Save States and a Case for Replayability

Something that I have been mulling over all week is Miguel Sicart’s points regarding replayability and ethical thinking. I think that the way Sicart portrays play and how players interact with the games that they’re playing is not fully representative of the player experience. In his article he makes the point “that this constructivist phronesis can only lead to fulfilling our potential if we follow the decision to its consequences. Otherwise, we are not fulfilling our potential, but merely toying around with cause and effect” (104). He also makes the point that the “reversibility of events may be considered an obstacle in the exploration of ethical gameplay by games” (108). Both of these quotes showcase Sicart's issues with combining replayability and ethical gameplay. I have been struggling since we first read the article to be able to bring myself into any sort of agreement with his position. In fact, I think reloading can become an important and productive part of facing difficult ethical decisions in video games.

I want to begin by pushing back on Sicart’s comments regarding Knights of the Old Republic. According to Sicart, being able to predict the moral outcomes of decisions limits the moral efficacy of the game for the player. I think that Sicart makes two important claims about the game that exemplify this point. He says that the game “does not so much explore the moral universe of Star Wars as provide a safe interactive multiple choice test of the player’s knowledge and intuitions regarding the difference between good and evil” (106), and that the game “does not encourage players to use moral thinking, but a simulacrum of it. Players do not need to think ethically about their choices, but strategically ... it’s only a matter of deciding which narrative path to explore” (106). From my own experience with this game, I’m inclined to say that Sicart is not giving the player enough credit. Ethically conscious action by the player in any game requires a certain amount of buy-in from the player. If the player feels that she’s inhabiting the world, then the dilemma is not only about the outcomes of the action, but also how the player will feel while conducting the action.[1] So her interest will not be solely directed to “gaming” the ethical system, but also on how her actions will make her feel morally. The player isn’t just asking how the game will judge her, she’s also asking herself how she will feel about the actions she’s chosen. That second part seems to be, at least to me, a form of moral reasoning and not just some “simulacrum” (106). Moreover, in instances where the decision between the two paths offers little or no advantage, this second part seems all the more relevant. As long as there is some sort of buy-in from the player regarding the game world, dilemma based structures still require ethical thinking on the part of the player. If the player does not care, then any moral relevance would be thrown out the window.

But what does this have to do with reloading mechanics? My point with the above discussion was to stress the importance I see in players buying into the world of the game and how I see that as the real cause of self-reflection and ethical thinking. Sicart worries that if players can, "in case of an unsatisfactory outcome, reload to the previous state" (108) then "the depth of moral thinking is questioned" (108). However, I can't bring myself to agree with this position. Restarting from a previous save is often an unwelcome thing. It means lost progress and lost time, and in a game like Papers Please, it can mean being forced to play through at times boring, tedious, and frustrating gameplay. However, it doesn't necessarily stop the player from buying into the world she's playing in. I found that just because I had to try again on some days during Papers Please, that did not stop me from feeling connected to the game. Importantly, this means that saving doesn't stop the player from reflecting on her choices in the game world. I would instead argue that the use of a save state can actually be a reflection of critical ethical thinking. Saving forces the player to make a post-decision analysis of her choices. Unlike in life, she now has an opportunity to go back and change what she did. The player has to now ask herself if doing so would be worth it. Using a save state means that the player has reflected on the morality of a particular chain of events and has determined that going back to redo her actions at the cost of progress and time is a moral necessity. As I talked about previously, this sort of self-reflection about moral feeling is, to me, a very clear example of ethical thinking, and one that I think is not limited to only wicked problems.

It is true that some players might save in order to be able to further explore the game. I myself play in such a manner at times. However, do not believe that a save's functionality ends there. Key to any morality is the idea of regret. Saves allow us to look at that regret and analyze it in meaningful way. We actually get the opportunity to both ask and answer the question, "if I could go back, would I?" This is why I think saves can be a useful tool in ethical thinking.

[1] As a quick example of this, I would compare a game like Civilization V and Bioshock. In Civ V, I have never really felt any connection to any sort of “story” or have bought into the game world. As a result, I never really have any moral qualms about razing a city to the ground or any other sort of atrocity in that game. At the same time, I did buy much more heavily into the story of Bioshock (a game which Sicart similarly criticized in his article) and found it extremely morally taxing to harvest the little sisters as opposed to saving them. When I reflect on these games, it seems to me that my ability to buy into the game world was the key differentiating factor.

Works Cited:

Miguel Sicart, "Wicked Games: On the Design of Ethical Gameplay"