Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority

This paper covers a detailed analysis of the Milgram Experiments, how they were conducted exactly and an analysis of the results collated.

Link: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/pir/notes06/Level5/IR5503/Milgram.pdf

Ethics 101: Designing Morality in Games

This article discusses morality systems in games and includes an interview with Bethseda’s Emil Paglairulo and 2K Marin’s Jordon Thomas, discussing ethical building gameplay. The interview attempts to examine how to design moral choices which are both intellectually stimulating as well as fun to play. Referencing in creating The Eldar Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Bioshock 2. Morality systems have grown more common as games have become more complex. The majority of morality systems in games are still ‘black and white’ though, while some others try to offer more variety in choices, making the player experiment with different ethical stances. Interesting points made are that a morality system comes down to two requirements: engaging world for the player and creating choices with moral weight, while obvious a lot of games don’t offer both, but rather create choices which have no impact on narrative/gameplay. Players have to connect with the characters, Bethseda’s Pagliarulo “ I think Heavy Rain has proven this better than any game in recent memory. In order for a developer to provide moral choices that matter, the player has to be convinced that those choices are going to have some kind of effect on the characters in the game, and more believable those characters, the stronger the emotional impact.” Adding morality can stop player’s cruising through the same types of games they’ve gotten used to. Pagliarulo states that “Shooting the bad guy’ becomes ‘shooting the guy who may or may not be bad,’ and that in itself adds a unique twist to the gameplay”

Link: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/5324/ethics_101_designing_morality_in_.php

BEHAVIORAL DECISION THEORY: PROCESSES OF JUDGMENT AND CHOICE

This paper studies the relevance of normative theories in the study of decision making and choice. Einhorn and Hogart propose strategies and mechanisms of choice which are: The role of acquisition in evaluation, acquisition, evaluation/action, conflict in judgement, judgement = choice and conflict in action.

Link: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2490959?uid=19312120&uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=3&uid=16757072&uid=67&uid=62&sid=56139146173

Shadow of the Collossus

Team Ico’s action-adventure game Shadow of the Colossus sees the player take the role of protagonist Wander as he travels a long distance with what appears to be a dead girl on his horse to a remote land with a castle in the centre. Once at the castle wander is told by an unseen entity that he must defeat sixteen colossi to bring the girl back to life. The intro cut scene is narrated by another character who explains a small amount of the back story that wander has travelled to forbidden lands and that Dormin (the entity) must be prevented from using a forbidden spell. This brief back-story at the beginning of the game already lays down clues that what Wander hopes to achieve could have tragic consequences. By the end of the game when Wander has defeated all of the Collosi it is revealed that Dormin has used him in ordered to possess his body and walk amongst the mortal world. Though a tragic love story, Shadow of the Collossus is evidence of how research into obedience and authority in games could lead to innovative design concepts. Could a game be designed around multiple paths of the player obeying and disobeying authority?

Black or White: Making Moral Choices in Video Games

This article argues that the emergence of morality is one of the most important innovations in video games recently. It argues that often moral choices within games are ‘black and white’ for example, good or evil choices, rather than more morally ambiguous choices, a shade of grey. It also concludes that games such as Bioshock and inFamous “give the illusion of meaning to a player’s actions” and that these choices made are “promoted as a very weighty and important player decision, when in reality it has little bearing on your character”

This article is interesting in my research because I feel the use of moral choices in game design are an interesting innovation where a player can question what they are doing within a virtual environment. The concept of morality systems in games could be an interesting base for this research.

Link: http://uk.gamespot.com/features/black-or-white-making-moral-choices-in-video-games-6240211/

A Virtual Reprise of the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments

During the 1960s Stanly Milgram submitted an article called ‘Behavioural Study of Obedience’. Influenced by the trial of Nazi lieutenant colonel Adolf Eichmann the study contained research on how participants dealt with being coerced by an authoritative figure into acting against their judgement and committing acts of torture upon another human. The participants were asked to administer increasing voltage shocks to a ‘learner’ (who unknown to the participant is an actor) when questions were answered incorrectly. The learner is placed in another room and communication between the participant and ‘learner’ is conducted over intercom. The results of the experiment are shocking with 37 of the 40 participants administering the highest range of lethal voltage shock of 450 volts. Milgram concluded that we do as we are told when ordered by an authorities figure either out of fear or out of the desire to co-operate.

This paper conducts the same tests as the Milgram experiments but within “an immersive virtual environment”. Instead of an actor playing the role of the ‘learner’ the participents have to administer shocks to a virtual female human. The results show that despite the fact that all the participants are clearly aware of the shocks not being real and having no effect on a sentient life form, all the participants showed physiological and behavioural levels as if the situation was real. “This result reopens the door to direct empirical studies of obedience and related extreme social situations, an area of research that is otherwise not open to experimental study for ethical reasons, through the employment of virtual environments.”


Link: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000039

The Stanley Parable

The Stanley parable is a half-life 2 mod created in the source engine. The game sees you take control of Stanley, as he is narrated around his place of work. While exploring the environments of the Stanley Parable the narrator subtlety tells you what to do, for example, when you come to a corridor the narrator says 'Stanley went through the door on the left' or just before reaching a set of the stairs the narrator says 'Stanley went upstairs to his bosses office'. The interesting part to this mod is when you disobey what the narrator tells you what to do. Instead of the game coming to a stand still until they do what they are told by the narrator, the game continues, which leads to multiple paths and endings. The Stanley Parable challenges what choice and obedience mean in games. I hope to take inspiration from The Stanley Parable in creating a technical demonstration using the Unity Engine which I hope will give me supporting research. For the technical demonstration I would like to prove whether if subtly hinted, players will disobey authority from a virtual character.

