[zoogeny]

My own anecdote related to this idea was on a playthrough of Skyrim.

I was between objectives and wandering through the map. I came across one of the ubiquitous caves which I decided to enter. I was attacked by some generic low-level bandits and I cleared the cave.

After dispatching the enemies I was looting through the cave and came across some letters. They detailed a tale of a family that came on hard times in a nearby town and were forced homeless by circumstance, how they were trying to rebuild their lives, etc. I looked around the cave and could tell the individuals mentioned in the letter were accounted for in the cave. I mean, they were generic bandit models but the designer had matched them to the narrative.

I thought about the situation. I was this extremely high level wizardy kind of build trekking though the wilderness and I came across an encampment. When I barged into their makeshift home they rightly were like "get out". And then I slaughtered them all with no reason and was now deciding if the clutter was worth packing and re-selling.

I more or less stopped playing Skyrim after that.

[petsfed]

I had a similar experience playing, of all things Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. You play as a variety of US Marines helping Russia defend some island from a Chinese invasion so as to control some recently discovered oil deposits.

And at one point while playing this already somewhat implausible situation, I thought "that random PLA soldier I just mowed down would not have, in reality, signed up to be the invading force in a petro-conflict". It kind of killed first-person shooters for me for a while, because I accidentally humanized a poorly-programmed bot in a ridiculous, made-up scenario into making me feel bad for them.

[gnerd00]

I knew a Buddhist monk in Berkeley in the 1990s who was very interested in "games" to teach Dharma.. Games in those days did not look like they do in the last ten years.. Obviously what is now called AAA games are very much the opposite of Dharma talks..

[phs318u]

I read your comment to my partner who pointed out that what your Skyrim character was doing was exactly what the billionaires do - treat us all as NPC’s whose stories don’t matter. I’m glad you had your epiphany.