How Can Video Games Make Us Better People?

The video game industry earned $ 120 billion in 2019, according to a survey conducted by SuperData[1]. Considered the fastest-growing industry in entertainment, it earns more than cinema[2]. People who have never played video games probably know someone who has, or at least they have heard of famous characters, like Mario, Pikachu, or Lara Croft. Video games as cultural artifacts are already part of most people's culture[3].

Some games can lead the player to think about sensitive or important topics, promoting critical thinking due to the realistic and emotional position[4] in which games involve the player; empathy, as shown with the game Lemmings in a study[5] that evaluated participant’s feelings after gameplay, and even learning about socio-scientific themes, as in games that use STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education[6] approach in their narratives. Nevertheless, how does this happen?

Usually, when one starts playing a game, one assumes the role of a character. The act of playing configures an embodiment of the character of the game[7]. Therefore, video game narratives should not be considered a story to which the player relates through passive contact. On the contrary, the player has agency over the game and takes an active position facing the game mechanics' narrative when assuming a role.

Three games that lead the player to reflect based on their narratives can exemplify these ideas.

The first one is the Detroit: Become Human game released in 2018 for PlayStation 4 and developed by Quantic Dream. In this game, the player assumes three characters' roles simultaneously, alternately playing each intersecting story. By assuming their "skin," the player makes several essential decisions that involve ethical and moral issues.

For instance, two of the issues raised in the game are racism and social segregation. These themes are raised by putting the player in the role of a marginalized android with human feelings. The androids with human feelings (called divergent in the game) are marginalized in society and become a metaphor to represent real human beings who live on the edge of society without opportunities to change their lives.

The narrative can lead the player to think and project real-world situations that involve these themes, based on the reflexive movement caused by each decision made in the game. In a specific moment of the game, for example, the player has to decide whether to lead a violent revolution to make the marginalized group of androids accepted in the society or achieve this peacefully. It is important to highlight that the moral dilemmas presented in the game do not intend to judge or evaluate the player's decision. The central point is how one can mobilize psychological mechanisms to make such a decision and impact the player's real life.

Besides, how the decision-making process can occur when moral issues are involved, as noted by some researchers. For example, a study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking[8] investigated how people made moral choices in the game Fallout 3. According to the outcomes, most of the players made moral decisions related to non-player characters as if there were actual interactions with them. This can show that during gameplay, players can act based on imaginative situations in real life.

The second example is the game Parasite Eve, released in 1998 by SquareSoft. In this game, the player takes on the role of Aya Brea, an American police officer who must investigate an intriguing case of spontaneous combustion that happens on Christmas Eve in a New York theatre. Based on an eponymous Japanese novel, the plot is permeated with scientific questions, having its narrative inspired by the Mitochondrial Eve theory, which states that we all have a common ancestor. In the context of the game, the player faces ethical-scientific dilemmas while in the main character's role and discovers how some people were used as guinea pigs in an experiment without proper authorization and based on scientific research development guided by personal interests.

Third, in the video game The Last of Us (parts 1 and 2), developed by Naughty Dog for PlayStation 3 (2013) and 4 (2020), the player is placed in a post-apocalyptic world, devastated by the fungus Cordyceps ophioglossoides. This fungus infection transforms those infected into deformed creatures that roam the world. The plot, apparently cliché, is composed of exciting arcs in which, once again, it leads the player to think about essential themes that parallel with the real world.

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A specific part of the game reveals that one of the characters is gay, and in some moments of the narrative, the character faces homophobia from others. Different from movies in which homophobia is also represented, but the gay character is only watched by the audience, in this game, the player is embodied in the character and has to deal with homophobia, talking to other characters who care about her/him and facing this issue that is also represented by one of the antagonist groups of the game (the Serafitas).

The examples cited above show how some video games go beyond formats for storytelling. They also allow a narrative immersion that leads the player to reflect on important issues in society, drawing parallels with the real world. This reflection may be associated with the fact that the video game allows the player to incorporate a character, changing the “I-position." The player becomes an extension of the character, "experiencing" the game's narrative situations. Due to the narrative immersion, such incorporation is a specific characteristic of video games, not observed, for example, in cinema.

For this reason, video games have arisen as research interests in the field of psychology in order to investigate and understand how some games have an absolute potential to promote a change in attitude in people[9]. Moreover, shifting from the stereotype that games can make people more violent to games can make them better[10].