I wrote up some thoughts on Jose Zagal's "Encouraging Ethical Reflection with Videogames" and Oldenburgs "Simulating Religious Faith," so I figured I would put them up here for later reference and for anyone interested in those topics. They are kind of random, so bear with me.
In “Encouraging Ethical Reflection with Videogames,” Zagal explores the ways in which video games can aid players in identifying moral and ethical issues and in better understanding their context, both within games and without. Moral dilemmas, he notes, form the foundation of ethical exploration, so it only makes sense that a medium involving player/audience agency would have greater efficacy in exploring ethics in a meaningful way. One of the most interesting ideas that I encountered in Zagal’s article was the notion that games in some cases validate both “good” and “evil” by allowing players to assume the roles of protagonists and/or antagonists. Part of rational thought is being able to hold two contradictory notions within the mind simultaneously, and I think that games provide for a more holistic experience in providing the player with multiple viewpoints and ways of thinking about the consequences of his actions. They allow the player to contemplate the ethical issues from different perspectives and thus grant the player greater objectivity in deciding how he/she will direct his/her life and the actions of his/her in-game avatar. I thought Zagal’s comment that the character becomes the ethical stand-in for the player was really compelling, because in some sense, the culmination of the avatar’s actions and desires represent the innermost desires and goals of the player even more candidly than do his/her own physical actions. Games create a space wherein players can experiment with truth in an environment of safety, and while there may not be physical manifestations of the actions that players perform within the game, their implications are no less important in terms of formation of mental paradigms. The experiences players encounter within games are, in some sense, no less real than those which he/she encounters in “real” life.
Another concept that was really interesting for me was the idea that we can actually punctuate ethical messages through gameplay. Zagal notes that in some games, “extended action consisting of multiple button presses is chained together in such a way as to physically strain the player who must maintain an awkward and uncomfortable hand position that in some way reflects the discomfort the character is experiencing on the screen.” This seems like a brilliant way to encourage contemplation on moral dilemmas or emotional states of being, and it is quite possibly the most sure-fire way of accomplishing such a complex feat. It becomes near impossible for the player to disassociate his own physical experience from that which his avatar is experiencing, and that drives home more deeply the implications of those actions, both on oneself and on other players. In such a way, video games have the potential to be deeply humanizing, building empathy not so much for individuals but more broadly for the human experience as an integral unit—for suffering, for doubt, for loss and longing.
In “Simulating Religious Faith,” Oldenburg suggests that most religious games do not attempt to simulate the core cognitive processes of faith and instead appropriate existing game mechanics to deliver religious narratives in unoriginal ways. Oldenburg makes some excellent points about religion’s place within video games, but as a whole, his assumption seems to be that if religion exists within a work, it exists with the intention of exploring that religion specifically. His mention, for example, of an RTS wherein players convert or kill non-believers, seems to suggest that the game is made to help players understand proselytization, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Oldenburg discounts the reality that religion is an integral part of culture and thus in many cases serves simply as more of an aesthetic facet of games than an integral ones; religion is used to add a realistic feel to worlds, but that should not be taken as an indication that the game itself is intended to explore religion.
Oldenburg suggests that both religion and games connect people to a common purpose but that religion within games seems disconnected from actual practice. Based on the games he evaluates, this may be the case, but he ignores one of the most profound contradictions to this generalization in failing to mention Earthbound. In Earthbound, the player can only win the final battle by praying nine times—in choosing to plead for strength through prayer rather than trying to inflict damage of one’s own accord. There are even times where the prayer is seemingly of no effect. The player draws on the prayers and will of different people whom he/she has met along his journey, and the last person enlisted is the player himself, whose name he/she entered early on in the game. The game breaks the fourth wall to invite the player to join in prayer on behalf of the players and so invites him/her into a genuine religious experience.
In “Encouraging Ethical Reflection with Videogames,” Zagal explores the ways in which video games can aid players in identifying moral and ethical issues and in better understanding their context, both within games and without. Moral dilemmas, he notes, form the foundation of ethical exploration, so it only makes sense that a medium involving player/audience agency would have greater efficacy in exploring ethics in a meaningful way. One of the most interesting ideas that I encountered in Zagal’s article was the notion that games in some cases validate both “good” and “evil” by allowing players to assume the roles of protagonists and/or antagonists. Part of rational thought is being able to hold two contradictory notions within the mind simultaneously, and I think that games provide for a more holistic experience in providing the player with multiple viewpoints and ways of thinking about the consequences of his actions. They allow the player to contemplate the ethical issues from different perspectives and thus grant the player greater objectivity in deciding how he/she will direct his/her life and the actions of his/her in-game avatar. I thought Zagal’s comment that the character becomes the ethical stand-in for the player was really compelling, because in some sense, the culmination of the avatar’s actions and desires represent the innermost desires and goals of the player even more candidly than do his/her own physical actions. Games create a space wherein players can experiment with truth in an environment of safety, and while there may not be physical manifestations of the actions that players perform within the game, their implications are no less important in terms of formation of mental paradigms. The experiences players encounter within games are, in some sense, no less real than those which he/she encounters in “real” life.
Another concept that was really interesting for me was the idea that we can actually punctuate ethical messages through gameplay. Zagal notes that in some games, “extended action consisting of multiple button presses is chained together in such a way as to physically strain the player who must maintain an awkward and uncomfortable hand position that in some way reflects the discomfort the character is experiencing on the screen.” This seems like a brilliant way to encourage contemplation on moral dilemmas or emotional states of being, and it is quite possibly the most sure-fire way of accomplishing such a complex feat. It becomes near impossible for the player to disassociate his own physical experience from that which his avatar is experiencing, and that drives home more deeply the implications of those actions, both on oneself and on other players. In such a way, video games have the potential to be deeply humanizing, building empathy not so much for individuals but more broadly for the human experience as an integral unit—for suffering, for doubt, for loss and longing.
In “Simulating Religious Faith,” Oldenburg suggests that most religious games do not attempt to simulate the core cognitive processes of faith and instead appropriate existing game mechanics to deliver religious narratives in unoriginal ways. Oldenburg makes some excellent points about religion’s place within video games, but as a whole, his assumption seems to be that if religion exists within a work, it exists with the intention of exploring that religion specifically. His mention, for example, of an RTS wherein players convert or kill non-believers, seems to suggest that the game is made to help players understand proselytization, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Oldenburg discounts the reality that religion is an integral part of culture and thus in many cases serves simply as more of an aesthetic facet of games than an integral ones; religion is used to add a realistic feel to worlds, but that should not be taken as an indication that the game itself is intended to explore religion.
Oldenburg suggests that both religion and games connect people to a common purpose but that religion within games seems disconnected from actual practice. Based on the games he evaluates, this may be the case, but he ignores one of the most profound contradictions to this generalization in failing to mention Earthbound. In Earthbound, the player can only win the final battle by praying nine times—in choosing to plead for strength through prayer rather than trying to inflict damage of one’s own accord. There are even times where the prayer is seemingly of no effect. The player draws on the prayers and will of different people whom he/she has met along his journey, and the last person enlisted is the player himself, whose name he/she entered early on in the game. The game breaks the fourth wall to invite the player to join in prayer on behalf of the players and so invites him/her into a genuine religious experience.
What games have you seen that use religion and/or ethical dilemmas as a way to augment the player's experience?
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