History BrokenAesop / Videogames

** You, the ruler of the kingdom, must choose between "good" decisions (mostly benevolent social programs) that cost the kingdom money, and "evil" decisions (cutting off said programs, poor environmental practices, etc.) that save the kingdom money, all in preparation for a supernatural invasion that will kill off many of your citizens if you don't put enough funding into the defense budget. Making this more difficult are that the "good" options are always tear-jerkingly cloying (repair and upgrade the damaged orphanage) while the "evil" alternatives are always [[CrossesTheLineTwice ludicrously evil]] (turn the orphanage into a brothel); there is no third option, even to defer to later, and you cannot remind anyone that ''doom is barreling down on them'' and maybe this isn't the best time to disturb the King with their crap. The intended moral appears to be about having to make hard decisions about security vs. prosperity / quality of life, since the early portion of the game revolves around you deposing a tyrannical king only to learn his tyranny was [[WellIntentionedExtremist the best way he could think of to prepare for that supernatural horror]]. The problem with this that it's possible to pad the kingdom's treasury out of your own pocket. Like in the previous game, the way you really make money is by buying up lots of property and letting the accumulated rent money roll in every few minutes of play time. And despite there being a countdown to the day of the invasion, it won't get any closer as long as you don't complete any main storyline quests. All the player needs to do to be able to bankroll all the "good" programs and still be able to save all of their subjects is kill a few hours doing sidequests and letting their income pile up.

** The "nukes are bad" message has been frequently broken thanks to [[DependingOnTheWriter the different writing teams]] between Black Isle/Obsidian for ''1'', ''2'' and ''New Vegas'', and Bethesda for ''3'', ''4'', and ''[[VideoGame/Fallout76 76]]''. The series generally tries to show that the world is entirely screwed because of all the nukes that were dropped, even beyond [[SceneryGorn the first and most obvious sign of such]], going so far that Caesar's Legion from ''New Vegas'' fully immerses itself in several utterly savage practices like slavery, mass rape/murder, etc., [[WellIntentionedExtremist purely out of desperation]] to attempt to properly reunite the people of the wastes. The first two games and ''New Vegas'' take this message to heart and for the most part show just how shitty nukes, and the ravaged world their overuse brought about, really are. By contrast, ''Fallout 3'' has a super-awesome giant death robot that assists you by tossing nukes like footballs all over the place in its climax; ''Fallout 4'', after mostly brushing the question aside in favor of a somewhat more optimistic look at how the people are trying to rebuild, almost [[ButThouMust invariably]] ends with you nuking one faction on the orders of one of the others despite this being an active hindrance to one's goals and completely at odds with another's philosophy; and ''76'' requires dropping nukes as part of the story and lets you do so at will to spawn awesome bosses that drop all sorts of cool loot.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The game has players make their own choices with many consequences in the game, but it teaches that people should not always judge people by appearance, origin, or race. This is shown in the protagonist and the potential allies, such as the Dark Urge being tempted to kill but can actively reject the Urge, while companions like Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Astarion, and Karlach all play with expectations and turn out to be generally good people deep down. The problem with this moral involves a mind flayer named The Emperor. He is revealed to be the reason as to why the player and their allies are not changing into mind flayers themselves, yet he is overseeing the imprisonment of a githyanki named Orpheus to prevent the Absolute from assimilating him into it’s mind flayer hive mind. When it’s revealed that The Emperor is a mind flayer, the player can choose to be rude to him constantly and judge him for being a mindflayer and that rude judgement has the emperor reveal that he is manipulating the player by calling them his puppet. This revelation completely undermines’ The Emperor’s overall morality and convinced some players to turn on him by freeing Orpheus, showing that they were right to judge the emperor by his appearance and race. This undercuts the moral of not judging others and looking past stereotypes, because even if being fair to The Emperor but still not agreeing with them, The Emperor turns against the player unless they fully support them.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The game has players make their own choices with many consequences in the game, but it teaches that people should not always judge people by appearance, origin, or race. This is shown in the protagonist and the potential allies, such as the Dark Urge being tempted to kill but can actively reject the Urge, while companions like Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Asterion, and Karlach all play with expectations and turn out to be generally good people deep down. The problem with this moral involves a mind flayer named The Emperor. He is revealed to be the reason as to why the player and their allies are not changing into mind flayers themselves, yet he is overseeing the imprisonment of a githyanki named Orpheus to prevent the Absolute from assimilating him into it’s mind flayer hive mind. When it’s revealed that The Emperor is a mind flayer, the player can choose to be rude to him constantly and judge him for being a mindflayer and that rude judgement has the emperor reveal that he is manipulating the player by calling them his puppet. This revelation completely undermines’ The Emperor’s overall morality and convinced some players to turn on him by freeing Orpheus, showing that they were right to judge the emperor by his appearance and race. This undercuts the moral of not judging others and looking past stereotypes, because even if being fair to The Emperor but still not agreeing with them, The Emperor turns against the player unless they fully support them.

