Watchdogs and the Self

In my other posts from today I talk about how Watchdogs is not racist and how Watchdogs is definitely not racist. However, what Watchdogs is is, is a mirror that lets players look into themselves and analyze their hidden biases.  How? By using the profiler to create NPC identities.

No doubt we have all seen articles talking about howuncomfortable some players felt when killing NPCs in Watchdogs. Why is this? Before Watchdogs, in games like GTA V, players also get to kill random NPCs at their leisure. Those NPCs, however, were faceless to the player. Players would see a character model with no individual qualities. To the player, the NPCs were inconsequential. And so, as inconsequential beings who populate a space designated for the player, players see these NPCs as nothing more than playthings. In Watchdogs, however, NPCs have an identity.

In Watchdogs, when a player sees an NPC, the Profiler gives players information on that NPC. The NPC stops being "random male avatar" and becomes Eric Parker, age 26, Christian, middle management at a retail store who enjoys music and earns a salary of 46,000$ a year. Random female avatar suddenly becomes Sophie Parker, age 19, student of physics at the university, has a scholarship, likes dancing and karaoke. This personalization of the NPC makes the player empathize with some of the NPCs. Players will become hesitant to kill some of the NPCs. It is here where the player's true nature comes to the front. Consciously, the player knows that it's a game, that the world of Watchdogs is a playground with no repercussions, and that the player is in total control of the world. However, subconsciously, as soon as the player sees the information of a character, they make a value judgment. As they play, players think  "middle-aged man, hard working family man, honest. I don't want to kill him. Convicted for murder? That one deserves to die." It is in making these split-decision value judgments where players are faced with themselves. Some players will make judgments based on NPC history, others will make them based on demographics. Some players will actively make the choice to go after NPCs who subscribe to a specific religion or who are of a specific race or gender. Some players will think "I don't want to kill characters who are like me, so I'll just kill "the other"". This doesn't happen at a conscious level, it is most often subconscious. At the conscious level, the player sees himself. Players realize that they do have biases and preconceived notions, and that they do value some lives more than others. This realization makes them lash out against the game, and thus, "Watchdogs is racist".

But it's not. It simply gives players an opportunity to discover who they really are, and gives them a chance to come to terms with it if they don't like what they find.

Of course, other players will simply go on a rampage regardless of who the NPC is, but that's a type of behavior that I'll comment on tomorrow.