstream video games incorporate violence as one small part of an overarching immersive experience. Like any action movie or dramatic television show, immersion is the key to entertaining the consumer, and violence is one way to grab the audience’s attention. But to throw the player into a violent video game with no context would not provide a captivating or enjoyable experience. There needs to be motivation for the acts the player is committing, and morality comes into play. If a player is killing plain enemies left and right with no back story or reason for doing so, they will likely become bored and lose interest. But if they are given a purpose, like saving humanity from aliens or wiping out a group of terrorists, their virtual violence becomes justifiable and they will become more invested in the game.

For the next two weeks, I’d like to delve into the topic of morality in video games, using a scholarly article as a guide. “It’s Okay to Shoot a Character: Moral Disengagement in Violent Video Games,” by Tilo Hartmann and Peter Vorderer, examines the concept of morality in games, and tests the researchers’ hypotheses in two experiments. But for now I’d like to focus on the idea behind moral choices and ethics in video games, and discuss their scientific results later.

A wide range of games today revolve around the concept of being able to influence your character’s decisions and make ethical choices. Games like Mass Effect keep a tally of how often your avatar is kind to others or acts like a jerk, and over time the way you treat others will affect how they treat you. Non-player characters may either praise or spurn you, based on your previous actions and attitude. Morality plays a huge part in the recent hit series Bioshock, where you are given the choice of either rescuing or “harvesting” zombie-like little girls you encounter throughout the game. Rescuing them restores them to normal but gives little monetary reward, while “harvesting” them kills them off-screen and nets you more resources. How you handle the “little sisters” not only affects the ending of the game, but how much power you can acquire as you play through it.

Making characters believable is necessary to the immersion the player experiences. If you don’t care about the characters you are either helping or killing, morality becomes meaningless and the entertainment value will rapidly decrease. Hartmann and Vorderer make note of the many ways in which designers create characters in games that help us suspend our disbelief and become engrossed in a game’s plot and action. There are certain visual cues that game designers can implement into their characters to “provoke automatic social responses.” These include things like blinking, breathing, display of emotion (especially with the face), and natural vocal tones. Individually, these may seem like pointlessly small details, but when combined into the final product of a virtual character, they take on a more “real” existence that players can connect with.

As Hartmann and Vorderer write, “if the media stimulus is well designed and displays social cues appropriately, it takes effort to recall that a character ‘is not real,’ because automatic social perceptions suggest otherwise.” If a player was constantly being reminded that they were playing a game, then enjoyment would suffer and the player would feel indifferent towards the events unfolding as they play. So it may enhance a player’s satisfaction to think of the avatars they encounter as “real social entities rather than artificial objects.” Believability is what keeps a player interested and engaged, just as suspending disbelief during a movie makes the film more enjoyable and compelling. Next week, I’ll talk about how morality comes into play once a gamer realizes that they might be doing harm to characters that almost seem real.

Aggression: the effects of violent video games

Violence in videogames is a topic that is often heard in today’s news. Parents worry that their kids will emulate the violent imagery they see in games. Critics worry that parents aren’t being cautious enough when it comes to screening the games their children play. Videogames can be made into a scapegoat for crimes committed by teens, with games like the Grand Theft Auto series taking heavy fire in the past decade.

Some people assume that playing these games will directly translate into a more violent and vicious child, that is simply trying to act out the images they saw on the screen in real life. When the Virginia Tech school shooting occurred, former attorney Jack Thompson declared that Seung-Hui Cho was an avid gamer who was obsessed with the first-person shooter Counter-Strike. In reality, there was no evidence that Cho played videogames at all. You can read more about Thompson’s false claim here:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/04/msnbc_dont_blam/

Since this is a blog, I can voice my personal opinion on the subject. I think that parents need to take more responsibility in what their children are playing, instead of mindlessly buying whatever their kids ask for. It’s definitely true that a lot of videogames have very graphic depictions of violence which kids should not be exposed to. But the ESRB games rating system exists for exactly this reason, so parents should know better than to buy an M-rated game for their child.

But studies have shown that violent videogames can increase levels of aggression in players. A recent study from July 2009 added an interesting angle to the study of the effects of violent videogames. The study by Peter Fischer, Andreas Kastenmuller, and Tobias Greitemeyer, entitled “Media violence and the self: The impact of personalized gaming characters in aggressive video games on aggressive behavior,” examined what happens when players have a personal connection to the characters performing violent acts.

Fischer et al. wanted to see what happened to levels of aggression when players could create and customize their character before sending them into a fight. They discussed the General Aggression Model, or GAM, as the explanation for aggressive behavior that results from personal and situational variables. As Fischer et al. put it, “videogames show their recipients what aggression is (learning), how it is performed (imitation; modeling), and trigger pre-existing cognitive knowledge structures, emotional associations, and behavioral scripts about aggression (priming).”

A group of 75 participants was put into one of four different test groups. The subject played 25 minutes of either Wii Bowling or Wii Boxing, both part of the Wii Sports game on the Nintendo Wii. The second variable came from the amount of customization they had over their character. In these games, players may create a “Mii” which can be modified in almost every facial feature to resemble the player. It was hypothesized that those who were playing the more aggressive game, Boxing, with their own personal Mii, would display higher levels of aggression due to the connection they felt to the character participating in the aggressive act.

In short, Fischer et al.’s hypothesis was confirmed. After playing, participants were asked to provide an amount of hot sauce to be given to a made-up subject of the same test. This was the measure of aggression, as they were told that the hot sauce was deemed too hot and were asked to try it themselves. It was found that players who had a custom Mii in Wii Boxing gave more than double the amount of hot sauce than those who were playing Wii Bowling, whether the bowlers had custom Miis or not.

More and more games have a customization feature. It started off in The Sims and Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, and has branched out to nearly every genre. It’s fascinating to see that the customization of one’s avatar/character really does have an effect on the player. As Fischer et al. hypothesized, “this innovation could amplify the psychological effects of videogames.” We feel a connection to the character on screen, and we develop a mental link to their emotions, which are a result of our actions as we play the game. This discovery could mean a lot for the immersive elements of gaming, just as health had an effect on how involved you become while playing.