Wilson is typically far-sighted in seeing video games as pointing the way to better education. While he imagines this future teaching centered on virtual reality, I continue to believe the greatest hope for learning will be in teaching systems-thinking, something that Wright has excelled at doing.

For Wilson, the greatest unanswered question in biology is “the origin of altruistic social behavior.” I suspect this question is what drew me to my interest in ants as a child: how these animals work together as a social organism to accomplish incredible tasks. And again this is the kind of concept that’s best conveyed via a video game – complex interactions among many small parts, as well as the ability to switch perspectives to take the point of view of one of those parts. I’d love to see Wright take on this grand task that Wilson has laid out: can altruism be the basis of a fun, exciting, blockbuster game?

Read/listen to the story: Ant Lovers Unite! Will Wright and E.O. Wilson on Life and Games.

In that same podcast, Rabbit also emphasizes that it makes more sense to tie the consequences of moral choices to story outcomes, much more so than game effects like upgraded weapons or skills, although the distinction can be blurry. (The example he gives is villagers giving you critical information in gratitude for helping the village). This division between gameplay and story illustrates the continuing incapacity of games to make stories into games, which I argue is because remains an absence of a social physics engine which would make such gameplay as fun as throwing objects around using existing physics engines.

XBox sniper controls?

Will video game interfaces make what Singer terms “cubicle warriors” cold-blooded killers? Right now these remote-controlled robots largely borrow hardware interfaces from video games — see the image linked from this FOX News story or check out minute 10:30 in Singer’s talk. But what happens if and when they begin borrowing software interfaces from games as well? (The remote-control systems do already feature crosshair targets — but video games had first taken that from real guns.) Is an Ender’s Game scenario — when the soldier doesn’t even realize he is fighting a real battle — possible?

Interface design isn’t quite the same as “codelaw” — that is, embodying laws in code — but in some ways it’s even more powerful, and therefore more potentially insidious. Many of the examples of choice-shaping that Thaler and Sunstein cite in Nudge are, in fact, interface innovations. But if interfaces can dehumanize, can they also re-humanize? Video games are not known for their emotional range, but I agree with those who believe that’s a matter of historical accident, not destiny. If video games can evoke authentic emotion, can we infuse it into our military software interfaces? The fact that Predator drone pilots suffer PTSD suggests that a digital screen need not cripple our humanity.

(Thanks to colleague Ed Popko for flagging these to my attention!)

PM: What’s fascinating about it is that when we thought about good and evil, it’s so tempting to say, “Well, good is saving lives, and evil is hurting lives and killing people.” But actually, I think where the real emotion comes is when you really start testing people.

If I said to you, “Your family is over there. What would you do to save them?” “Well, I would do anything.” “Really? Would you really do anything? Would you actually kill a thousand people to save your family? And what does that say about you?”

I think, finally, that decision made people think, because it forced them to think, “My goodness, my natural reaction is of course I’d save my family. Of course I would save the people I love.” But actually, when it comes down to it, would you? Would you sacrifice everything for that very selfish act of having what you want? There are a lot of philosophical questions that come up in your mind when you’re doing that.

David Nieborg had written an excellent review of Fable 2’s moral dimensions earlier.

The response from civic society is to proliferate an alphabet soup of their own special interest groups, from the AARP to the NRA. These organizations serve two vital functions: (1) developing expertise and (2) aggregating collective interest, primarily through membership dues (money) as a proxy.

We’ve reached the limits of this corporate, civil-society-as-special-interest, system. New, digitally networked communities suggest a more fluid and inclusive model of public participation. And, I argue, video games are worth studying for their ability to help us overcome the twin problems of expertise and collective action.

Games for crowdsourcing: Projects like Google Image Labeler illustrate how a well-designed game can harness collective intelligence to do productive work. The small amount of work you’re doing for Google is matched by an equally small motivational reward (a score and the fun of playing). While an interest in the project’s goals might lead you to the Image Labeler in the first place, continuing participation is driven by the game, not charity.

If public participation in, say, legislation or regulatory rulemaking faces a similar interest-aggression challenge, the solution might entail a good Web interface that draws on game design principles. Imagine, for example, Pork Invaders redone as a real-world game, with players poring over legislation to zap pork while preserving legitimate spending. (More on how games can also help define “legitimate spending” in a bit).

Perhaps a game-based front end can have enough mass appeal to aggregate across a broad population, which would be a change from the way we currently divide the public into narrowly-defined interests. This would require the platform be built and marketed to a general audience. I can easily see this falling into the purview of emerging journalism.

Games for values discernment: Special interest groups not only develop expertise, but also make judgments on behalf of their constituents. There are several reasons why citizens might delegate their power in this way – lack of expertise, lack of time (see above), but perhaps most of all a reluctance to make difficult decisions. Because the American lawmaking process is adversarial, with groups like the NRDC battling the coal lobby, we citizens often express policy preferences by picking our proxies. Lost in this system is our opportunity – perhaps our need – to weigh difficult decisions ourselves.

