(This is a project i wrote for school last year. I thought it was an interesting topic, and maybe you'll think so too. Enjoy.)
tl;dr: Videogame characters says a lot about your real personality because you are free to do almost what you want, like Fallout 3, Dragon Age etc, with very few limitations. What does the freedom of action and morals do with our character and ourselves? Good or evil? How important are these fantasies to us, and does it affect us in any other way than in the game itself? Can you compare online worlds with the real society because of the exstensive interaction and cooperation with other players? How does this limit our actions? Do we enter these strong and/or brutal roles, because we are weak or afraid in reality, or is it closer to our true psyche? Keep on reading if it sounds cool and discuss.
What does the characters we create in a game tell about ourselves as individuals?
Imagine you're sitting like Neo from The Matrix and has a choice. A choice between the red or the blue pill - One takes you to reality while the other takes you back into the illusion. Imagine then, that you are allowed to select a third pill - the pill that shows you the reality of illusion.
This thought-experiment is made by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek in his film “The Pervert's Guide to Cinema”. In the film he makes up many thoughts about how the virtual and the illusions is shaping our lives, our thoughts and our reality. He also asks the question: how does
videogames work in on the reality. What is really real and what is illusion?
Slavoj Zizek says:
“- Our fundamental mistake today is, that we don't believe in fictions, – that we think we take fiction too serious. It is the complete opposite, that we do not take the fiction seriously enough. You think it's only a game? It is reality. Let us take the gamer as an example. The conventional interpretation is that they will enter a physically strong, sadistic and brutal role because, in reality they are weak and/or afraid. This is a naive interpretation.”
“- What if we interpreted it from another angle? That this strong and/or violent role is closer to their real self. That it is closer to the player's psyche? And that its only society's social norms and restrictions that prevent them from exercising this personality. So just because they think it's only a game, only a fictional character, they can be much more sincere. In the game, they can enter an identity that is much closer to their true self. We need a fiction to practice what we really are.”
This is, at least for me, a very interesting interpretation of the virtual, illusions and videogames. Think about how we act in most social situations. Think about how many rules that applies, what standards we have to follow, and how we change our own personalities to get along better with others. Think about how you behave on your first date with another person.
“- When you meet someone for the first time you don't meet them, you meet the delegate.”
In videogames, massive online games , or online forums, many of the rules and social norms that apply in normal interaction between people disappears. We can freely express ourselves on the web, and we can perform actions in the virtual worlds we can only dream about in real life. Does this mean that how we behave in the virtual world may have more to say about who we really are than many of us think?
Let us consider conventional videogames first. Many of them offer players a large degree of both the moral freedom and the freedom of action. This is games like Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gothic 3, GTA IV and Mass Effect. Have you ever thought that the character's you create and play in such a game, may be closer to your real personality than the one you get the chance to show in the normal society?
We should first look at the limitations. Although more and more videogames give players a lot of choices in a huge open game world, the game still got rules. All role-playing games is based on some form of progression. This means that if you do not try to gather as much experience points and equipment as possible, you often get problems later. With such rules, it is easy to conclude that many players leaves their options dependent on the pragmatic consequences, instead of doing what they preferably want to do.
New role-playing games has lately become very good at balancing the consequences of players' actions. This means that if you want to complete a task in completely different ways, you are left with virtually equal dividends. Perhaps the biggest limitation many role-playing games have, is that they generally only leave two moral paths open - one good and one evil.
This is something new games also does better, but it is clear to everyone that has played a lot of videogames that the choices you have, often aren't as extensive as they might appear.
Another important point is not just what options we have in the game, but what choices we have between games. It is obvious that you have the chance to play very different roles, if you choose to play “Killzone 2”, above “Drømmefall”. But what does the choices we make in the game and the choices we make between games say about our own personality?
I can begin by using myself as an example when I talk about open role-playing games with many opportunities.
I suppose I am what is called a "power gamer" where my foremost desire is often to maximize my character's abilities and strengths. I still fall into a familiar role even the first time I play these games. I almost always pick a relatively neutral role, helping some people, and killing others. Whether the goal is completed by my marksmanship skills or speech skills doesn't really matter as long as it's done, whether it's Fallout 3 or Mass Effect I play.
