Indigo Prophesy, also known as Fahrenheit (European release title), is a a paranormal psychological thriller due for released by Quantic Dream/Atari in September 2005. Before the games release, it had already quickly raised much concern over moral issues in respect to the computer game's characterisations and themes. The main emphasis of the story is that a series of violent murders are committed by seemingly ordinary people with no criminal history, upon complete strangers, with no apparent motive. The controllable protagonist of this game is such a murderer (Gurney, 2005),
Although none of the murderous acts are controlled by the player of the game, they are however graphic and detailed animation scenes which depict the entire gratuitously act of murder in stylised cinematic angles. In one of many instances, the player of the game has to control the protagonist to hide the evidence of murder, this includes moving and hiding the victims body, washing blood off the protagonists hands and concealing the murder weapon before he is discovered by police. The player is then rewarded by gaining points and avoiding and is thereby allowed to progress to the next scenario.
During scenes where the protagonist is murdering strangers, he is depicted as being possessed by an evil force, therefore dissociating the player from the violent act and reassuring the gamer of the games morality. However as the game progresses, it is believed the player becomes desensitised to the games themes and gradually comes to accept and perhaps enjoy the violent themes.
Perhaps one of the most troubling aspects of Fahrenheit is that the game is not set in a fantasy world, or even a fictive one based on reality. It is set in contemporary New York where murder scenarios are played out in ordinary mundane settings such as a diner, an apartment or a park. While a violent computer game set in fictional world will have fantasy elements whereby the player can easily dissociate the gaming world with the real one, Fahrenheits mundane and realisitic settings have the potential to confuse the distinction between what is moral and immoral in reality and virtual reality.
While violence viewed on television and cinema is a relatively passive activity where the viewer needs only react to images and sounds, the interactive nature of the computer game genre allows players of Fahrenheit to have the sensation of being intimately involved in the murder process and therefore empathise with the murderer’s situation. Furthermore, by having the player be intimately and interactively involved in Fahrenheit, one might experience the ‘thrill’ of the crime. This ‘thrill,’ in conjunction with the real world setting and the realism of the game has, the potential to cause players to associate the virtual, and therefore guiltless, acts to be the similar to the real world.
Bramwell (2005) explains that moral choices aren’t made by the player in Fahrenheit, rather the player makes mere practical decisions. “There are moral choices made by the main characters, but giving you control of them would be like adding a Russian Roulette sub-game. To give an example, at one point Lucas is nearly captured, but decides that not only does he want to clear his name but that he must do so for the greater good.�? In such a situation, the moral choice is to give up and turn yourself in for murder, however if this option is taken the ends, which in effect means that the player has failed the game (Bramwell 2005).
* http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/carr/
Gurney, T. 2005. 'Fahrenheit' by Quantic Dream/ Atari - 'The New Criminologist' anticipates a chilling September release. New Criminologist. Retrieved October 9, 2005, from http://www.newcriminologist.co.uk/news.asp?id=1466268886
Bramwell, T. 2005. Fahrenheit. Eurogamer. Retrieved October 9, 2005, from http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60493
Back to Computer Games - Ethics
Matthew Hsu 11:40, 28 Oct 2005 (EST)