Polls are one way to gauge the will of “the people.” But, I think, a well-designed game can also surface citizens’ policy preference, perhaps in the same way that psychologists uncover our cognitive biases through various sleights-of-hand. I’m not suggesting that we trick citizens, but rather couch difficult policy questions in a way that our puny brains can comprehend. (Evolution has left us with a finely-tuned sense of face-to-face morality but not large-system morality; we tend to reach for big-picture comprehension through small-picture metaphors).

Imagine, then, a Kittenwar type of game in which players pick between two interests until a ranked-order list of priorities shakes out. Or, better yet, players distribute resources among different interests, and the game illustrates – in the compelling manner unique to video games – the results of funding a project at various levels. (Underfunding food stamps, for example, might show children becoming malnourished). Budget Hero provides a prototype of this kind of game, but it remains too abstract for players to really understand the consequences of choices. We need games that make policy accessible to the masses, not just fun for the wonks.

The amount of subjectivity inherently built into these games will make their design even more controversial than that of polls. (See this fascinating piece in the NYT Magazine on environmental decisionmaking). But I take for granted that there is no way to construct neutral questions, as the authors of Nudge point out. Confronting citizens with a pile of numbers and data merely biases their responses in a very different way – and arguably, not in one that highlights their core values. If we are to have true citizen participation that results in a more representative democracy, then we must be bold in rethinking the way we ask people to participate.

Video games, too, are often puzzles, each also falling into particular genres — the platformer, the RTS, the tycoon game. The game engine reinforces the genre by defining what puzzles are possible; the genius of Portal was to discover that the physics engine of the FPS could be used to create new puzzles. But while we’ve seen increasing sophistication and complexity in physics-based puzzles, we’re not seeing quite the same diversity in what I call “social physics engine.”

Not that games are totally lacking in social physics. Fable 2 simply refines the kind of interaction found in Harvest Moon and other “village” games. (Let’s not get into dating games here!). And everyone knows about the best-selling franchise of all time, The Sims. But while making friends and influencing people can be challenging in this genre, there’s nothing all that puzzling about it. Your average pulp romance novel has more suspense built around its “social physics” than these game titles.

I would like to imagine one day having a game built around social dynamics (whether with AI or real people) with the same engaged immersion as Portal succeeded with physics.

In exploring the nature of art and different art forms, Randy looked to McCloud’s Understanding Comics to identify “closure” (the interstitial space between frames) as a unique feature of the comic medium. He then posed the question of what made video games unique. It struck me that what each medium can be defined by what each one leaves out; for example, comic books’ closures leave out what is between the frames – that is for the reader to fill in. Performance media cannot convey inner lives the way literature can (Wonder Years style voiceovers notwithstanding); it’s for the actors to interpret that inner life and for the audience to infer it from their performances. Literature, for its part, leaves to the imagination how its characters look or sound, which generates that little bit of shock when a book is translated to film. (Harry Potter provides a great example: the movies’ cast probably overrides the books’ illustrations probably overrides Rowling’s text).

So my question is: what do video games leave out for the player to fill in? Or better: what is best for video games to leave out?

In some crucial ways, Multiwinia’s sound design establishes a stronger emotional connection with the on-screen carnage than some gory AAA first-person shooters. Perhaps simplicity breeds empathy, but in any case I felt more guilty sending mobs of rudimentary sprites into the teeth of rapid-fire gun turrets than I ever have realistically gibbing an opponent’s face with a flak cannon.

Are we supposed to feel empathy for casualties in FPS’s? And is sound design effective in Multiwinia because of novelty or because of something more primal than visuals?

Does Fable 2 live up to its promises? That depends on the player. Those willing to play the game several times will find a well-designed, deeply engrossing, morally challenging game. Conversely, the casual gamer will see ‘just’ see a well-designed action game. The game’s biggest problem though, is its lack of immediate feedback. Every ingame action – being good, evil or anything in between – does lead to a reaction, but it is not always clear which reaction is the result of a particular decision made by the player.

There seem to be two ways to discuss, or review, Fable 2: to constantly compare it with the first Fable, or on its own merits. The release of Fable 1 was, for many gamer reviewers, an event that did not have anything to do with the question of morality in video games at all. The hype leading up to Fable 1 was all about Peter Molyneux – Lionhead’s soft-spoken and amicable lead designer. He made, in the eyes of game critics as well as fans, a capital mistake by overhyping a game that was by all standards innovative and playable, but not as innovative as promised by Molyneux. Building up a buzz around Fable 2 asked for a more moderate approach and in many was Fable 2 has become the game that the Fable 1 should have been from the outset.