** [[AlphaBitch Ai Ebihara's]] backstory is that she was bullied for [[FormerlyFat being overweight as a child]], and eventually she comes to the conclusion that beauty isn't about the way you look, but the sort of person you are. However, the cast's classmate Hanako is every negative stereotype of a fat girl rolled into one; sure, her personality isn't the best (not that she's ever given the chance for CharacterDevelopment outside of a small instance of PetTheDog), but it's obvious that every scene where she's treated as the butt of the joke has to do with her appearance... and the fact that she ''doesn't'' care about how she looks, which would otherwise be a great message for a game that's so obsessed with staying true to yourself. In fact, most of the {{jerkass}}es in the game are ''also'' [[{{Gonk}} extremely unattractive]]. This comes across as especially apparent when you consider that quite a few of the conflicts in the game resolve around certain characters being [[SoBeautifulItsACurse too attractive]]. The often considered to be forced way that the game seems to present ugliness as something you can shrug off (suggesting you can "work hard" to overcome your flaws), but presents attractiveness as a curse, is something fans have criticized a fair amount. This is especially considering the way it's supposed to be tied into one of the central themes, and the [[spoiler:motivations of the true culprit]], with the idea that society is a repeating, fixed cycle of "those who are born with success" and "those who aren't", and that anyone who rightfully complains about how they don't like this is instantly labelled as a whining child with no backbone, so society just keeps quiet and soldiers on despite how unbalanced it is. This is made even worse still by the fact that the game [[DebateAndSwitch never actually tackles the true culprit's opinions and beliefs directly]], the characters instead essentially side-stepping by saying his opinions just don't matter.

* ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}} Shadow Fall'' tries to inject some GreyAndGreyMorality into the Vekta/Helghast conflict and create an Aesop about how xenophobia and intolerance are bad by moving the remaining Helghast to Vekta and giving them half the planet, where they live in horrible, polluted, totalitarian conditions. Main character Lucas' half-Helghan ally Echo repeatedly lectures Lucas that the horrible conditions are because Vekta is oppressing the Helghans, and implies the Helghast terrorist organization the Black Hand is partially Vekta's fault. She also blames Vekta for the Helghast being on Vekta to begin with, since [[spoiler: Helghan was rendered uninhabitable when Vektan forces blew up a doomsday weapon on Helghan]] at the end of ''Killzone 3''. The problem is that for the past three games the Helghast have been warmongering [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Space Nazis]] who lived in similar conditions on their own planet, and on Vekta the Helghast are autonomous. There are a few news articles scattered about the game which describe Helghan workers being discriminated against, but for the most the Helghast's problems are not the fault of discrimination but their continuous support of the fascist doctrine that repeatedly put them in the situation they're suffering under. Furthermore, the [[spoiler: doomsday weapon that destroyed Helghan was developed by the Helghast, and was only destroyed by Vekta forces because it was going to be aimed at Earth]]. Lucas never call Echo out on any of this.

** The original game, ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' is intended to be a deconstruction of the works of Creator/AynRand, with the fate of Rapture demonstrating the inherent failings of Objectivism, which Ayn Rand is credited with creating. However, Rapture survived and thrived by some measures for some time, despite its flaws, until [[BigBad Frank Fontaine]] exploited those on the losing end of it to hook them on the PsychoSerum ADAM, leading to civil war. While flaws with the ideology certainly played a part in Rapture's downfall, it also failed for reasons that could happen to any system as opposed to the innate flaws of Objectivism, and because of an almost magical substance that doesn't exist in real life.

