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You can read about the concept of ethical gaming in the previous article, and now I want to give several examples of bad gaming, which should not be in an ethical game. After all, it is known that everything is learned in comparisons. The age of the game does not matter, because the unethical elements in games are of a single nature, repeated and existing since the beginning of centuries, since the time when people invented games.

Another important point: the game can be satisfactory but have unethical elements, or it can be completely inappropriate. This list will help you better understand the mechanics of ethical gaming, how it works, and apply its principles to your experience as a player or developer.

1. The GTA series, including GTA III, Vice City, San-Andreas: bad. None of these games can be completed without a homicide. This is the base, but there are many other problems: red blood, brutal scenes (beheadings), real models of weapons, the criminal plot is presented without alternatives and without judgment. For example, Vice City was created on the basis of “Scar Face” (1983) and, unlike the film, MH triumphs in the game. The plot and gameplay forces the player to kill. What does “gameplay” mean? — it is impossible to bypass the story quest in an ethical way: there are no alternatives or script tricks that would allow you to finish the quest or go to another one without killing. Adjacent to the Mafia series.
2. The Call of Duty series: bad. Everything is obvious here, the game is involved in militarism and is entirely about homicide, but I want to note something else, how the game shapes the male social role of “warrior” through the title, in it we have the word “duty”, that is a typical example of a simulacrum is the imposition of responsibilities invented by evil people on a man. A man has no duty to fight and kill others. Men may not be the target audience for this game, but just seeing the title and the military preview will give you a infusion. Close to the Mount & Blade series.
3. Hitman and Assassin series: bad. Dedicated to contract killers, assassins. They romanticize homicide and promote mercenary. MH in these games do not face problems of conscience and morality, it seems that they are the same “workers” as everyone else, they do their “job” and receive money or other preferences for it. In terms of criminality, it is related to GTA.
4. Sea of ​​Thieves: bad. Gamers play the role of pirates, that is, bandits of the 15th century, the gameplay is appropriate. In addition to murders, there are items related to “dark rituals” (as it is called in the game itself), in particular, one of those items is called “Blessing Skull of Athena”, which connects the fictional universe with the ancient Greek reality; reminiscent item: “witch doll”, refers to the infamous voodoo doll. There are also “animal cages” in the game for kept various kinds of animals, but do we understand what kind of metaphor this is? — slavery. Related to World of Warships.
5. Skyrim: bad. According to the plot, the player must perform a bloodletting ritual to open the lock.
6. Terraria: bad. Progression through the plot requires the use of a voodoo doll, directly or indirectly, while this action kills one NPC. The elements of divination and sorcery are a black niche, and cannot be in the player’s gameplay, the same as non-Christian religions, they can only be presented in an antagonistic way. To top it all off, there is a “demon heart”: a usable artifact that benefits the player by expanding item slots. In the field of ethical gaming, it is impossible to imagine that evil brings benefit, it is illogical and unacceptable: you cannot call black on white. Also, the game has a provocative visual: there is a realistic image of internal organs, for example, an open heart in Moon Lord (the game Transistor has a similar defect, where one of the final bosses is a heart (in the metrodvania Grime, parts of the body are placed in the scenery of the environment)). Minecraft has the same problem (pagan elements with a positive view), but it cannot be called bad, it is questionable. There, in the endgame, the player receives (optionally) a totem, holding it in the hand of the MH acquires a certain benefit.
7. Alundra (1997): bad. The plot requires MH to worship the local gods: Alundra is taken to the temple, the priest tells his story and asks him to kneel down and pray with them to the idols. The player can refuse, there is a “choice” (yes-no), but it has no effect, the dialogue is repeated until you agree to the offer.
8. Trine: questionable. One of the game characters (his involvement is mandatory): thief (triumphator like MH in GTA). There is a pagan element: at a certain point in the story, the player receives a hammer with a description that reveals that this weapon is “blessed by the god of thunder”. The plot tells about the dualistic, heretical Manichaean “balance of forces” of good and evil, which seemingly balances the universe, but in fact, evil is justified in this way, on this basis the infamous “bad people are needed too”.
9. Sid Meier’s Civilization series and the like: bad. Despite the fact that the game reflects historical reality, it does so unconditionally, without conclusions, without alternatives, e.g. for the development of your civilization, it is necessary to develop the military, to have soldiers at your service, to intervene in conflicts. This approach is especially dangerous in the setting of the future, because it normalizes the future of violence.
10. Heartstone: questionable. One of the game characters represents evil (a warlock) and the game mechanics are arranged in such a way that sometimes you get cards of this character, and you have to choose: to use them or not, the latter will complicate your situation. In addition, in the announcements of add-ons, the developers said at least twice about “selling the soul”, in mass culture this phrase most often occurs in the context of selling the soul to the devil, this is an unacceptable allusion, and in general, jokes on this topic look at least suspicious: is the developer friends with the head?