But, let us try to critique Fable 2 in its own right. The tendency of many a game reviewer is to ‘forgive’ a game’s flaws, or rather its unrealized potential, by looking ahead and discussing “the inevitable sequel”, is a road travelled much too often.

For the most part Fable 2 is a single player action RPG (Role Playing Game). Nothing more, nothing less. The gameplay revolves around questing, exploring the world and killing a stream of somewhat generic enemies (ninja-types, Ogres, banshees, and, of course, skeletons). Set in the fantasy world of Albion, the game offers an atmospheric environment. From gloomy marshes to a vibrant harbor, and from big cities to the inevitable evil overlord’s castle (The Tattered Spire – which resembles the Lord of the Rings’ Barad-dûr in both look and the feel), Albion is inhabited by intriguing characters.

It only takes a few minutes to see the enormous level of detail in the game’s world design. Although Fable 2 is much less a sandbox game compared to, for example, Grand Theft Auto 4 or Crackdown, the game does invite the player to explore and interact with the environment and its wacky inhabitants. The many NPCs (non-player characters) which stroll around in cities and along the countryside are particularly interesting. According to a press release: “The voice recording ran concurrently in two (…) studios for over three months, amounting to nearly 370,000 words recorded – that’s 38 hours of dialogue!”. Yet, while the interactions with ‘good’ NPCs (vendors, citizens walking by, and children) are a major source of enjoyment, any meaningful way to interact with enemies (apart from pre-scripted cut-scenes), is non-existent. There’s no way to, for example, to convince an enemy you encounter to stop fighting, help you to rule the world with an iron fist (if that’s the path you wish to take) or to even call a truce of some sort.

The game’s story starts with an option to play as a male or female character. In the first few minutes the player learns that his sister is killed (or her brother) by Lucien – the evil overlord character – and thus the story is one of revenge. The end, and thus the moral, of the story is exactly how you think it will be.

The game’s morality system manifests itself in two ways. On the one hand there are the game’s emergent properties, that is, the ingame actions offered to the player on an ongoing basis. These actions are either NPC related actions, or are good or evil deeds (mostly killing and stealing). The player can interact with NPCs through some sort of “wheel of emotions” which allows for Rude, Scary, Social, Fun and Playful gestures. An example of a Playful gesture would be “Heroic Pose” (the avatar striking an heroic pose) or “Come back to my place” (inviting an NPC over for, to put it bluntly, intercourse). Note: the main character does not speak at all in the entire game. On the other hand the narrative offers some explicit moral choices during the unfolding of the main plot – structured though a line of quests. For example, halfway through the game, the player is ordered to hurt another prisoner. If the player refuses, the player character will be punished. There are however, and I will come back to this point, very few ways of telling whether or not these actions – there are more explicit narrative-driven moral choices in that particular part of the game – actually influence the outcome of the story or even the world itself (e.g. its appearance or the way NPCs react to you).

Marketing Morality

The most interesting question about Fable 2 is whether or not the game, as Gene Koo calls it, has a functioning “social physics engine”. One way to answer this question is take a look at the developers marketing and PR material. Press releases and behind closed door sessions at game shows offer an insight into the developer’s (and publisher’s) talking points and give a hint what the supposed role is of a morality system.

The game’s six marketing bullet points are, 1) the vast and open world of Albion, 2) an improved combat system (e.g. a player cannot die), 3) a dog who accompanies the player everywhere (s)he goes, 4) co-op gameplay, 5) mini-games and 6) “Choices, consequences”, explained as: ““Fable II expands upon the scope and depth of the Xbox classic (Fable 1, DBN) by adding incredible new features and creating a wider, more complex kingdom of limitless choices and consequences. Players will have the option to play as a man or woman, get married, have children, and live a life of their own design — all leading to different destinies”. The marketing perspective is relevant as it sheds light unto the publisher’s intentions with the game. Special fact sheets, which accompany pre-release copies sent out to game reviewers, are an important source for critics, and guide (and fill) many game reviews, and thus, arguably, influence gamer reception and discussion. For the “inevitable sequel,” a post-launch discussion that focuses solely on the game’s morality engine might push the developers in expanding this element of the game in a future iteration. From the looks of it, this is, as of yet, not the case. That is, the post-launch buzz of Fable 2 dealt more with the game’s combat system and its atmospheric world design, rather than the game’s innovative implementation of a (arguably rudimentary) social physics engine

On top of that, even though we (in academia) may be eager to tinker with the game’s morality system, it is entirely possible to play through Fable 2 without noticing this aspect of the game, something which is reflected in the marketing material as well. My personal take on Fable 2 is that the game is first and foremost an enjoyable RPG with a “cool” combat system which happens to offer some minor moral dilemmas along the way and one major one at the end of the game. In a way the ongoing morality system and the moral narrative choices could be ignored altogether.

