He said/ She said: Do forced player choices create empathy or upset?

He said

I’m a big fan of games that offer some sort of character customization – the more things you can add and change the better. I’ve spent hours customizing video game characters to either look like myself or characters from other media. I made Devil May Cry’s Dante and Lady in Soul Calibur IV as close as I could to actual spec, and have even created humorous tag teams like “The Devil and Miss Jones” in the WWE’s line of wrestling games. I like being able to control that aspect of the game, and it generally drives how I play it.

So watching a game like Rust is very interesting to me. Rust supports every character being unique. They started out assigning random penis sizes to the created characters, then adding random skin tones, and finally then adding female characters. So this all sounds great right? Well here’s the rub – all of the attributes are randomly assigned to you – skin color and now gender as well. And in addition to all of the other attributes, character gender is irreversibly assigned to a player’s Steam ID.

Designer Garry Newman explained on his blog:

“We understand this is a sore subject for a lot of people. We understand that you may now be a gender that you don’t identify with in real-life. We understand this causes you distress and makes you not want to play the game anymore. Technically nothing has changed, since half the population was already living with those feelings. The only difference is that whether you feel like this is now decided by your SteamID instead of your real life gender.”

Your attributes are now much like your attributes in real life – completely randomized by the universe. And I 100% get that – it’s an extremely interesting social experiment, and Rust did in fact take the choice of character appearance out of the hands of the player before female models came into the picture. That’s not my problem with it. I’ve rolled characters of different genders in Dragon Age and was fascinated to see different lines and even conflicts in the romance aspect of the game and play female characters in games fairly often.

But the difference is, looking at Dragon Age, I was able to customize my warden before I started. That’s something that’s important to me. My issue with Rust isn’t actually anything gender-based, but the same existing issue with a greater scope – Much like Neo’s realization with the Architect, the problem is choice. Which wouldn’t really be a problem in the first place if it wasn’t eternally tied to your Steam ID. But then again, not being my particular cup of tea, I can always brew my leaves elsewhere.

She said

I get what you are saying and many people play to unwind and have fun. I’m wondering though if this has the potential for a greater social impact than you are imagining.. Perhaps you had a chance to read the recently horrific story about Hande Kader. She was a brave LGBT campaigner in Turkey, where campaigners say hate crimes are becoming more and more common. She was raped and burned to death for her audacity and bravery to be herself. What does this has terrible hate crime has to do with video games at all, or what anyone can do to even begin to address the huge issues of racism, hate crimes and bullying for women and transpeople, or anyone who’s body does not fit within the accepted norm? Video games can be the front line to teach empathy and Rust is a front-runner for it’s unique method.

What do I mean by empathy? It’s easier to hate and harm someone when you fear them, when you can’t imagine being them and you feel like what they are threatens who you are.

One way we can bridge this gap and help people express themselves to others in a positive way is through video games. In an MMORPG, we can all be whomever we wish. Hidden behind a screen, we relate to each other only as avatars and know only the personality behind the keyboard, free of prejudice. This is wonderful to form relationships but it does not give us true empathy unless we take things a step further and get out behind our screens to meet the people we play with.

This is a game that skips the option to voluntarily make an effort to connect with those who are different by instead forcing you to live that life, Rust is not giving players a choice in their physical appearances. You don’t get to choose to make a character that reflects who you want to be. Instead you are stuck with what life (or in this case game life) assigns you all the way down to hair color and breast or penis size. Just like life.

It might seem like an insignificant change, since we have always been able to play characters that are vastly different from ourselves. However, I postulate that since it is mandatory and random, this will have a totally different “feel” to the player. Suddenly it might feel different making judgments about other people in a game when you are subject to the same type of behavior. Don’t want people making sexual comments about your gender? Don’t want jokes about your “package, or race? You’re stuck with it, unlike before in most games where you had the power to choose. Will this forced option make players think twice about how they treat others? Will they redefine ideas of stereotypes when they can’t choose a gender or appearance for an avatar “that doesn’t look like a knight/adventurer/mage”? I say it is a totally new idea and worth exploring.

“It’s easier to hate and harm someone when you fear them, when you can’t imagine being them. When you feel like what they are threatens who you are.”

Rust is now available in the “survive this” Humble Bundle until 8/29/16 https://www.humblebundle.com/survive-this-bundle