and I’m going to talk about what happens
if you in a computer game if you give
people the ability to be who they want
to be I may want to be a really evil
vicious nasty individual I may and want
to be wonderfully good and that’s what
we’re going to talk about we look a
little bit of data from those games and
a few surprising results I’ve always
been fascinated about Who I am
and as a kid and as a teenager I’d you
know I took IQ tests
I took the hello magazine hot-or-not
test just to find out who the hell I
really was when I was lucky enough to
become in go computer games designer I
remembered this and I thought this one
question you know what in entertainment
so often I’m asked to empathize with a
good guy personally I am thighs with bad
guy
I always think in James Bond movies you
know that poor evil dude who set up his
his base in some volcano I mean the
employment problems he must have to get
staff must be terrible so I always
empathize with those the bad guys I
always thought it was poor that James
Bond came along press one button the
whole base blew up and so I went about
thinking about how we could weave that
into a computer game and I designed a
game called black and white and black
and white allows you the plot to play
the role of a god now what sort of God
are you going to be are you going to be
a wonderful understanding god listening
to all the prayers of your little people
helping save as many lives as you like
or if you’re like me are you going to be
the evilest viciousness horriblest god
if someone asks a prayer of you do
despite I mean yeah who are they to ask
you anything and that’s what this game
allowed you to do the interesting thing
is what it did was it showed and
reflected what sort of player you were
in the visuals of the world so if
someone was playing the
game and there were being good god the
sky would be blue and the landscape
would be green and lush and all the
little tiny people will be happy and if
you’re an evil god the sky will be red
and scary and all the little people
would be really unhappy and sad and this
also went through into this creature you
taught because it wasn’t just the moral
aspects of the world that you were
playing in but it also was fascinating
is if I was able to give a games player
something to look after something to
nurture something that they could teach
what was right or wrong – that would
also be an interesting fact and so you
were able to look after this creature
and teach this creature what was good
and what was bad by the way you played
that means you could make creatures that
went around and killed the little people
or went around say to people now the
interesting thing neither of this
neither of these two scales they’re
really good at the really evil or
anything in between was made that made
it that the game could be one more so it
was completely up to you still could get
to the end of the game of being good or
evil now let’s look at some of the
results from this back in the day this
was in the early 2000s we didn’t have
big analytical data but we could look at
the forums and we could look at the way
people played and some very interesting
things happened 50% of the people who
played black and white did as much good
as they possibly could every challenge
that they were faced they approached him
good every prayer they answered they
posted good only 10% of those people
were evil they did the opposite of the
good and they were unbelievably evil
when it came to the creatures 65% of
people brought their creatures up and
brought them up with all the good morals
even though remember this is a game
remember this is a game which you can
escape into remember this is a game
which you can you can enact out the
fantasies that you want without any
moral
quinces and the real worked so I became
fascinated in this so fascinated when it
came to my next game a game called fable
I thought well let us take that rather
than you being a god I’m playing a god
maybe that was too big a thing to give
people what will do thou in fable is a
person to be just a person a player to
be just a person what sort of person are
you going to be in this world what sort
of hero you’re going to be again are you
going to be a really wonderful hero or
are you going to be a really evil hero
and we’ll have the world react to what
sort of person you are
again was fascinating results again we
morphed and changed and reflected and a
gradual scale what people looks like in
the game depending on how they acted in
the game and again the results were
absolutely fascinating but we also
introduce one new thing there we
introduced this idea of you caring for
something because I wanted to get to the
real root of people’s emotions I had to
give them something to care about on
something to sacrifice so in fable you
had a dog and this dog followed you
around and you could teach this dog what
was right and what was wrong and what to
growl at and what not to trail that and
this dog came this is key
unconditionally loved you it doesn’t
matter how evil you were they
unconditionally loved you and so in the
game where it was really fascinating to
us when we posed this this question at a
final point of the game are you going to
a save your dog your dog is going to die
you can save him or are you going to be
kill your dog have your dog your dog’s
gonna die but you’re going to get a
million gold more wealth in the game
that you can possibly imagine
or are you see going to save 5,000
strangers and that was a real
interesting moral choice that we asked
people now let’s just ask people in this
way
how many people would save their dog and
let 5,000 people die there’s a few yeah
how many people here would take the
million pounds and let the 5,000 people
die well firstly I don’t believe you
but about birds secondly you know it
untold wealth is witnessed right now how
many people just wonderfully save the
5000 people look at you you’re wonderful
people okay let’s have a look at the
results actually if you look at the
character 70% of people just couldn’t
bring themselves to be evil they just
couldn’t bring themselves to be evil and
again that tiny sliver 10% enacted out
their fantasies and and were loud people
remember the game didn’t reward you for
being good or evil this just who you
were but the final choice was where the
interesting start again 65% of people
there millions of people 10 million
