Blogpost #4: Fallout

          Oh yeah ! Another great piece of work from Bethesda ! Fallout ! Now before anything else, I just want to say that I regret not playing this game. I always said to myself that open-world games were my favorite types and I never even played Fallout which makes me really sad. Anyway, Fallout is a game that surrounds on the idea of moral decision. A game of moral decision, now that is one of the greatest perks a video game can ever have. Okay now let us put those aside for a while and let us begin tackling the philosophy inside these decisions.

          So like always, I read an article with same topic like the one I am currently studying right now and then try to relate and explain my side. So the article I read was entitled " Moral Decision Making in Fallout " which was written by Marcus Schulzke who posted it on gamerstudies.org

          " Games like Fallout cultivate what Aristotle called "phronesis" - the practical wisdom of knowing how to act morally in particular situations. "

          Phronesis ! Now that is one of my new favorite words with deep meanings. Now phronesis is a really good way to describe different values of different players of the game. There is a very high chance that the decisions we make in Fallout are different with another player. Because of this, we are often given actual consequences in our in game decision. For me, this are the virtual counterpart of actual real life consequences. Since we carry out our own perspective in morality inside the game, our personalities are the ones present in our character. Since they are ours, it just goes to show that whatever consequence we got from this video games is probably gonna be the same in real life. Now this is actually a good thing because if we encounter really bad consequences in the game, this could really change our moral view. Like I said, our own perspective in morality is present inside the game which means it is our fault that we received this consequence. There is something wrong with our own perspective causing us somehow to force ourselves to change it. Maybe this is what was meant when the writer said that this can make players more wiser and more sensitive. We change because of these kind of faults causing us to become wiser and more sensitive because we never really want to encounter really bad consequences especially in real life.

          " our actions in the game determine what our relation is to the game in reality "

          That is very deep quote and I think we can all agree. The way we do things in video games is just a virtual representation of our actions in reality. I know we sometimes realize this not only in playing fallout but in may other games. I could think of one. The Walking Dead. Man that game would really push you in making moral decisions in dire situations. But anyway, we learn from these actions and usually become affected of the results. What if this could happen in real life ? Yeah. That is my question to myself when I am really into decision making in games. I will say it again readers. These are just virtual counterparts of what we do in real life. Now here is my suggestion to all of you. Please reflect on your actions in video games and then ask yourself the same question I ask myself " What if this could happen in real life ? ". You might learn something about yourself and you might even change for the better.