All games can be divided into three broad categories according to ethics: bad, questionable and good.

Bad games are those in which progress through the plot is blocked by an unethical element: a quest, an event, or the need to use some inappropriate item. Also, these are games based on misanthropy, for example, military style: military action games (Counter-Strike, Worms, Jackal, Angry Birds) and simulators (World of Tanks, Top Gun, War Thunder), military strategies (Star- WarCraft, Dune, Cossacks, chess), or metaphysical: Dungeon Keeper, physical: Manhunt, mythical: Vampire: The Masquerade, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. In 2026, what began to appear in wide public access (on Steam) were no longer even games, but practically full-fledged military simulators, such as Ukrainian Fight Drone Simulator (UFDS). This is a drone-operator training environment that, for example, not only supports specific military control consoles, but explicitly recommends them for “gameplay,” so that in real conditions (in war) the user would not have to retrain. Projects like UFDS or America’s Army constitute direct propaganda of violence, the weaponization of games, and recruitment. This is a crossing of red lines and should be regarded as child-killing, since this mental weapon is aimed primarily at kids. The setting does not matter, the fact that the events of the Heroes of Might & Magic series take place in a fantasy universe does not reject the military principles of the game, in which the player is a warlord, he gathers an army, fights, captures castles. Unethical events include, in particular, aggression against Christianity, for example, in Fallout 2 there are two bad NPC with the names Big Jesus, Lil’ Jesus, as well as a weapon (knife) with the name Little Jesus; in Cyberpunk 2077, one of the NPC utters (in English voicing) a blasphemy. In Disciples 1, during the installation stage of the game, the player is asked to accept the terms of the license in the form of signing a contract with the devil. Sometimes you can judge a game by the development team, the responsible company, e.g. in 2020+, a post appeared on Blizzard Diablo III’s official twitter on the occasion of the game’s anniversary, calling for the devil to come to this world.

One of the tasks in Postal 2 is to “pee on dad,” specifically on his grave.

A questionable game has unethical elements but allows you to continue without them, although this usually complicates the gameplay. There are many of them, for example, in The Sims 4 there is a voodoo doll, but you can not use it, in the ARPG Torchlight, the first skill of the summoner is summoning imps (in Terraria, the second set of the summoner also summons imps), but it can be ignored and developed in the following, in a series of city-building simulators SimCity has tools of genocide: controlled meteorites, radiation and chemical contamination, meteorological and seismic weapons, which, however, the game does not force to use, in Prison Architect there is an electric chair for the death penalty, but the player decides whether to equip his prison with it on his own, in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. In Shadow of Chernobyl, the sequence of quests is not connected, you can skip them (one of the first tasks is homicidal), just go to the next one. In the 3-in-row Bejeweled 3, there is a Zen mode, in which the player is given concise instructions with the suggestion to listen to mantras and binaural rhythms, which is not only a propaganda of pseudoscience (just like talking about astrology), but also an unchristian element. In this way, questionable games present the player with additional obstacles, which, however, can be perceived as a challenge.

Good games do not prevent the player from reaching the final credits, do not force him to act against his conscience, do not tempt him to go to the dark side, and do not promote questionable ideas, paid for, or just hype, which the developers push for additional likes while at the same time not realizing that they are popularizing false ideas thrown into the infofield with a specific purpose. Such story games as Fallout 1, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, although they have many ethical problems, but thanks to their variability, they can be completed ethically without much difficulty: without killing and looting. It is also important to remember that these games are from a compromised developer, so you need to treat them carefully, analyze them especially carefully. Gothic 1 plot does not require killing anyone. In Portal 1–2, aggression is essentially absent. Open world games like Skyrim, Morrowind can be played outside of the story. I had a challenge to explore all locations in Skyrim, which I completed without a homicide. But a good ethical game is not necessarily ethical, of all the examples given, except that “Portal 1–2” can be called completely ethical. By the way, in “Mario” the brick blocks are the enchanted inhabitants of the kingdom, that is, by breaking them, Mario in a certain sense kills his countrymen, or scatters their ashes.

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This article translated from Ukrainian by AI.