Reflective Journal
During weeks 6 & 7, due to the upcoming deadline for the reflective journal, this was where most of my work was being spent rather than on the development work for DARE. My chosen topic for my reflective journal was based on the uses of morality in video games and whether they are actually moral, to begin with when looked at through certain moral theories. The 3,000-word essay took part of week 5 to get an idea/ basis for what I would be writing about, and the entirety of week 6 to both research and write up and the first few days of week 7 to finish before the hand in on Tuesday.
I found this element of the course particularly interesting mainly because of the areas that I was looking into and trying to learn more about, so when it came to writing it would come across that I understood or had a grasp on what I was talking about. This was important when talking about various moral theories as they stand for different things and view the same situation differently. It meant that I would need to understand how each theory viewed right and wrong and how it would differ depending on the choice at hand. Doing this would allow me to keep the same viewpoint throughout whatever/ whichever scenario I was looking at in order to see which outcome was morally correct and if it would differ at all.
To do this I first began looking into the definition of morality to see if one had ever been attempted or perhaps if one even existed, only to find that many definitions of morality often fall into the trap of describing decisions rather than morality itself. The two main theories that I focused on were Utilitarianism which bases the morally right decision being entirely on which outcome will have the most net happiness as a result, regardless of the situation. This means that even if the choice was between saving a single life or cure 1,000 people of a headache, it would be morally right to cure the 1,000 people due to the fact that the most happiness will be achieved as a result. To many saving the life is immensely more important than curing 1,000 headaches, and theories like this show how easily the line can be blurred when the outcome is the focus rather than the dilemma itself. The other theory I looked at was Moral Subjectivism which bases right or wrong entirely on what the person making the decision feels is right or wrong in that given situation, which means that each outcome could be completely different. When put through the same situation as previously mentioned, many would choose to save the life of 1 person rather than cure 1,000 headaches mainly due to the importance a life has. Now if you were to put an age on the person to save such as that of an OAP (Old Age Pensioner) then a person decision might change.
To gather a grounding for morality in games I looked into various moral choices within video games and put them through either theory to determine whether their outcomes would be similar or vastly different from one another. In terms of Moral Subjectivism, I mainly focused on the possible outcomes a person might have rather than go with a single outcome as this might come across as biased. Some of the moral choices I looked at were the Little Sisters in Bio-shock where players are given the choice to cure them or harvest them, the trial of Parthurnax from The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, as well as the Arsonist mission in the Witcher 3 among others. I wanted to get a variety of moral choices which didn’t necessarily have the same outcome or follow similar paths in terms of what they were based around. This would allow me to get a wider variety of moral choices rather than find examples surrounding simple life and death scenarios, as well as to see if there are any outcomes which although are deemed morally right are still morally wrong but the better of two evils.
On a completely different note, however, once the reflective journal had been handed in, the rest of the week became an almost rest period before the start of the Easter break due to the amount of work that would need to be done for DARE. This is mainly what was discussed before Friday, so each person in our group knew exactly what they needed to do before we came back in 4 weeks time, and with this added time we would need to make the most of it and get ahead. My job over this period would be to begin working on the 3D environmental assets which would be placed on the map which Bernardo created over the course of the 7 weeks. Alongside this, I would also need to stay on top of my blog posts, any sketchbook work that would need to be collated and any other tasks that arise.
How I feel these weeks went:
Overall, I feel that the work is done/ completed during these two weeks although diverted away from the original task set at the beginning of the semester, they allowed me to look at not only morality differently, but also how I play games differently. This is mainly because I had a began to have a habit of not taking in or trying to immerse myself into the game that I was playing, so any emotional events that did happen didn’t really have an effect on me. After this, however, I know to try and take in as much information as I can and really put myself into the shoes of whichever character I am controlling, especially if my actions dictate how the world evolves/ progresses. Next weeks tasks will mainly consist of:
- Starting and finishing any sketchbook work that still needs to be done, this will mainly be collating any screenshots or progress of map creating.
- Creating any 3D models that have been designed and uploaded to Trello
- Writing up and adding pictures to blog posts
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