Fable 2 is clearly meant (and marketed) as a mainstream action RPG and many design choices, such as the combat system, substantiate such a claim. In many ways the game’s moral dimension feels more like a feature, similar to the implementation of new shaders or an upgraded AI system. It is not that the morality system is tacked on; it is a central part of the gameplay. But, compared to the enormous amount of work that must have gone into designing the world (i.e. creating artwork, a coherent narrative and the world itself), there seems to be far less time spent on developing (minor) emergent moral choices and major moral dilemmas in the game’s overall narrative. The substantial pre-launch marketing efforts supports the ‘morality-as-a-feature’ thesis: the game’s early screenshots focused more on the combat system and world design (the game’s look and feel), rather than its social physics engine.

The moral dimension, then, is another unique selling point, but not the game’s core mechanic. It is a feature which allows for better, or more interesting, interactive storytelling, or as Molyneux explains: “[At] the end of the day I believe choice and freedom will make you remember the experience, especially if you make a choice and there is real consequence to that choice. I think that is far more engaging than just following a linear story”. Indirectly, in the Web 2.0-era, players being able to talk about their ‘unique’ experience is a valuable viral marketing tool.

Am I good or bad?

Even though the game’s press release, unsurprisingly, speaks of “limitless choices and consequences”, Fable 2 is in many ways severely limited, especially in the “choices and consequences” department. Curiously, Molyneux seems to agree: “To explain a bit better: in Fable 2 you are free to chat up whoever you want, but you can only do this with the mechanic we give you to do so this, i.e. the expression system. So I would have to describe the freedom you have in Fable 2 as ‘contained’ freedom.” This goes for the game’s morality system as well. The choices do go beyond purely good or evil, but only so much.

In a way it is somewhat difficult to be really critical of a game which at least tries to implement a reasonably fleshed out moral system. Molyneux: “[In] Fable 2 there is much more colour to those choices: purity versus corruption, cruelty versus kindness, greed versus generosity. And then we play around with those moral choices. We want people to play as themselves rather than deciding to be good or evil.” The choices made are reflected in the player’s, the dog’s appearance, the world design and the way in which NPCs react to the main character. However, and this is my main problem with the game, it is not clear which ingame actions result in any of the world’s/NPC’s reactions. For instance, when I do stand up and refuse to punish the prisoners during the before mentioned part of the game, how does that reflect on my character? Because there is a mix of major and minor moral decisions, it is not clear what the results of my actions are. My guess is that I took the game’s “good path”, because the city’s inhabitants seem to like me. But what made them like me? I don’t know. I raised prices 40 percent on all goods, I stole a lot of their stuff, I kicked a bunch of chickens all over the city square, and I married two women at the same time from the same town (one being a prostitute).

There is some feedback though, but then again it is so much harder to be good than evil. This has, I would argue, mainly to do with what I would call ‘gamer guilt’. Gamers bought a $60 game and many of them want to fully understand the game, finish it, and ‘fully get it’. This urge to, in the words of Ted Friedman “demystify” the game’s underlying rule structure and/or its social physics engine makes Fable 2 in many ways a frustrating game. To fully “get the game” and to see what other decisions are offered to the player upon taking a different (moral) route, one has to play through an additional 20/30 hour campaign to see what the results are of different (moral) choices.

There are three options for developers to address this problem without revamping a game’s social physics engine. Such a revamping might not be the desired answer to the gamer guilt problem. Many (moral) reactions are sort of implicit or “natural,” which makes playing Fable 2 all the more intriguing. The first option would be to implement a clever rewind (and redo) option to get a better idea of what actions lead to what reactions — an advanced save system if you will. The second, and from a marketing standpoint more daring, approach might be a short single player narrative, which would take 4/5 hours to complete, to allow gamers to play through the game multiple times and push gamers to experiment with different moral choices.

The third, an probably the most ambitious option, is to design semi-scripted moral choices. For example. Fable 2 allows the player to marry two wives in the same city. When you walk past your first wife with your second wife, typical explorative behavior for a gamer, there is no reaction from any of them. However, at a certain moment you get a letter from a fellow citizen in which he bribes you and threatens you to tell all about your bigamy. You then can either kill the guy, pay the bribe, or let hem tell all, resulting in divorce. This moral dilemma is highly intriguing and quite unanticipated – from the gamer’s perspective. The developers on the other hand did anticipate gamers marrying two women (also signaled by the Xbox 360 “Bigamy” achievement) and designed a clever, humorous and meaningful choice around that particular action.

Still, there is too little of such (semi)emergent events in the game. Fable 2 is another step in the right direction, but for the sequel the developers, hopefully, will match their efforts at crafting a sound narrative, accessible combat system and a atmospheric environment with an expanded and reactive social physics engine.