** Likewise, elven party member Sera insists she's "[[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch not like other]]" EnslavedElves because she's happy as she is, yet most of her dialogue and character content make it clear she's a [[LowerClassLout maladjusted]] [[TerroristWithoutACause teenager]] who has a ''lot'' of vitriolic self-loathing and InternalizedCategorism against other elves and herself. Yet every time you try to help her overcome this, the game suddenly flips to imply that ''you're'' trying to pressure her to conform to elven culture because you can't accept an elf who's different. The culmination of her friendship/romance even strongly implies that you're the first person to accept Sera for who she is instead of trying to change her, even though most of the narrative before this was either implying that her feelings were negative and needed to be overcome for her own sake, if not other people's, or acting as though you were doing the ''exact opposite'' of accepting her as she is. On top of that, playing as a female elf and taking pride in your people's history explicitly leads Sera to breakup with you if you try to romance her but refuse to accept her views on the history of the elves, with the player character being framed as the one who is wrong for not doing so. So the message of her character quest appears to be trying to say "you should accept people for who they are", but instead ends up being being closer to "trying to force change in people is bad, except when it comes to romance, as you need to change or don't deserve love in return".
** A running theme in ''[=DAI=]'' is whether or not religious faith in something unproven or disproven is a good thing, with most characters and the narrative itself ''overwhelmingly'' leaning towards "yes." ''Everyone'' chooses to believe [[AnAdventurerIsYou you]] are TheChosenOne sent by [[{{God}} The Maker]] and His bride [[CrystalDragonJesus Andraste]] to save Thedas in its darkest hour. Even after you [[spoiler:discover proof that your power isn't divine, and the woman thought to be Andraste guiding you out of peril was just the spirit of a regular mortal]], most characters agree that objective truth doesn't matter, as long as faith brings people comfort in dark times. However, when the second half of the game and the ''Trespasser'' DLC reveal a troubling number of {{Awful Truth}}s about the history and religion of the elves[[note]]Namely, that their pantheon of gods were just powerful mages with political clout, and the elven facial tattoos were originally slave brands[[/note]], [[DoubleStandard most characters deride faithful elves]], especially [[RacialRemnant the Dalish]], as ''stupid'' for believing in a history and religion BasedOnAGreatBigLie. City elves treat mass abandonment of said heritage and religion as the only logical choice to be made. The game's moral becomes less "faith regardless of fact is good if it brings comfort," and more "[[MoralMyopia faith regardless of fact is good]] [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality only as long as WE/Andrastian humans do it]], [[ScrewYouElves but stupid if THEY/elves do it]]."

** Likewise, elven party member Sera insists she's "[[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch not like other]]" EnslavedElves because she's happy as she is, yet most of her dialogue and character content make it clear she's a [[LowerClassLout maladjusted]] [[TerroristWithoutACause teenager]] who has a ''lot'' of vitriolic self-loathing and InternalizedCategorism against other elves and herself. Yet every time you try to help her overcome this, the game suddenly flips to imply that ''you're'' trying to pressure her to conform to elven culture because you can't accept an elf who's different. The culmination of her friendship/romance even strongly implies that you're the first person to accept Sera for who she is instead of trying to change her, even though most of the narrative before this was either implying that her feelings were negative and needed to be overcome for her own sake, if not other people's, or acting as though you were doing the ''exact opposite'' of accepting her as she is. On top of that, playing as a female elf and taking pride in your people's history explicitly leads Sera to breakup with you if you try to romance her but refuse to accept her views on the history of the elves, with the player character being framed as the one who is wrong for not doing so. So the message appears to be trying to say "forcing others to change is bad, you should accept people for who they are", but instead ends up being being closer to "trying to force change in people is bad, unless you are romantically interested in them, then they either adjust or the relationship is over".

** The original game, ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' is intended to be a deconstruction of the works of Creator/AynRand, with the fate of Rapture demonstrating the inherent failings of Objectivism. However, Rapture survived and thrived by some measures for some time, despite its flaws, until [[BigBad Frank Fontaine]] exploited those on the losing end of it to hook them on the PsychoSerum ADAM, leading to civil war. While flaws with the ideology certainly played a part in Rapture's downfall, it also failed for reasons that could happen to any system as opposed to the innate flaws of Objectivism.

* ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault''. Many characters tell you to go against what is expected of you. By doing this, however, you will get a bad ending that cuts the story short with no real closure. What you are supposed to do is... just repeat what you have been doing the whole game, [[EndingFatigue many, many times]], completely ignore the hints that what you are doing might not be a good idea, and pretend to be surprised when things go downhill. Only then you can fight the TrueFinalBoss and get the GoldenEnding. The only way that this aesop makes sense as presented is if you assume that the game is pulling a double bluff on you, [[MindScrew expecting you to rebel against the game and rewarding you for rebelling against the rebellion and going along the track]].

