In his classic book The Art of Computer Game Design, Chris Crawford elaborates the idea of conflict as being “an intrinsic element of all games” (Crawford, [1982] 1997:14). Conflict would have a central role within games, as players struggle to achieve a goal or victory over other participants. According to Crawford, that could explain the recurrent use of violence in videogames, not because violence itself is crucial for games, but because it is an obvious way to portray conflict. Given the technical constrains of computer games during its early years, it is fair to assume it was also one of the most feasible ways, as physical and bellicose violence could be represented and simulated with an economy of resources that subtler forms of conflict could not. It could be also argued that exacerbated forms of violence permeate the collective imaginary. From narratives originated in ancient times, such as the ones in Greek mythology, to contemporary cultural forms, as seen in movies such as Pulp Fiction and comic books as Frank Miller’s Sin City, violence as extreme forms of conflict have fascinated humankind. Computer games, for being interactive simulations, allow users to play with violence in ways that narratives cannot. However, still according to Crawford, before indulging in such activity, the player has to be presented to a justification to such violent acts. The dehumanization of the player’s opponent is a frequent solution. Crawford writes: “We never, never obliterate human beings; instead, we vaporize ugly space monsters” (1997: 25). Robots, ghosts and other fantastic creatures could be added to the list. However, I beg to disagree with the statement, as some games actually allow (and encourage) the player to attempt against the life of human characters as means to in-game progression. Anthropomorphic enemies or not, a usual justification for the player’s acts is his position as a heroic one. This is often configured through a backstory, cut-scenes or visual cues, reinforcing whatever motives the player’s side has to engage in combat against his enemy.

At this point, we must remember that the heroic condition could be subjective, as argues Joseph Campbell in his book The Power of Myth (Campbell and Moyers, 10988). Campbell sees an intrinsic value to acts considered heroic, which are perceived as such depending on the point of view of the observer. He uses the example of two enemy soldiers, one American and one German, both worthy of a “heroic” condition, in spite of standing in opposite sides (1988: 127).

In fact, the game America’s Army (U.S. Army, 2002), developed for the US Army and played by opponent groups over the internet, is famous for not allowing users to play as terrorists. During game sessions, each group sees itself as the American Army and the opponent group as the terrorists. This could be due to the developer’s awareness of the player’s identification with the characters he controls and its association with a heroic position. In his book Half-Real, game researcher and theorist Jesper Juul points out the interplay between the fictional worlds and real rules videogames are made of (Juul, 2005). One could speculate that this interplay operates between real player and fictional character, and that the ethos of the latter is renegotiated in favour of the progression of the former – and that during play, the player’s personality is never completely divorced from the character and vice-versa. Players, according to Juul, “want to be able to identify with the fictional protagonist and the goal of the game in the fictional world” (2005, 161). This identification was also investigated by Jill Walker, who noted: “In the rhetoric surrounding computer games (…) the difference between playing and being the protagonist is blurred.” (Walker, 2001: 18). Paradoxically, by always depicting the side where the player stands as morally defendable and the other side as not -- to the point that it becomes a convention of the genre, if not video games -- one could adopt a morally questionable self-centred position, and unable to recognise the other beyond those values.

This does not mean that all representations of alterity in games are depicted as malign, but that it frequently happens. This linkage between the ‘other’ and the ‘evil’, as well as the Manichaeism it connotes, is a central point of a series of Peter Molyneux’s works, which I now propose to investigate. Molyneux was specifically chosen for the evolution of his work around the themes of good and evil, as well as for the representation of other instances of otherness in his games.

Populous

Populous (Bullfrog Productions, 1989) originated the genre referred to as ‘god simulation’. The game puts the player in charge of a deity whose power is influenced by the number of followers devoted to him. With a range of environmental powers such as terraforming, flood and volcano activity, the player’s goal is to empower his followers and eliminate the followers of other deities who compete against him for a ‘theological domination’ of the earth. A groundbreaking, innovative title, Populous was the first game credited to Peter Molyneux as a game designer. As the illustration from the DOS-version title screen indicates (Fig. 1), there is an inclination to depict the player’s deity as being a good one (a white-bearded old man who can resemble Zeus or a stereotypical representation of God), and your opponent, who has an also stereotypical demoniac face, as an evil one.

Fig. 1: Title Screen, by Bullfrog Productions
(image contributed by user Multimedia Mike).
source (13 March 2006).  

Thus, the first reference of the good / evil dichotomy in Molyneux’s work operates in the way we first described it in this essay: The player, positioned as the good side, must eliminate the evil, opposite side. It could be argued that the deity’s followers should be regarded as ‘others’ as well. In fact, they reacted to your actions, rather than being directly controlled. However, for the symbiotic relationship between them and their god, who is additionally not represented by a character on screen, they should be considered all instances of the player.