Awww aren’t you just adorable? Contrary to the bile and hatred spouted on the internet, recent research shows that given a choice between playing a good or an evil character most gamers will chose to be good and help old ladies across the road before destroying the alien scum invading Earth.
For gamers who only play a game once, 59 percent of participants played the game as a good character, 39 percent did not expressly play good or evil but made decisions “on a choice by choice basis,” and just five percent of participants played as an evil character.
Additionally, the majority of participants said that they “usually” tried to make the same decision in game as they would in real life. There was very little difference between male and female gamers, with the ladies mostly choosing to play as a hero.
However, those who played through a game twice are more likely to choose an evil role to see a new story and collect achievements or trophies.
The survey also collected participants thoughts on what defines a good or evil action and they included harvesting Little Sisters in BioShock, refusing to set off the nuke in Fallout 3 and using white phosphorus on civilians in Spec Ops: the Line.
Over three quarters of the respondents said they felt guilty after committing an evil act and the report concludes that games with a binary morality system – a simple choice between good or evil – may be consigned to history. Games such as The Walking Dead give players multiple choices and include “more nuanced moral choices” and those may be the way forward.
If you want to read the full report, which includes more data from various games, click here, it’s an interesting read.
Source: GamesCriticism
JR.
I play most games this way. Good first and then Evil.
Playing Far Cry 4 recently however (SPOILERS), I knew that both Amita and Sabal characters turned out evil in the end. So I Burned the opium fields and destroyed the drug factory for Sabal and then sided with Amita at the end, just out of spite. Try running your drug empire now, *word that rhymes with witch*.
Lieutenant Fatman
I really enjoy all the inFamous games, but the good playthroughs are always much more enjoyable than the being an evil scumbag playthrough. Because in the latter everyone hates you and you hate the character as well, there’s not much satisfaction to be had. There isn’t really any incentive to play it that way except for the trophies.
Spec Ops: the Line was frustrating as it forces you to take that particular evil action to continue with the game.
PoorPaddy89
Couldn’t agree more, and the inFamous games are a perfect example. Good playthrough is far more interesting, whilst the evil choice is usually “Kill X”.
Just look at how many people have the trophies for completing the good story against those who complete evil; it’s a huge margin.
plutoniumdragon
Yes, binary morality is what is boring, sometime you want to be chaotic good, sometimes you just want to destroy everything in sight :)
gernboes
So how come those percentages add up to 103?