Hello everyone,

I stumbled across this video explaining that good ideas come from collaboration with people with a similar passion. I have been a hobbyist for a while now and this is my first attempt at joining a forum to share my ideas and learn about your ideas.

Enough about that. The idea of games that teach you something has been on my mind since playing the new Deus Ex game. If you haven't played it yet the game tackles some deep issues such as: "Should we be use mechanical enhancements even though humans are bound to exploit them?". The questions the game poses don't really have a right or wrong answer and it really got me thinking. Why don't we see more games doing this? We are not short on subjects: immigration (Surely there is an alien game that has at least touched this one?), the sanctity of marriage, western lifestyle vs eastern lifestyle, religious wars, environmentalism,etc.... But every game seems to have a clear "good and evil" laid out. Some of the best movies and books tackle subjects like these all the time. I feel that games would be even better at covering deep subjects because the player has a hand in crafting the story.

Has there been a game that has taught you something or rocked your worldview? Do you have any topics you would love to see games cover? Share your thoughts.

There are lots of games that pose philosophical issues for players. Metal Gear Solid games were always oddly philosophical. Bioshock definitely had that streak as well. Fallout 3 was riddled with ethical dilemmas. Shadow of the Colossus used video game conventions to make me think. The same argument could be made for several of the Final Fantasy series, and lots of other games too. So I think that it's fairly common, though many games don't do it well. And I think that that has more to do with poor storytelling than with such content not being present.

It is far and away most common to see the very broad good/evil approach as the overarching theme of a game, as you point out. But I think that it's common because it's familiar, easy, and universally appealing. As to why other themes aren't approached in games, often it's because they're too hot. I remember the original two Shin Megami Tensei games took a very critical approach to religion, especially Christianity. Due to social pressure I can't imagine that any company would have published such a game in the US when it was released. You might have such things as secondary or tertiary stories in a lot of games, but that gives less time and resources to explore such ideas.


And even after accounting for situations where a game can't explore a concept well (because of lack of storytelling ability or social mores), many don't need to. A lot of people play games to kill things or manage a football team or build a city or be generally a sociopath-about-town. Players looking for those things won't need or care about or often even notice depth in exploring major issues. A company courting that audience won't be allocating its resources well (in terms of commercial success) to develop pensiveness where it is neither sought nor appreciated.


I like the sort of thing that you describe, and I wish that more video games took that approach and did it well. We do have some, though not always without limitations on the subjects to be discussed. But we have far more that are pulp. In the same way that some people want to read dense and complicated novels that explore deep and powerful ideas and others will never reach farther than the latest James Patterson novel, there will always be a large market for shallower games as well. And they're a hell of a lot easier to produce.

I don't know that is specifically "taught" me something, but I did do some thinking while playing The Witcher. I really enjoyed that the choices weren't black and white (Help the old lady across the street or push her down and steal her purse?). Instead, it was more like, do you want to help the racists or terrorists. Everything kind of turned into a morally grey area, you couldn't really play a perfect alignment.

Although I haven't played the latest Deus Ex yet, I found the first one to be pretty deep.

When I played through it my first time as a young teen, I didn't really understand what the story was on about and just saw it like any other shooter: kill everyone in sight and get from point A to point B. Playing back through it (for maybe the 10th time by now) as an adult was pretty eye opening when I paid attention to the details.

The game doesn't really have a whole lot of moral choice on the part of the player (although some, such as giving you the option to kill most people and take their stuff, but it's not much of a plot point). On the other hand, the plot itself makes you really think. It's just a little scary how the way Page Industries manufactures the nano virus and cure is something that could plausibly be done, and how someone just might be able to hold the world hostage with it. If nothing else, Deus Ex really made me think about just how rotten lots of people are at the core, and what they might do if they could. It does make me fantasize about a future where something like Helios might actually exist and govern the world better than humans could. Not that it would come to pass in my lifetime.