The last game role-playing game I've tried is Fallout 3. I loved to load my minigun and sweep down enemies in a rain of bullets. I never ever got tired of luring mutants to me, hide behind a corner and blow the insides of their heads out with my shotgun when they came around the corner. Exterminating an entire city, only to have it as my personal fortress. Nuking said city when I was tired of it. A part I particularly liked, was to slaughter an entire camp with a sadistic and cruel slavers. It was gratifying to see my enemies heads explode in slow motion again and again.
Although I was a walking Angel of Death, I wanted to show my good side to people in this God-forsaken radioactive wasteland.
I remember how long I was looking for clean water for a thirsty beggar in the desert, and no matter how stupid it was that he was always, throughout the game, sitting in exactly the same place and always asked for water, I came back again and again to help the poor bastard, while I relieved others like him from their pain with a grenade in their back pockets.
A part I enjoyed very much was that the local radio station blessed me for the good services I did while I walked around in the remnants of the radioactive USA, whether it was disarming atomic bombs or finding a new home for an orphaned boy, helping slaves finding a new home, and how it cursed me for the bad things I did, like arming atomic bombs, selling out a camp of escaped slaves to slavers, or the killing of random innocent bystanders and merchants.
So what does these choices say about my personality? Do they say I'm a frustrated anarchist who does as much good as he pleases, as much evil he wishes when he's tired of doing chores, no matter the consequences, civilian casualties or suffering, and who enjoys the steady stream of dead bodies along the road? Understand it when I describe most of my characters as "Chaotic Neutral" - laws, traditions and rules mean nothing as long as people will be helped (or killed) in an efficient and free manner. This is perhaps one possible explanation for my real personality, too.
I must admit that I sometimes like to play as a completely evil and selfish character. This is often done in the second playthrough of games I liked particularly well, such as Fallout 3. These moments when I let my "power gamer" instincts take over completely, I can gander me in power and money, and be delighted about how easily I can crush my enemies. Do I have any of these desires in real life too? Do most of us?
One might think the massive online worlds were the ultimate places to express our virtual personalities. Even with huge worlds to frolic in, and with amazing content to explore, we have at the same time thousands of other players to take into consideration here.
While a standard role-playing game, you can let the fictional character do exactly what the game's parameters allow, you'll soon struggle in an online game if you do not take into account all its other players too. If you do not play by the rules other players have laid down, you will not get far in, for example, EVE Online or World of Warcraft.
If you are unable to behave in a massive online game, and unable to play by the rules of the player society, you'll find it hard to join a guild, and can therefore easily be banned from large parts of the game. Players' actions and how good they are to communicate has major consequences in an online game. A completely different example, is places where people can post comments on the web without consequences. Forums. Think of how many people behave in different forums. Here the fierce debates often turns to cursing and immature behavior, while many of the posters wouldn't even dare to as much as think the phrases they write if they were in the same room as you.
In my eyes, online games and communities is pretty much like society in the real world. "Game Masters" and “Moderators” is representing the police and the game laws which says how the players should behave. If you violate these laws, you can either be banned in a few days or banned forever if your crime is serious enough. But I think what sets the most important restrictions on players' behavior is the player created community. In online games, if the society is a key element, as for example in EVE Online, you'll go nowhere without closely cooperating with others and live by society's player created rules.
If we agree with Slavoj Zizek and his view - that the virtual characters we create in a game can sometimes be closer to our own true personality, because we can not disclose it in our general society - what impact does it really have? Does it mean that many of us are bloodthirsty drug induced violence-crazed madmen that do not dare let go of our desires because of the fear of being punished?
I hadn't thought about how the actions we make in games may be very revealing when it comes to what kind of people we are, before I heard Slavoj Zizek talking about it. The few times I've heard him talk about video- games he's still usually reading up the old cliches about how the players can choose to be mass murderers or rapists, without taking into account the possibilities for exercising idealism and servitude many games poses, no matter how much blood one must wade in.
I think it is great and interesting to hear about the specific capabilities of the latest and most powerful weapons, such as an F-22 Raptor, and see hour after hour with documentaries from major historical battles and wars.