Azimov

During the summer after completing my degree I began working on a 3D platform-puzzle game in a small team using the Unity engine. My involvement in the project is level designer and environment artist. I have also played a role in the early design stages of the game. Azimov is set on a planet that is inhabited by robots. The player controls a small robot who must traverse through levels by climbing onto other larger robots, hacking into their systems and taking control of their bodies. Different enemy types have different abilities which can be utilized to solve puzzles.

Stanly Milgram - Obedience to Authority Experiments

This Article Explains the methodology and experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram on his Obedience to Authority experiments.

http://cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm

Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (HR) is a first-person action role-playing game by Eidos Montreal. The game has a “Cyberpunk” aesthetic art-style and is set in 2027 where technology has progressed to a stage where people can have surgically applied biomechanical augmentations to enhance physical attributes. Deus Ex: HR has been met by critical praise for its non-linear design. The biomechanical augmentations play a vital role in the games mechanics which allow the player to tailor the games player character into the way they would like to play the game. The primary “pillars of gameplay” as described by the developers are “Combat”, “Social” “Hacking” and “Stealth”. The games level design in turn is designed around these different play styles. For example one level with a clear objective is to infiltrate a police station in order to access the morgue. The player can walk straight up the front reception of the station and try to talk their way into the building (social), storm the front entrance by force using combat, sneak in by jumping over a fence and accessing the basement of the station through a manhole (stealth), or by hacking into a terminal which will gain access in to the back of the station. These choices are just the beginning of the level, once inside the player is presented with more and more of these choices which can be mixed and matched in order to reach the objective. For example, once the player has stealthily entered the station via the manhole. They could use combat to reach the objective from then on, sneak past policemen or hack terminals to reach less guarded access to the goal. None of these choices harder than the other to achieve, they are all relative to the player’s gameplay style. These choices are presented throughout the whole level and it creates an experience of freedom and accomplishment for the player which can only be achieved with non-linear design. Mechanics such as this require complex design. Taking note of Dues Ex: HR, a successful way of creating an enjoyable non-linear level is to create multiple routes to a desired location. For example, out-door and indoor areas, different floors in buildings, hidden corridors, air vents, locked doors that can be accessed by a certain skill or item. All these aspects must link together to create a tree branch of possibilities.


Image taken from: http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution-Launch-Trailer.jpg

Using time as a mechanic

Created by PHD of Computer Science, Christopher J. Hazard. Achron is a single/multi-player RTS game that plays a lot like other games in its genre where you collect resources and can create structures and units to manoeuvre around a map to defeat opponents. However Achron allows the player to manipulate time by using a timeline on the interface. This time line allows the player to see when they deal damage and when they are under attack by an opponent.

The blue horizontal line represents where the player is in time. The blue graph lines show the damage a player has dealt in time and the red shows when the player is under attack. By looking at the time line the player can see the intensity of an upcoming attack and make preparations. The game will also calculate when a player makes a choice so for example if a player decides to manoeuvre some units to the north on the map new graph lines will appear which is a prediction of enemy units in that area and the outcome of the battle which will happen. By clicking on a desired point in time on the timeline, spending chronenergy (represented by the large vertical blue bar at the top of the HUD), the player can transport themselves to that part of time. This can be used to travel to the future to see where an enemy might attack from to gain an advantage or lay an ambush or to travel back in time to undo a bad decision or build necessary units or structures for an upcoming battle.

With the ability to see the past, present and future all at once and to be able change any of the choices made in of these time intervals Anchron creates an interesting innovation for the RTS genre.

Unity 3

Unity is a game engine which comes with a free license version. I have started using this software to develop my dramatic dynamics project. Unity is a handy tool in particular because it is very user friendly, allowing artists and designers to create interactive projects with ease. At the present I have been learning to get to grips with the engine by importing assets such as 3D models and textures, as well as applying scripts to objects within a game scene.

Image taken from: http://imedia.brookes.ac.uk/imageshare/unity.jpg

Protection Racket by Alex Tutty

Article by Alex Tutty of Sheridans Solicitors. Tutty presents issues with protecting IP, copyright and patents. Tutty claims that  quote Mark Pincus CEO of Zynga "I don't fucking want innovation. You're not smarter than the competitor. Just copy what they do and do it it until you get their numbers" is a shocking common approach by some companies. How can a product be copied before it steps over legal lines? Using farmville as an example titled 'Farm Ranger' he discusses how he could protect the micro payments system that would monetise it. Software patents are only granted if they are deemed to have a technical effect, the process the computer takes to achieve the effect. Games have no obvious technical effect so it is not useful for 'Farm Ranger'. A product like Kinect can achieve patents, so anyone developing for Kinect has to apply for a license. He explains that there are many forms of protection available, but the context of games, there are times where these forms are inadequate, and often the originators of the popularly copied idea achieve the greatest success, meaning copycats may not necessarily make money.

The original article can be read here
http://www.bydesigngames.com/2010/11/08/gi-article-protection-racket/