You hear that, BioWare? You hear that, Sucker Punch?
"We could have easily used the data to power a karma system," acknowledges lead game designer, Danny Belanger. "The data is all there but the point is not that, the point is if we put a score to that and gamify it then the question becomes 'are you doing that to optimise your game-play or are you doing it because you care?'
[...]
"We really wanted it to be a real life reason that you might choose not to do it, rather than a game-play reason. We wanted to let people make their own story."
I am really, really, really pleased that Ubisoft is taking this laissez-faire approach to character morality in Watch Dogs. I'm pretty sick of games telling me when I'm being "good" or "evil," and giving me "good guy" or "bad guy" rewards as a result. It's refreshing to hear a developer acknowledge that choices are most meaningful when you let the player build their own meaning out of them.