Miguel Sicart defines games as systems “in which the rules force the player to face ethical dilemmas, or in which the rules themselves raise ethical issues.” The game rules force players to interact in specific ways in order to confront ethical issues. In this manner, Life is Strange asks players to deal with numerous compounding ethical issues in order to construct a criticisms of current social problems. But the game rules also force the player to interact with these ethical issues by requiring that some choices be made. Combine this with metagaming and we understand that, while the player would usually perceive that she is making an ethical choice, in reality she is only making a decision based upon her perception of the game rules. GamaSutra writer Christopher Gile argues that Metagaming, which refers to the player’s ability to use knowledge the in-game characters are not privy too, alters game play in Life is Strange “from one where [the player is] trying to do the correct things in the moment to one where [they] are trying to find the best possible outcome for everyone.” Since the player is able to rewind time, she is able to weigh the available choices to determine whether one story branch will have more positive consequences than the other–there are distinct elements of utilitarianism and rule consequentialism but we’ll get into that another time.
The player creates a set of ethical values inspired by the game, derived from the game culture and community, and strictly applicable within the game situation.
Sicart further argues game players are moral beings that when engaged in a system behave according to its rules. The player follows virtue ethics according to the games ability to facilitate their:
- sense of achievement,
- explorative curiosity,
- socializing nature,
- balanced aggression,
- care for game balance,
- and sportsmanship.
When all of these virtues are performed in a game they help form the players practical understanding of the games ethics and create a successful game experience. But how does Life is Strange measure up to Sicart’s definition of Aristotelian virtue ethics in gameplay and does it really contribute to a successful experiences?
Sense of achievement, which is measured by each individual game, requires that the player be able to both track and understand how they are progressing through the game. Life is Strange allows players to do this by offering game achievements when the player directs Max to take photos during gameplay. The game also allows players to see their choices weighed against choices made by other players. These choices appear as percentages at the end of each episode and provide the player with information about all possible decision trees.
Explorative curiosity encourages the player to explore the environment in order to gain more information, solve puzzles, and eventually advance through the narrative. In Life is Strange the player explores the world around Max–reading posters, taking photographs, talking to NPCs–in order to further understand the game narrative. If the player does not fully explore the landscape they will likely miss out on talking to a character that expands the narrative (in both significant and minor ways) and allows the player to obtain further achievements. There are many opportunities for Max to explore the school grounds and if the player chooses to do so then they will receive at least two extra achievements for taking photographs of animals. SPOILER: The game narrative changes in more relevant ways if the player reads all of the letters in Kate’s room. Later in the game, Max will be tasked with preventing Kate from committing suicide. The player is only capable of doing so if they read that Kate was close to her father.
Socializing nature refers to Aristotle’s concept of the individual in society. He states that “man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” Individuals cannot exist outside of society. So, in order for games to create successful experiences they must attempt to immerse the player in that game the same way the individual is immersed in society. This leads to adaptive gameplay were the puzzles/objectives become increasingly more challenging as the game progresses. If the game were to follow any other method (too difficult a puzzle to start or too simple puzzles throughout) than the player would likely lose interest in the game and suspend play. Life is Strange makes use of socializing tactics by increasing the difficulty and the steps needed to take in each progressing puzzle. In the first puzzle in episode one Max needs only to rewind time once to complete all of the steps of the puzzle. By the middle of episode two Max must rewind multiple times in order to complete the objective of a puzzle.
While balanced aggression is more easily discernible in games like Call of Duty or 
Counter-Strike where the players kill each other in order to complete game objectives, Life is Strange follows this ethical rule but by slightly different means. If Max is repeatedly and overtly aggressive then the player will be warned of unknown consequences via an internal monologue or an onscreen prompt. An example of this occurs early in the game when Max is given the option to rearrange photographs in her rivals bedroom to represent a rude hand gesture. If the player chooses to make Max rearrange the photographs they are warned of the possibility for future consequences.
The last two virtue ethics that Sicart defines are game balance and sportsmanship. Because Life is Strange does not require gamers to play against others the rules of the game are already deemed virtuous and balanced. Sicart defines sportsmanship as “related to the subjectivization process of being a player, and therefore it is different from and complementary to respecting, protecting, and enhancing the game balance…becoming player is a process of subjectivization deeply related to the acceptance of a set of rules. An agent that fails in this subjectivization process but engages in the act of playing regardless fails to follow the virtue of sportsmanship.” In other words, the player must commit to the rules laid out by the game. The player must follow these rules and if they happen to find an alternate path that allows for the game objective to be completed then they are still players but not virtuous ones. Since Life is Strange allows the player to rewind time and explore multiple paths to the same result, it is difficult to assess whether any player could not be virtuous.
*If you wanna read more on virtue ethics and games, see:
- Bogost, Ian. “The Rhetoric of Video Games.” The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. Edited by Katie Salen. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 117–140.
- Sicart, Miguel. The Ethics of Computer Games. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2009.
- Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, “Consequentialism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). 2014.
