I think there definitely have been games that have changed peoples’ moral preferences, or at least provoked thoughts/ideas that have led to shifts in priorities. Usually such a game wouldn’t cause a person to change their views entirely, but I’ve seen many cases where a good game would cause a person to update specific moral values (similar to a good movie or book). I’m not aware of any analysis of the cognitive mechanisms, though.
Just as a personal anecdote, I became more interested/concerned about global welfare after playing games like Cave Story, Final Fantasy 7, and Metal Gear Solid (which have diverse portrayal of strife/conflict). Games like Passage, Mother 3, and Undertale (which are about mortality, family, and friends) caused me to value my interpersonal and family connections much more highly. Yet others made animal welfare more of a concern for me.
In many of the cases, it wasn’t necessarily the content of the game that directly caused an update, but rather the thought process that it provoked, leading to a new conclusion of some kind. This is what I mean by games “inducing” ideas, e.g. by Mineralis having content that “induces EA concepts naturally through gameplay”. Many such occurrences are almost certainly intentional; it could be said to be a way designers add “subtext” into gameplay.
Granted, a lot of the EA-relevant interest provoked by games wasn’t very concrete until I discovered EA. But I think various experiences in games helped “plant the seeds” that led my moral compass to work the way it does today. I’m guessing that people who have experienced many things through movies would say the same about them.
I think there definitely have been games that have changed peoples’ moral preferences, or at least provoked thoughts/ideas that have led to shifts in priorities. Usually such a game wouldn’t cause a person to change their views entirely, but I’ve seen many cases where a good game would cause a person to update specific moral values (similar to a good movie or book). I’m not aware of any analysis of the cognitive mechanisms, though.
Just as a personal anecdote, I became more interested/concerned about global welfare after playing games like Cave Story, Final Fantasy 7, and Metal Gear Solid (which have diverse portrayal of strife/conflict). Games like Passage, Mother 3, and Undertale (which are about mortality, family, and friends) caused me to value my interpersonal and family connections much more highly. Yet others made animal welfare more of a concern for me.
In many of the cases, it wasn’t necessarily the content of the game that directly caused an update, but rather the thought process that it provoked, leading to a new conclusion of some kind. This is what I mean by games “inducing” ideas, e.g. by Mineralis having content that “induces EA concepts naturally through gameplay”. Many such occurrences are almost certainly intentional; it could be said to be a way designers add “subtext” into gameplay.
Granted, a lot of the EA-relevant interest provoked by games wasn’t very concrete until I discovered EA. But I think various experiences in games helped “plant the seeds” that led my moral compass to work the way it does today. I’m guessing that people who have experienced many things through movies would say the same about them.