people played this at played this game
65 is into those people let 5,000 people
die just to save a dog they could have
just walked who’ve got another dog and
that what we discovered is people will
or that was an evil thing to do in the
game by the way save the dog and that
5,000 people died that was the most evil
thing because such such a selfish thing
true and and you know as I said that was
a fascinating insight so when we went on
to design another game I wondered this
well you know it’s all right about
individuals it’s all right for
individuals to have this moral choice
and what happens when you present this
mortal but what if we present this in to
communities and what we will represent
is into communities that can have a
simple task to do together and so oh oh
I got this one more thing to talk about
by the way there is a cultural
difference between Americans and British
people
let’s have a look at that in America 80%
of people just cannot
they didn’t even experiment with being
evil and 60% only 60% of people saved
the dog in the final choice
look at us British we experimented far
more with our evil now I think that’s
not because we’re intrinsically more
evil I don’t think we are I think we’re
more in touch with our emotions
interesting from the last speakers a lot
of talk about stress and let’s talk
about anxiety an addiction I think the I
would say that the English of freer than
the Americans are more constrained in
their social boundaries let’s move on to
the next the global choice I created
this really weird experiment and this
weird experiment was this I on my mobile
device I let people have this cube and I
simply said to the world inside this
cube is a wonderful mystery all of you
have to work together to tap away a bit
of this cube so every you could tap away
and it would chip away a tiny bit this
cube to get the center of the cube there
needed to be 50 billion taps
as 50 billion things now that’s what I
wonder what I ask myself the question is
curiosity enough are strong enough
motivator to people to get them to do
this well the results were fascinating I
had no idea that actually what people
ended up doing is trying to get to the
middle and working together some people
worked 10 hours a day for three months
every single day tapping up to get to
the what the mystery of what’s inside
the cube but what was more fascinating
was these pictures these pictures
started to appear where people tapped
away the side of the cube in in a
certain picture and these initially it
was penises I think if we put a
whiteboard on the wall and
left it there for anybody to walk past
they probably draw a penis because you
know it’s just who we are but then after
a little while they were these groups of
people it’s unbelievable these groups of
people that would go on every day and
turn the penises into palm trees which
was it are you know a fascinating way of
this society coming together and trying
to solve it we actually had on the side
of this cube just by people tapping away
on the side of this cube we actually had
seven marriage proposals now if you
promote what I don’t have those
marriages still exist or not today but
if you can imagine the tedium of tapping
away something please marry me in the
hope that the thousands of other people
also tapping aren’t going to change your
message into please leave me well then
please marry me that was an enormous
area we had two obituaries and most
incredibly of all we had the retelling
of 9/11 we are some wondrous skyscraper
then someone else tapped away the shapes
of a plane than someone else for touch
people falling out of building that
someone else held captive you know
America will be strong it was an
incredible event and none of this was
expected what people did do is start to
police the cube though these messages
underneath these penises you know you
are better than this it was a
fascinating thing and indeed if you look
at the number of people that played four
more four hours obviously a lot of
people only play for this on an hour but
a lot of people play every single day
just to get to the center of that
mystery and then we come on to my latest
game I’m perhaps the most interesting of
all because I really want to continue
experimenting with what happens if you
give people the ability to experiment
with their morality on the trail you’re
exploring this vast continent all
together and everyone you see is another
person exploring it what happens when
for example on the picture on the on the
Left what happens if you walk you along
and you collapse what are the people who
are walking behind you gonna do
and we found some fascinating results
which I’ll show you in a second so
you’re collapsing and there’s someone
coming behind you they can steal your
stuff or are they going to help you out
fascinating results and the last thing
we are also experimented what happens if
you put people together in a community
and allow them to share resources will
they be greedy and selfish or will they
share things together and and try and
come together as a as a community and
what we found was that a lot of people
steal once but only ones a little bit
experiment this is less about good or
evil it’s more about sharing some people
often steal and some people never feel
very few people from relatively 15%
never steal the concept of stealing from
someone who’s claps on the side is not
there and then if we look at players
cooperating 42% cooperate together in
these towns it’s a fascinating insight
two individuals and two groups of people
so in conclusion I believe and this is
wonderful thing people are
overwhelmingly good in fact as a games
designer there depressingly good no
matter how much I empty my steam vicious
and evil and stealing things and robbing
things of being vicious many many people
the vast majority of people never even
will go down that Evon that is a truly
fascinating thing culture is a big
influence or moral compass if you look
at those results if we had time I drew
the results from other countries around
the world
Germany they experiment a lot with their
inner evil self compared to the UK
compared to America it’s a truly
interesting insight and I also believe
if we continue giving people the ability
to play around with watches morally
right and morally wrong in a safe
environment what together amazing
results can come of that thank you all
very much indeed [Applause]