I kind of enjoy games and stories like that. Satire of a sort, I suppose. Perhaps not painting humans and morality with shades of gray so much as dark gray and black when you really get down to it. No, not everyone is a monster, and most people don't do obviously evil things. But if you think about it, pretty much everyone would do a lot of bad things if they thought they could get away with it. It's just our nature, and I like stories that point out that sort of thing and remind us that we need to be careful about it and strive for a better future.

Other than Deus Ex, I found the Fallout games to be surprisingly full of this sort of material as well. Fallout 2 in particular, where you find out that the government had been experimenting on its population, and how it plans to destroy all subjectively mutant life on Earth. Fallout also gives you the option to be morally gray or black if you so choose, allowing you to kill people to get what you want if you can't be bothered to do things the "nice" way. Although you're pretty much always given a nice path to take, I don't recall off hand any situations where you are forced to choose among the lesser of evils.

I find it a bit surprising and unfortunate that I can't come up with any other games off the top of my head that do this though. Of the last 10 games I played through, there either was no morality really involved (Sim City 4, although one could argue...) or it was pretty much black and white, with humanity in the white (Oblivion).

Yeah games don't really 'teach' do they? For the most part. They just pose interesting questions and make you think.

Which I suppose is for the best really. Media that forces you to think for yourself and draw your conclusions is generally, I think, far superior to the kind of thing that gives you all the answers. But there are so few games that explore these themes in any kind of depth, and even fewer who make that interesting exploration of philosophy or morality their main focus. I've been thinking lately that games have an inherent problem, in that everyone expects certain kinds of 'game mechanics'. There has always got to be some kind of objective, or some kind of puzzle to solve. It's very difficult just to have a 'drama' game. Where a TV series, book or movie can make characterization and dramatic story telling the main focus (See "The Wire"), video games can't really do this all that well.

What current games CAN teach us more than other forms of media, is more about ourselves and our own morality. Deus Ex, Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, all reflect in game not only our performance when completing objectives, but the conscious decisions we make along the way. This can teach us something about the kind of people we are, although having said that it's difficult to find a game that makes you really care about getting it right (many moral people would go total Renegade in Mass Effect just for fun...but Heavy Rain was more successful in this I think).

Portal was very strong when it came to player psychology as well. Making people genuinely care about an inanimate cube was genius. Oh, and for some self-referential thought provoking genius, play The Stanley Parable.

Enough about that. The idea of games that teach you something has been on my mind since playing the new Deus Ex game. If you haven't played it yet the game tackles some deep issues such as: "Should we be use mechanical enhancements even though humans are bound to exploit them?". The questions the game poses don't really have a right or wrong answer and it really got me thinking. Why don't we see more games doing this? We are not short on subjects: immigration (Surely there is an alien game that has at least touched this one?), the sanctity of marriage, western lifestyle vs eastern lifestyle, religious wars, environmentalism,etc.... But every game seems to have a clear "good and evil" laid out. Some of the best movies and books tackle subjects like these all the time. I feel that games would be even better at covering deep subjects because the player has a hand in crafting the story.

These games don't really teach. They make you think about the moral choices on particular topics, but I see your point.

Different people look for different things when playing games. Just like how some people like drama, some like horrors, some like actions. If you ask me personally, I wouldn't be necessarily excited when posed to a question:


Would you like to:
- Kill this wounded person
- Heal this wounded person


OMG am I not going to get the best armor if I heal the guy?? What if this guy actually owns like the best sword in the game that the only way to get it is to kill him?? If I heal him now, is he going to show up later in the game and make an epic return "You saved me once and I'll save you now!" and I am missing this cutscene if I kill him??

As you can see, my choices aren't really "what's the right thing to do", but more like "what am I going to miss if I choose this", and I hate to replay game that takes 60 hours to complete just to explore other options.

Games to me should be pure entertainment. Any games that make me think to go left or right isn't exciting as it just takes too much mental energy and time to decide. Isn't that what real-life is all about?