I am still personally against the use of violence in most cases, and believe that the foremost defense is our democracy, but that we wouldn't be safe if we completely let down our defenses. I also think that violence and war in games and movies can be fun and interesting, but that's all it is. It must be allowed to have fantasies one does not want to become reality.
I think the virtual worlds in videogames can give us the opportunity to experience our fantasies in a much more interactive way than what we have the ability to in books and films. In a book or a movie, you can despise one characters' actions, but in a game you can change them. I think videogames can give us great opportunities to be creative and idealistic next to quenching our thirst for blowing away hundreds of nasty enemies. They can let us be heroes and bad-guys depending on what our fantasies may be.
What these fantasies say about who we really are, I will not discuss further here, but we must nevertheless recognize the importance of fantasies, of all kinds, can have in a persons life. If Slavoj Zizek is right in his views on the virtual, illusions and games, it can say a lot about why games is a growing media. It also says a little bit about the opportunities that lies in the future of virtual realities, and also perhaps a bit about the responsibility of interactive videogames have, if they really are a medium where we can exercise the parts of our personality that we don't have other places to display.
Too many words, sum it up, then shoot it back at me.
[QUOTE=mpntball2012;18455762]Too many words, sum it up, then shoot it back at me.[/QUOTE]
tl;dr I have good karma in Fallout 3
pics or it didn't happen
wait
No seriously no one is going to read that.
No, not really.
If I choose to play the "evil" role in a game like Fallout 3 it's because the people in the game don't exist so I have no qualms with killing them inside a game (although I actually still tend to feel sorry for them sometimes).
I allways try to be "Bad" in any game but allways 95% of the tme become good The KOTOR Games where no ecception
I think we mostly play a character who isn't like us in reality. In Fallout i'd slap bitches, collect money and had no qualms about shooting some guy because i was told to. In real life you don't really meet alot of people like that.
However, in Dragon Age and Mass Effect i actually try and play a diplomat role, and keep everyone happy, because in Mass Effect i knew for one we were all fighting for the same goal, so being an ass about it (to me) made no sense.
[sp] but when the Krogan stepped out of line i didn't have enough persuasion so i cold blooded murdered his ass, i was sad though. [/sp]
Stopped reading at "has a choice".
Really? I stopped reading at "wall of text"
I don't know what you guys are talking about, that there's too much text or anything, can't keep yourself concentrated for 10 minutes straight? Because it can't take longer then 10 minutes to read.
On topic, I totally agree with OP.
Video game characters don't reflect my character in real life. In games where I have choice I'll usually be evil for the hell of it. In real life I don't even kill bugs, I put them in a cup and transfer them to outside :3
I always just take the evil or most beneficial path of gameplay. More fun that way. I do agree with most of what you're saying.
I can't even bring myself to play the bad guy in video games.
Every time I try to be the bad guy I think of how I would feel if I were the kids of the woman I just murdered.
I end up crying.
I think I need a psychologist.
Playing games and watching ourselves play can tell us about some aspects of ourselves. Our unrestricted personality. Not confined by the social norms which we delegate only certain aspects of ourselves.
I remember in school that I declined almost every form of extra-curricular activity. But in games, I find myself doing almost every side quest.
I always play the good guy. Not because I'm a goody goody, but because it's easier to get the best stuff as the good guy, plus everyone likes you so you can get away with more when you have to go behind their backs and steal from them.
But I also go for time efficiency, if it doesn't have a major impact on my normal good play style, I'll kill a few innocents here and there just to finish a goal faster.
[QUOTE=GameQude;18456386]I don't know what you guys are talking about, that there's too much text or anything, can't keep yourself concentrated for 10 minutes straight? Because it can't take longer then 10 minutes to read.
On topic, I totally agree with OP.[/QUOTE]
No, it's because there's always the possibility that when we finish reading, it will turn out to be a shitty thread.
[QUOTE=Rubs10;18457758]I always play the good guy. Not because I'm a goody goody, but because it's easier to get the best stuff as the good guy, plus everyone likes you so you can get away with more when you have to go behind their backs and steal from them.
But I also go for time efficiency, if it doesn't have a major impact on my normal good play style, I'll kill a few innocents here and there just to finish a goal faster.[/QUOTE]
I'm a good goody :(
Even if a bad guy has good loot, I'll try to end it peacefully.
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