"Do the right thing, you must", says Yoda.

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I’m walking around the desert of Tatooine as a jedi equipped with a blue light saber and a master control of the force. A jawa steals some jewels from me. Cue the dramatic music and an intense chase scene through the sand. I use all my abilities, anything in my arsenal, to corner this pocket sized humanoid in a hood. Finally. A dead end. My light saber ignites and all of a sudden I’m faced with a choice: do I kill him or do I let the little guy go.

I sit there with my thoughts for a moment, weighing up each option on my moral scale. Several strokes of my chin and scratches of my head later I eventually click on the option to let him go. I lost some cash, but I gain this overwhelming feeling that I’ve done the right thing.

Crazy right? A bunch of pixels on a screen could actually spark me to question my values and assess my own moral fiber. Nothing would’ve happened to me if I killed him, likewise nothing happened when I let him go. So the question is…

Why did I let him go?

The moral code game model is an increasing component of video games today, allowing players direct control of how a story plays out and what type of journey they take their character on. Continuing prominence of such a feature only attests to the value that these games are and how much players are enjoying them. It seems like people like their morality poked and prodded and their heartstrings tugged and pulled.

Playing games that involve moral choice as a main component engages players causing them to learn about their personal values and moral standards.

Dan Staines and Malcolm Ryan  outline the moral code game model. A moral choice works in four stages.

Moral Motivation

Moral motivation is the impetus to act on our judgement, the desire to do the right thing. It is about cultivating an ethical identity which values courtesy, honour, generosity and fairness. Without these qualities, judgement lacks motivational force and will seldom result in action.

Moral Sensitivity

Moral sensitivity is the ability to discern that an issue is moral in the first place and recognise how it might be interpreted by different participants. It involves a number of skills including the ability to connect to others and understand their perspectives. Communication (both speaking and listening) is a key skill of moral sensitivity, as is the ability to recognise and control one’s own social bias.

Moral Judgement

Moral judgement is the act of determining a proper course of action in a moral situation. This is the component that we are most familiar with. It requires skilled reasoning and the ability to identify and employ different judgement criteria. It also requires the ability to predict and evaluate the possible outcomes of our actions to plan our behaviour.

Moral Action

Moral action is employing the skills to carry out the solution. Skills of moral action include the ability to negotiate, to solve interpersonal problems, to take initiative for action, and to show courage to persevere in the face of obstacles.

The model works off the basis that each player is inherently good. This is a broad, sweeping and, some may even argue, false assumption, but data collected by developers have proven, at least statistically, that it is correct.

In an article by Stefanie Fogel Telltale Games senior director of marketing Richard Iggo says “Some of the stats we’ve seen coming back from player decisions have created a perception that even in dire times – and when faced with no-win situations where each decision is morally gray – the majority of people will try to do the ‘right’ thing if they can.”

So, according to Iggo, we see that players have a strong sense of moral motivation. But this does not necessarily answer the question of why players are deciding to do good by these pixelated characters.

In my last blog post, I talked about players using the internet, or, more specifically, online gaming, to either re-invent themselves or express their ideal selves. Perhaps the moral aspect of games is allowing players to exact their “ideal” selves.

According to psychologist Carl Rogers people are made up of two aspects: the ideal self (who we want to be) and the real self (who we actually are). If there is a difference between the two then it can lead to two options: Someone can attempt to unify their real self with their ideal self or turn to a form of escapism: whether it be drugs, alcohol or in this case gaming.

These games are allowing players to exact both scenarios. They are able to escape but also acquire the standards of their ideal self by living vicariously through the character that they control.

And this is where all the quantitative data is thrown out the window. You can’t measure morality. You can’t measure choice. You can’t put right and wrong in a table. And you can’t add a percentage to feelings.

Games are causing players to question who their “ideal self” is, and to what extent the variance is between the ideal and the real. Not only this, but game developers are allowing them to exercise this notion of the ideal self and completely control the pathway that a game character takes: essentially adopting a second life.

Often people focus on the cognitive and reactionary skills that video games offer, or the psychological disadvantages of gaming due to its often violent or distracting nature.

However, rarely are the psychological positives ever mentioned. Games employing the morality model are allowing players to learn about themselves, what they value, what they hold dear and how far they are willing to push the ethical line towards the virtuous or towards the evil.

I guess the jawa thief can thank his lucky stars that my ideal self isn’t an asshole.