I've played a few hundred hours of Prison Architect over the course of a few years, and in that time, I have decided that I am content with the fact that I’m a corrupt and evil prison warden. My prison is a for-profit fortress. It is a hungry machine that is only sated when filled with maximum threat prisoners (the most profitable kind of prisoner). Escape is impossible, and if somehow, a prisoner does make it past my dog patrols and armed guards, they still can’t leave. A prisoner escaping costs me money, and potentially my prison; so they can’t ever escape. When they make a break for the outer wall, four snipers simultaneously plant four shells into the inmate's brain cage. I pay a fee to the deceased’s family, and the hungry machine keeps eating.
I, as the player, have actively decided to do this to my prisoners. I feed them terrible food because it’s cheaper. I give them less exercise to keep them weak. I threaten them with armed riot guards because it keeps them scared. At the beginning, I felt horrible for my prisoners. I thought of them as a kind of ally, I would give them everything they wanted, and they would behave; that was the deal. But that was a long time ago, and the monster I’ve become has seen too much to care whether my prisoners are happy.
I’ve been fired in the crucible of ethics, and I burned away. The warden I was died hundreds of hours ago, after my prisoners betrayed me too many times. I used to care if they were rehabilitated after their stay in my prison. I used to care about if they saw their families. Now all I care about is feeding the machine. Prison Architect forced me to decide if I was a good person. And I failed.
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