Examples of gaming touching on real life issues like no...

[ZeroAX]

BTW that flash game you linked proved to me what I always pretty much thought about myself. I was taking the cold mathematical decision (3 > 1) up to the point it was someone important. Then I chose to sacrifice them to save my daughter. (I don't have kids yet btw )

Perhaps if it was a thousand people vs a loved one I would choose the many people, but I'm not sure what the tipping point would be.

[Erik_Twice]

I saved the fat guy because whoever thought of the idea of throwing fat people to stop a runaway cart had some serious problems with them.

[ZeroAX]

I saved the fat guy because whoever thought of the idea of throwing fat people to stop a runaway cart had some serious problems with them.

There's only one way to test if it's true or false.

[Nemoide]

I'M GOING TO GO AHEAD AND SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE THE RPG MAKER GAME I MADE, UNEMPLOYMENT QUEST.

I like to think Unemployment Quest reflects my own experiences of joblessness better than an article or video could.
The fact that the game takes multiple hours builds a different bond between game-world and player than a potential movie-world and viewer. Maybe in the hands of a skilled writer, an essay could express the same things, but a game can actually draw the audience into the experience in a different way.

Could I make a three hour movie that would hold someone's attention? Could I have written an article that doesn't sound like a whiny blog post? Could I have written a song that doesn't sound like some 1960s, folky hippie-anthem? IMO making a game was the best way I could express myself!


There's another game I haven't played yet called Actual Sunlight, which deals with depression. I can easily imagine that working very well also.

[J T]

I really like the way the Witcher series handles moral ambiguity. There are decisions, but they aren't obvious moral choice points, like "Do you want to save or harvest the little sister?" (Bioshock). In the Witcher, you might be slapped with some natural consequences that your stupid ass should have realized were there. You're not necessarily falling into a good/bad dichotomy. For example, when I was playing The Witcher 2, I got invited to go out drinking with some soldiers. It was my choice to go out drinking with them, and much like real life, you can help or harm a relationship with this kind of decision. While at the pub, I also chose to drink each sip I drank. I chose to drink. Every time. What resulted was that I woke up without any clothes, on the river banks, with all of my inventory missing. Apparently I had become so drunk that I was dared to let a prostitute ride me like a horse across the river with all my clothes off, and while I was away and passed out my stuff was taken from me. Obviously, my wreckless behavior had in-game consequences because I soon afterwards encountered some enemy skeletons that quickly put an end to me as I tried to fight them without weapons or armour, prancing around in my underpants and feverishly trying to cast enough magic to survive. I failed.

Another example from The Witcher series is that there is a point where you are to conduct an autopsy. Geralt does not have training in this and is advised to read about it. The book is in the library; however, the game doesn't force you to read it first. You can read it and learn what you are doing, or you can just jump in and do the autopsy in all your ignorance. The difference being that if you don't do the necessary reading first, the wrong man is accused of murder and this changes the story. You didn't know that ahead of time, you were just an overconfident ass who was too lazy to study, but the story offers up real narrative and gameplay consequence for your decisions.

I really love this series for doing stuff like this because I really took all of my decisions more carefully. Obviously, not every decision in the game matters so much, but when you are playing, you don't know which decisions matter and which ones don't. It's not until you meet the consequence, which may even be hours down the line, that you realize what you did. But knowing that your decisions might matter is enought to make them feel real.

[o.pwuaioc]

Welp, not reading the rest of that J T. I want to play The Witcher not knowing what actions to avoid.

[MrPopo]

Welp, not reading the rest of that J T. I want to play The Witcher not knowing what actions to avoid.

The other nice thing about the Witcher games is that there aren't "good" and "evil" factions. It's all shades of grey.

[J T]

Welp, not reading the rest of that J T. I want to play The Witcher not knowing what actions to avoid.

Good man.