Hi,

I've got a rather complicated question:

I am working on my PhD Thesis about video games and I am using Fallout 3 as major example for discussing moral decission making.

I've come across an article about applying Kant's Categorial Imperative to the Tranquility Lane Quest. The authors argue that the player is presented 3 choices:

a) killing all the residents and leaving the simulation by playing Betty's game

b ) activating the failsafe believing the chinese Invasion will kill EVERYONE including the player character, which equals suicide

c) stay in tranquility lane forever

They conclude that the developers failed to include a justifiable choice, because they don't "give the player an opportunity for a legitimate choice which would allow for a significant decision by the player".

the article is called:

Games as Art and Kant’s Moral Dilemma What Can Ethical Theory Reveal About the Role of the Game Designer as Artist?

you can find it online but you have to sign in.

So my problem is this: indeed it would be a very interesting question whether activating the failsafe is morally justifiable regarding Kant's categorial imperative, because every resident gets killed. But the article doesn't discuss that because this option gets completely ruled out first hand because the players must believe that the faile safe equals suicide. I played 3 or 4 times through the quest before reading the article and it NEVER occured to me, that the chinese army might attack the player character as well. But after reading again and again through all the text the terminal in the abandoned house contains, i can't find any definite explanation why the chinese army does NOT attack the player.

So my question is this: Is the player really meant to believe that activating the fail safe equals suicide??? Have any of you had this thought ?

I might have to mention that i played the english version of the game and the mentioned article is in english as well, whereas my mother tongue isn't (I'm german). So maybe I have missed some subtle point somewhere...but i never thought of activating the fail safe as suicide though i can't find any proof in the game, that tells the player in advance that his character somehow differs from the other residents and therefore should not be attacked.

Thanks to everybode who has read all this and i really hope to get some helpfull answers. Otherwise I might have to ignore the article completely for my thesis.

Thank you

Christian

An implied positive of suicide isn’t necessarily assumed by players who are less cerebral than you guys. We just go with the flow and never delve into the depths of pondering about suicide buttons. If that were the case, then it would be ‘game over’, and I don’t think the devs would have written it that way.