When presented with two doors, did Stanley choose to walk through the door on the right, or did I? I pressed the ‘w’ key and aimed my mouse for the door on the right. Did I choose for Stanley? I personally went through the right door because I was feeling rebellious. I didn’t think once about what Stanley would have wanted. Why would I? Stanley is just a made-up character in this video game. Would Stanley have wanted to go through the left door? Or is that not how this works? Are Stanley and I one and the same?
In this case, the player-character relationship between myself and Stanley was one-way. I didn’t care what happened to Stanley because it didn’t affect me. I was a player sitting at my desk, tapping away at my keyboard. Stanley was in the screen, in a made-up virtual world with insignificant stakes. If Stanley died, the level restarted. When Stanley was trapped in a paradoxical, infinite loop of rooms, I could get up and leave whenever I wanted. But when does the player-character relationship become two-way? In what situation would I care about Stanley’s consent?
I would argue that the player-character relationship becomes two-way when the player identifies as the character. It’s not enough for the player to identify with the character. In these cases, player identification turns the virtual “character” into a virtual “avatar”, or a physical extension of the player.
Earlier this year, I saw an article about sexual abuse on Meta’s social-networking platform, Horizon World. A researcher on the platform disabled the default setting establishing a “Personal Boundary” that blocks other players from entering within 4 feet of the player’s virtual avatar. The researcher was then approached by a male avatar who was then able to enter within 4 feet of her virtual avatar. The male avatar then moved around her virtual avatar in a way that made her uncomfortable and register the game interaction as sexual assault.
While there might be debate about whether the Metaverse or Horizon World count as a “game”, the identification with a virtual avatar and the two-way relationship between player and character in this example is clear. In some ways, Horizon World is more immersive than The Stanley Parable because users wear VR headsets and their controllers vibrate according to contact between virtual avatars. The proximity of the screen to the user’s eyes via a VR headset and the physical responsiveness of the controllers helps establish the player-character identification in Horizon World.
I think, however, that the researcher would have likely still been uncomfortable even without the VR headset and controller vibration. The perception of sexual assault stems from the fact that the consent of her virtual avatar was ignored by the male avatar. In this case, the consent of the virtual character was synonymous with the consent of the player. Violation of the virtual character’s consent then triggered a real and significant emotion response in the player.
How should games structure their rules and boundaries with this in mind? Are games morally obligated to implement features such as Horizon World’s Personal Boundary? Are their moral problems with metagames that intentionally violate the consent of the player’s character? Is it unethical to trick the player into taking certain actions on behalf of the virtual character?
Sexual assault in the Metaverse: https://www.businessinsider.com/researcher-claims-her-avatar-was-raped-on-metas-metaverse-platform-2022-5
I found your blog post to be so interesting as it was something I pondered as well during Stanley’s Parable. I think you really explained this concept well, and I appreciated the distinction being identifying with a character and identifying as the character. I hadn’t heard of this story about Horizon World until know, and I can’t imagine how uncomfortable that researcher was; consent matters in virtual spaces just as much.
When you raised the question of whether the will of the player implies the consent of the character, it made me think of the interactive film Banderwatch on Netflix, which has a story branch in which the the character questions his own free will—he feels like he is being controlled by some unseen force, that he is not in control of his own decisions. There is a scene where the player can choose between two options, but instead of leading the character down some branching story path, the character actually resists the action. For example, say you choose “bite nails”—the character moves to bite his nails before realizing what his body is doing and smacking his hand down. This could be an example of where the consent of the character actually is relevant, even when the consent of the player and character are distinct. By making the character aware of his role in the medium of interactive film, the player also becomes aware of it, and leads to a sort of existential contemplation by the player about the extent of their own free will.
To add to your point, I think that the game itself tries to scrutinize this issue of identification with the avatar, by featuring the button that would say the player’s–not Stanley’s–name when pressed, in the sequel museum. But the button instead only says “Paul,” due to some “bug” that’s allegedly not been fixed by. the narrator and/or game developer. This is immensely intriguing, as I remember distinctly that a cave displaying reviews of the sequel of the game had this button interspersed on the ground, seemingly mocking the player for taking the game seriously and even writing reviews about it (which of course were fake reviews posted on fake sites). In all, there are so many more elements to be analyzed in this game, and thank you for the idea you bring up with this post!