Le paradoxe du monstre-justicier : la responsabilité morale à l'épreuve de la sociabilité dans Vampyr

Abstract

With video games relying on the player's agentivity, choice is more often than not the reason for immersion, and the player is apprehended as a moral actor. Therefore, it's not only a matter of interpreting the virtual world, but truly transforming it. As for video games, the concept of choice is tied to the idea of moral responsibility, since the player has to regularly tamper with the fate of characters they are led to perceive as social entities. With the example of Vampyr, this article will attempt to establish how video game characters, understood as social entities, play a major role in guiding the player through their moral choices. The confrontation of the three codes constitutive of Jouve's “system of sympathy” – the narrative, affective and cultural codes – will help us explain in what manner the cultural code, i.e. the inclusion of the player's axiology in their appreciation of the characters, can be in conflict with the narrative and affective codes, as well as with a fourth code that I identify as the « ludic code ». It seems that the application of the player's ethics in game is partly ruled by their social consciousness and their investment in interpersonal relationships within the game's fictional world. This study of Vampyr will in the end enable us to comprehend how the implementation of a moral system in a game can be restricting, as it is often reliant on binary choices.

Keywords

• immersion
• character
• video games
• fiction
• sociability
• morality