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The Good, The Bad, and The Player: The Challenges to Moral Engagement in Single-Player Avatar-Based Video Games

The Good, The Bad, and The Player: The Challenges to Moral Engagement in Single-Player Avatar-Based Video Games
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Author(s): Jaroslav Švelch (Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic)
Copyright: 2010
Pages: 17
Source title: Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values through Play
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Karen Schrier (Columbia University, USA)and David Gibson (University of Vermont, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-845-6.ch004

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Abstract

In this chapter, the authors create a theoretical model to analyze the challenges inherent in the implementation of moral choices in single-player avatar-based video game. Based on previous research in moral psychology and game studies, the authors investigate the relationship between the player’s moral emotions and the events she causes to happen in the fictional world of a video game. The authors find that there are two factors that govern the identification with the moral content of the game’s fiction: the implementation of moral agency into the game, of which they identify two basic scenarios (fixed justice and accumulation of deeds), and the style of gameplay the player chooses to follow. The authors give numerous examples from interviews, on-line discussions and gaming press of instances when players feel moral emotions about im(moral) actions they have taken in a video game.

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