Research conducted by Macquarie University last year shed light on the ability of in-game morality meters to influence players' decisions. The high-tech testing space is currently being upgraded and will also be used as a quality assurance pod for local indie studios.
The study, led by Malcolm Ryan and his colleagues, revealed that depending on the presence and presentation of a moral bar, player behavior can be “nudged” in different directions.
How the morale bar is displayed can make the difference between it having no effect or having as much as 20% of the player's decision-making in a dilemma such as a trolley problem. This is as explained by Ryan in the first episode of the grokludo podcast.
Groups of participants were observed while playing the game and then interviewed to gain qualitative insights. One of the more notable insights was that changing aspects of the meter still affected player behavior, even when players reported ignoring the meter and thinking it had no effect on them.
If the right conditions are met, the trolley problem can statistically go from 50/50 choices to closer to 70/30, with a morality bar suggesting one is better than the other.
The game has continued to stream live on Itch since the study was published. You can play now here.
Future versions of this research will include the ability to record mouse movements and eye-tracking devices to see where players' eyes are staying. Ryan said the initial results of the eye-tracking device are “very insightful.”
“When people look at a choice on the meter, then look at another choice on the meter, and then look back, you can really see what's going on in people's heads. You can see the gears turning.”
This space is also available for rental to game and app developers. Major publishers like Ubisoft have been using eye-tracking stations in their quality assurance processes for some time, but spaces like this allow even smaller Australian indie projects to utilize that kind of QA testing. It will look like this.
