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.