Thursday 8 November, 2018

At the third day, we have finished the game A Way Out. It is a game with pretty short game story, however, the story makes players fall into meditation. At the final part of the game, only one of the main character can survive the game and back to their family. Both of them are correct, but also, both of them are wrong. It is really difficult to decide which one of them is the more correct one. Both of my girlfriend and I want to make our own character survive in the end because each of the character we played for the past three days are correct and should have the chance to go back to his family. Due to I have a better skill of game, I successfully kill my girlfriend's character Vincent. However, I didn't get the joy of the winner. I deeply substitute into the game and think I as Leo has just lost one of the best friends in my life.
After finishing the game, I think the most serious moral problem in A Way Out is that the game have the power to distort the morality of the player. From the game, we can straightly discover that Leo as a recidivist has an excellent morality and his sympathetically story makes players forgive his behaviors and even want to help him. On the other hand, Vincent, as a policeman who is incarnation of justice would choose to act like a recidivist like Leo and even kill other police due to his own lust. Finally, Vincent has the chance to tell Leo the truth and let him go. However, he still choose to betray Leo and catch him.
From the game, Leo seems like the party of justice，but Vincent, the real good one, seems like the betrayer. Consequently, A Way Out shows players a wrong moral principle.

It was interesting reading about your experience playing with someone who isn’t as experienced with games as you and how the game makes it so you can’t give up on each other because you need both people to complete the game. Additionally, your comments of not feeling good for winning the fight at the end of the game due to the skill difference between you and your girlfriend also brings up a lot of interesting thoughts for me. When playing with someone who has less experience than you are there any ethical obligations in how you should feel when you win? Does the more skillful player have a moral obligation to play with less skill?
I do have concerns about the last paragraph. I’m not quite sure what you mean by the game showing the player “a wrong moral principle.” Is the wrong moral principle that the criminal Leo is being shown as ethical and the policeman Vincent is being shown as unethical? If this is the case, why is this a wrong moral principle? Also it seems like the 2nd game log is saying that by showing Vincent and Leo as having good qualities and having the player sympathize with them that the game is being unethical because it will make players think that criminals aren’t bad. This is a weak argument because it is both saying that the game is telling the player that all criminals are good, which the game isn’t saying by having two likable characters, and under this logic it would be unethical to show anyone seen as bad, such as a criminal, as anything but evil. This would result in game characters that are less nuanced and more stereotypes as opposed to fully flesh out characters.