Gamers confess to the virtual murders and deaths that were so bad they stopped playing

One of the players showed how games might be the kind of place that people could do things so terrible they would have to put down their controller — but how they might also offer the chance for redemption

Grand Theft Auto proved a popular game among the sorry gamers — and not necessarily because of its spectacular violence (Cate Gillon/Getty Images)

Gamers have shared some of the worst decisions they have ever made in games — some so bad that they meant the players put down the game entirely.

In a Quora thread dedicated to the question “Have you ever made a decision in a video game, pre-designed or not, that made you guilty enough to quit?”, players are sharing experiences in games that have been of such emotional or moral difficulty that they spoilt the game entirely.

Some belong squarely in the world of fantasy. But with others it’s easy to how the decision would become one that would affect a players’ real world morality, not just that within the game.

David Cole, for instance, describes a meeting in Grand Theft Auto that left him unable to go on.

“It was completely standard on paper: just drive to a spot on the map, find some scum criminal, take him out,” writes Mr Cole. “When I got to the destination, it turned out to be a disgusting meth den, littered with spaced-out addicts. My target was writhing on the ground, high out of his mind. He didn't even notice that I came in with a shotgun aimed at him. The moment was so sad and strange.

“Without really thinking about it, I switched my weapon to a bat. I suppose the gun felt like overkill given that he was too high to defend himself. That didn't stop me from killing him, whatever that says about me. A few strikes of the bat and he wasn't moving anymore.

“I walked out of the building totally dumbfounded by the situation: the target (victim?), my reaction, the realization that someone designed this on purpose. As I drove away from the scene, zoning out on what just happened, the car in front of me caught fire. I think the engine spontaneously exploded. The driver caught fire, opened his door and rolled out. I didn't have time to react and ran him over, killing him. I got out and looked at his charred remains in the middle of the street and waited for an ambulance to arrive.”

Mr Cole says that after those two unusual events, he stopped playing.

But other gaming terrors happen in bigger events. Feifei Wang tells a story of playing Spec Ops: The Line, where the game seemed to invite the player to commit a war crime. When one character got separated from the other players, Ms Wang made her way to him to find that a mob had lynched him.

“And I saw those murderers around, and I open fire and kill them all,” she writes. “At the time all I could think about was they killed my friend, they killed my friend. Yeah, we're war criminals who killed hundreds of civilians (in a previous mission), the mob's action was justified. But still, they f***ing killed my friend and they're all going to pay!”

But afterwards, she was horrified.

“Those people are unarmed civilians. I never open fire to unarmed civilians, not in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 the airport mission, not in GTA, not ever. When presented with a choice of kill vs knockout, I almost always go with knockout option. The game give me an option to walk away, and I didn't take it.

“On the hindsight, this is just another game with polygon people pre-scripted to do this and that, to act out a story for my entertainment. But a professor I respected once said: good theater is like a mirror, we see our own reflection. I think this concept goes to all form of creative art, paintings, movies, literature... and now games. I saw a piece of me that day, a piece I don't even know exist. And I was shocked.”

Others tell shocking stories about their time in The Sims — a series where torture and killing was apparently prevalent, despite its ostensible orientation towards kids and families.

Stephen Mink described playing the game with his mother and three siblings.

“My brother had 'worked hard' to provide for his family and his digs showed as much - a nice 4,000 square foot mansion with a swimming pool somewhat similar to this one,” he writes. But then everything started to go wrong.

“One day, I ventured into his character's world and directed all of his family to go for a swim. Once in the pool, I deleted the ladder just to see what would happen. Being simple-minded Sims, instead of just climbing out they became confused and eventually grew tired and drowned...

“What happened next is what caught me off guard. My brother's Sim went into a severe bout of grief. He would break down crying at different points throughout the day. A random "grief clown" even showed up to presumably cheer him up. Needless to say, this didn't help much.

“My brother was, of course, not happy about this. The strange thing though, was that I felt bad not for my brother, but for his Sim. It was almost as if my brother was the god who blessed the Sim character with a great life and I was a mischievous demon who took it away. I even pondered the possibility that the characters were conscious in their own simple way and that the grief I caused was potentially real.”

But perhaps the most affecting of the stories shows how games can also be a way to redemption.

Gavin Cramblet tells a story of playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a game where everyone has a hidden agenda.

“Except Malik, your helicopter pilot,” he writes. “She's a minor character in the game, but she's always there with an encouraging word or a joke when you are going to or heading back from a mission.She's willing to lend and ear and be a sole comfort in a world where everyone is out to get you. Your character refers to her as 'fly girl', and she affectionately refers to you as 'spy boy'.”

Mr Cramblet describes how he prefers to play games in stealth, hiding out and picking off enemies. He was doing that when he came to one particularly intense mission with Malik, when a helicopter gets shot down and the player is left defending the pilot.

“From my safe vantage point, I decided to do what I always did. I sniped from afar, picking off targets one by one. I played the stealthy assassin,” he writes. “The problem is, that all the while, these enemies were shooting at the helicopter, and the woman trapped inside, who is desperately trying to get the thing running again.

“There are snipers, giant mechs, and dozens of soldiers attacking her, and I know I don't have a chance of taking them all out without being spotted. I'm running out of sniper rifle rounds.

“Malik tells me she's fine, that she's almost got it working, for me to go on with the mission and leave her.”

He did that, he writes, and went off to continue the mission. As he did so, he heard Malik over the radio and it quickly became clear that she was going to die.

“The last thing she says to me is good luck, to do the mission, and that it's been an honor working with me, writes Mr Cramblet. “And I feel like a total cad for being such a coward.”

Mr Cramblet said the shame of letting Malik die was enough to to make him stop playing the game. He was angry at the designers and himself for letting the one person he cared about die, he writes.

“A few days later, I was still pissed, but this time I channeled my anger, and reloaded a save right when the helicopter crashes.

“Then I pulled out a shotgun I'd never used, the grenades that made too much noise, the healthpacks I couldn't carry any more of because they never got used, and charged the enemy head on.

“I ran through the crumbling buildings, blowing away anyone that dared to fire on my pilot. I got shot, a lot, and I had to use tactics I'd been avoiding until then because they were too risky. I pretty much meleed a robot until it exploded in my face, leaving me bloody. I couldn't stop to heal up or take cover or snipe, because I knew from my previous attempt that I only had a minute or so before they were going to overwhelm the helicopter and take out my pilot.

“As I took out the last enemy, Malik got the helicopter working again.

“As it lifted from the ground, she called me a fool, said I had a mission to do, and that I needed to get to it. But her last words as she flew off were, ‘And... thanks, spy boy.’

“To which my character responded, ‘Any time, fly girl.’”