To save or to sacrifice? Understanding meaningful choices in games.

Playing digital games can confront the player with choices that are emotional, morally ambivalent and highly personally meaningful. Past research suggests that meaningful choices have the potential to positively affect prosocial behavior. Up to now however, it is unclear what specific characteristics make in-game choices meaningful. The goal of this work-in-progress was therefore to shed light on this topic. Coding qualitative answers to a preliminary online survey found that meaningful choices were often characterized by a combination of different options from which the player had to choose one: moral, strategic or emotional. Being able to choose between these types of options and knowing that these choices would have consequences lead to choices that were experienced as meaningful. Crucially, almost all choices reported also contained a social component. Steps for future research based on these findings are discussed.