Saints vs. Sinners: How Do You Play Games?

In a new “Saints vs. Sinners: How Do You Play Games?” piece, IGN Australia examines the moral decisions that were available to us while playing Fable, BioShock, Red Dead Redemption, and a few earlier titles, and whether or not the consequences and rewards were appropriate for taking a particular route.

Peter Molyneux (you know who he is) said once that as many as 40% of Japanese gamers choose to play through Fable on the dark side, versus only about 10% of Americans. The game’s creator puts this down to the Japanese (and Europeans, actually) being more “liberated.”

That in itself probably takes some deconstructing, but as this is IGN and not a third year media studies class on cultural production, we won’t go there (much like a third year media studies class on cultural production, actually).

Don’t you think those stats are interesting, though?

I am neither Japanese, nor American, nor European. As an Antipodean, I am not sure how the stats above might extrapolate out to include me and my countrymen. But I wonder if perhaps I am not as rare a breed of gamer as I thought – particularly if 90% of Americans play Fable the same way I did.