The 3 Moral Strings: Manipulation for players' moral learning through video games
Do, Anh (2024)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2024121937642
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2024121937642
Tiivistelmä
Technology is developing rapidly nowadays. Obviously, the video games industry is not an outsider of this wave. However, it is not widely recognized that video games could be meaningful and promote social values. Some video games have excellent designs revolving ethical themes. To not waste the potential of moral education through video games design, this thesis was written to dive deeper into this topic.
The main objective is to study the potential of video games in educating morality and review some ethical design elements in video games. The research type is a mixed method of literature review, by studying existing theory base, and qualitative research, by analyzing these contents and observing the test results. The literature review covers the topics of the interactivity of video games, its potential for moral learning, some game design elements including in-game rewards system and in-game choices, and moral theories. By researching these existing studies, the paper concludes a hypothetical model called the 3 Moral Strings. This hypothesis interpreted three types of consequences in video games design, using the three moral theories as references: String A follows virtue ethics, String B follows deontology, String C follows consequentialism. Later, the model was tested to check for practical use by using its concepts to analyze three games which are famous for their ethical designs: Undertale; Papers, Please; and This War of Mine.
From observing the primary conflict between two Moral Strings in each game, the thought-provoking result shows that three games used in the test have three different approaches in moral design. Although having a potential with this result, more studies about the model are encouraged to prove its efficiency. Moreover, since the unique and uncommon topic influenced the search for theory base, it is highly suggested for more academic studies about ethical game designs.
The main objective is to study the potential of video games in educating morality and review some ethical design elements in video games. The research type is a mixed method of literature review, by studying existing theory base, and qualitative research, by analyzing these contents and observing the test results. The literature review covers the topics of the interactivity of video games, its potential for moral learning, some game design elements including in-game rewards system and in-game choices, and moral theories. By researching these existing studies, the paper concludes a hypothetical model called the 3 Moral Strings. This hypothesis interpreted three types of consequences in video games design, using the three moral theories as references: String A follows virtue ethics, String B follows deontology, String C follows consequentialism. Later, the model was tested to check for practical use by using its concepts to analyze three games which are famous for their ethical designs: Undertale; Papers, Please; and This War of Mine.
From observing the primary conflict between two Moral Strings in each game, the thought-provoking result shows that three games used in the test have three different approaches in moral design. Although having a potential with this result, more studies about the model are encouraged to prove its efficiency. Moreover, since the unique and uncommon topic influenced the search for theory base, it is highly suggested for more academic studies about ethical game designs.