>>6114093>>6114097>>6114088I don't disagree with what either of you said, Reptoid gave a very succinct articulation of my idea of "moral physics" so surely I can't be that indecipherable hehe.
Maybe if I turn it around with the anon who wrote
>>6113999>"pressure relief valve for the stresses of society, not another way to lecture people on how to be a good boy..."ie games are just for "mindless escapist fun" ie catharsis, when I emphasise this belief of mine that games should possess "moral purpose", I don't think this is in opposition to the idea of escapism or catharsis (ie the stress relief, gore / violence etc) at all, in fact as games like Manhunt
>>6114084 demonstrate, it is PRECISELY due to the ESCAPISM, the INTERACTIVE ESCAPISM, that games are uniquely positioned to explore moral meaning.
In the ancient world they believed the moral purpose of catharsis was as a form of rehearsal. It is only a play / drama, hence you could take normally repugnant or abhorrent behaviours scenarios, and "rehearse" and explore what might be the "moral" response to them.
So to turn it around, I would ask: why are you afraid of exploring "moral purpose", "moral judgement"? It is only a game lol, it isn't real.
In our society, we can play mainstream games where you chainsaw people or suffocate them to death or shoot them in the head with sniper rifles, this is all mainstream and very very fun. So why should a game which uses these modalities of behaviour and deepens them with some moral context or judgement inhibit your enjoyment of the game?
Wouldn't it actually enhance or make the entire experience more transcendent, more profound? What is it about "morality" that interferes with your enjoyment?
You see this is why I chose STALKER Shadow Of Chernobyl as an example. The game is set in Ukraine. The end destination is Pripyat, Chernobyl, literally and figuratively the psychically scorched ruins of the Soviet world. This made the game far more haunting for me. I kept thinking whilst playing the game, how could the same society that produced this beautiful and intelligent videogame masterpiece end up where it is today (or was it precisely because it could produce this sort of game setting...?)
You may have noticed in several of my recent games, a similar trend of intertwining an anchored real world location, with a fantasy / fictional counterpart, hehe
