I try and help people as much as possible, and it feels wonderful. The look on someone's face, the thank you you receive are worth more than any sort of monetary payment or reward of any kind. It's interesting that its been compared to helping people in video games, as I've never personally thought of it that way. In Dragon Age, when you help someone, you usually have the option of asking for money or something else. I usually choose nothing, and I wonder if that's because I do so in real life, too. I'm not trying to make myself sound wonderful by any means. It was simply the way I was brought up. Great article, Andrew. I really appreciate the food for thought.

Okay, [i]now[/i] my inner-pessimist comes out. I'm sorry. If you're altruistic and are projecting, I commend you for being amongst the best of us. But I just don't agree at all that's most people's natural motivation to help others nor do I think it applies much in videogames either. There are many, many people that from the goodness of their hearts reach out and help others. That's a very beautiful thing. It's also something very much taught. A person from an environment that fosters that has that as a primary motivation. A person not taught those things generally helps others so far as it helps themselves. Sure it's often scripted altruistic values in many games of the heroes. What's scripted however doesn't say much for the player not writing the script. Think about how often in open world games many people jump at the chance to do something awful and reprehensible in any setting other than a game. Those games often tell us more about people than a Mario game. Even in those scripted games do we really know people are playing for the feeling of doing something good within the game or just the challenge or bragging rights of accomplishing a task? In the age of trophy-hunting and achievement whoring, sometimes it's just about a gamerscore. My take on this is a little ironic considering the subject of the upcoming part two of my "Hero Worship" series. I really wish I could have your faith in the altruism of others. Coming from where I'm from, it flies in the face of daily life. That said, I sincerely hope people take on your call. I could use a good being proven wrong on this.

I like to go on a Toys For Tots spree during the holidays. I know donating to my local food bank throughout the year would be a better use of the funds, but I remember wonderful Christmas memories of opening fun toys, and I want to spread that feeling to others.

I think one of the major attractions of gaming is the opportunity to succeed and win, to satisfy our desire for positive feedback. Games offer us simple challenges ("simple" when contrasted with the complexities of the real world) and congratulate us for every single one we complete. Jump on a Goomba? Hooray, ou did it! Here's 100 POINTS! I don't know if that means humans are basically "good" or not, though. We might just be so insecure that we're willing to push buttons for hours on end to earn praise.

I for one enjoyed reading this however I fall within the pessimist/realist camp. While it would be nice IF people where naturally wired to go good, I can't see how ALL humanity is inherently willing to help. I think Hobbes summed up man's nature best.

I don't think most people are naturally good and willing to go out of their way to help the rest of humanity. I'm kind of a pessimist in that respect, but keep in mind I work in retail. People usually have alterior motives. I am nice and polite to most people because I think it improves our culture, but also because I get what I want easier being nice than being a dick. For most of us the reasons are the same, just usually unconscious. Helping people and being nice get us something, even if we don't recognize it. Yes, there is an evolutionary argument that humans are wired that way in order to survive, but most would call that equally cynical. In order to understand why the concept of helping people is a common goal in games, you have to look way back to the early days. First of all, in order to put consoles into people's homes they were aimed at kids; and kids love to play the hero. So opening up the instruction books the characters always had righteous reasons for their actions. It could be a stick figure or a yellow pie eating dots, but whenever a story was put into a game it was usually involved with saving and rescuing and helping. As gaming matured and branched out, the stories rarely changed all that much. People still wanted to usually play the hero, and game developers rarely changed that (even though the stories usually remained rather sparse). What is a hero? Well, usually they do things for the good of others, I suppose. So that is what people continued to do in their videogames. Even when games try to go dark nowadays, they can't usually go worse than an anti-hero. That is why there is such a plot disconnect in GTAIV--your character is trying to be good, but is really just a lunatic without regard for human life. People want to play the hero in games because all the books and stories and movies we watch are hero centric. Games are no different, and when they make you play as a bad-guy they do it in a humorous way for the most part; like in Evil Genius, Overlord, or Dungeon Keeper. There ARE games where you must play as a stone cold evil bastard, but I can't think of any games like that which have sold particularily well and you are usually fighting against a WORSE evil. My thoughts are kind of jumbled on the subject, but when given the choice most people play good in games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. We aspire to it because most people aspire to it, and we want to be liked because subconciously we all know that if WE are good, people will like us, and we will get what we want. When people choose to play those games as an evil character, it is usually after playing good -- just to see what happens. When I do it, it is either for the aforementioned reason or because the evil options lead to some very clever black humor.

@Alex Your thoughts are a little interesting to me. You say when given the choice in games like Mass Effect most people play good. That may actually be the case, but my personal experience tends to show even with many of the people that ultimately go good, given a gray scale to work with, many will push to their boundaries within that gray area before going completely good. Now while games have yet to a great job giving narrative consequences, a games like Mass Effect or Fallout 3 tend to do a good job of allowing some complexity of character for you in your decision. Do you ultimately wind up saving the world/universe. You're forced to by narrative. But Shepard can either do it as an honorably by the book soldier or as a shady, self-serving individual. And I know plenty of people that jump into evil first without caring to ever play as good because they find that more fun. They may go back to good just to see what happens. I'm personally not sure I can recall if I've ever played a completely good character when given the chance. With Mass Effect, I'm mostly played Renegade only really going into to paragon option with characters I liked or when there was something I flat just would never do (i.e. genocide).

I stand by my opinion that people are ultimately good, at least as far as in-group dynamics go. If we do not behave good, that is a result of modern society allowing us to wall in and narrow down the groups we call our own. I agree with the pessimists that people act incredibly bad. We have too many excuses to act in a bad way. Hopefully the act of helping in a video game does provide a glimpse at a "goodness" in everyone.

My favorite game is Dungeon Keeper. To that effect, I will attempt to lock one of my friends in my dungeon and beat them and whip them to increase their satisfaction with my abode, followed shortly by forcing them to research brick bridges, so that I might cross the lava pits and strike down the valiant Hero of Mistygreen Vale. I appreciate this article.