ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author addresses the different ways in which video games present moral problems to the player. In this so-called ethical gameplay, the player is encouraged by certain scenes in the game to make important choices based on narratological-ethical, rather than ludological-strategical, thinking. Since not all games succeed equally in providing satisfactory ethical challenges to the player, the author uses the concept of ‘wicked problem’ to differentiate between the different qualitative levels of ethical gameplay. The ‘wicked problem’ denotes certain (moral) problems or dilemma’s that are very difficult or even impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements of the problem itself. The more ‘wicked’ a certain in-game moral problem is, the more the player is encouraged to reflect on his or her own moral framework.