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The game has players make their own choices with many consequences in the game but it teaches that people should not always judge people by apprearance, origin, or race. This is shown in the protagonist and their allies as players can choose to play as the dark urge who is often tempted to kill and murder yet has the option to resist that. Then there is shadowheart, a dark worshipper of shar who shows compassion to others, lae’zel a githyanki with severe trust issues who can warm up to the player if choices are made, Asterion, a vampire spawn who is treated like a doormat by his master and can choose to stand up to him and reject the dark path he is on, and Karlach, a tiefling who has the appearance of a demon and is treated like one yet is revealed to be a kind woman with a fiery temper. This also extend to the mind flayers who are seen to have the habit of manipulating other and eating brains as one named Omeluum is a mind flayer yet is helpful to the player and seeks to make an alternative food to brain eating that involves mushrooms. Unfortunately the problem with this moral involves a mind flayer named The Emperor. He is revealed to be the reason as to why the player and their allies are not changing into mind flayers themselves, yet he is overseeing the imprisonment of a githyanki named Orpheus to prevent the Absolute from assimilating him into it’s mind flayer hive mind. When it’s revealed that the emperor is a mind flayer, the player can choose to be rude to him constantly and judge him for being a mindflayer and that rude judgement has the emperor reveal that he is manipulating the player by calling them his puppet. This revelation completely undermines’s the emperor’s overall morality and convinced some players to turn on him by freeing Orpheus, showing that they were right to judge the emperor by his appearance and race. This undercuts the moral of not judging others and looking past stereotypes.

** Likewise, elven party member Sera insists she's "[[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch not like other]]" EnslavedElves because she's happy as she is, yet most of her dialogue and character content make it clear she's a [[LowerClassLout maladjusted]] [[TerroristWithoutACause teenager]] who has a ''lot'' of vitriolic self-loathing and InternalizedCategorism against other elves and herself. Yet every time you try to help her overcome this, the game suddenly flips to imply that ''you're'' trying to pressure her to conform to elven culture because you can't accept an elf who's different. The culmination of her friendship/romance even strongly implies that you're the first person to accept Sera for who she is instead of trying to change her, even though most of the narrative before this was either implying that her feelings were negative and needed to be overcome for her own sake, if not other people's, or acting as though you were doing the ''exact opposite'' of accepting her as she is.

* ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' tries to tell players not to let themselves be manipulated by things like drugs or overzealous, charismatic cults manipulate them because it will only bring destruction to those around them. This is shown with Joseph Seed's cult, the mind conditioning they use for their sleeper agents, and the drug they make called Bliss, which causes those who take it to commit multiple atrocities (up to and including murder) to those around them, including loved ones. It shows that faith, like anything else, can be used to bring disaster if used wrongly. Unfortunately, the entire moral is ''literally'' blown up in the "good ending", as after Joseph Seed is defeated and is on the verge of arrest, a nuke goes off -- [[TheCuckoolanderWasRight proving that Joseph's claims about the collapse were right all along]]. Worse still, this means the cult continually advising you not to fight them is the correct option- you are literally told not to play the game and do anything to deal with the cult.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The game has players make their own choices with many consequences in the game but it teaches that people should not always judge people by apprearance, origin, or race. This is shown in the protagonist and their allies as players can choose to play as the dark urge who is often tempted to kill and murder yet has the option to resist that. Then there is shadowheart, a dark worshipper of shar who shows compassion to others, lae’zel a githyanki with severe trust issues who can warm up to the player if choices are made, Asterion, a vampire spawn who is treated like a doormat by his master and can choose to stand up to him and reject the dark path he is on, and Karlach, a tie fling who has the appearance of a demon and is treated like one yet is revealed to be a kind woman with a fiery temper. This also extend to the mind flayers who are seen to have the habit of manipulating other and eating brains as one named Omeluum is a mind flayer yet is helpful to the player and seeks to make an alternative food to brain eating that involves mushrooms. Unfortunately the problem with this moral involves a mind flayer named The Emperor. He is revealed to be the reason as to why the player and their allies are not changing into mind flayers themselves, yet he is overseeing the imprisonment of a githyanki named Orpheus to prevent the Absolute from assimilating him into it’s mind flayer hive mind. When it’s revealed that the emperor is a mind flayer, the player can choose to be rude to him constantly and judge him for being a mindflayer and that rude judgement has the emperor reveal that he is manipulating the player by calling them his puppet. This revelation completely undermines’s the emperor’s overall morality and convinced some players to turn on him by freeing Orpheus, showing that they were right to judge the emperor by his appearance and race. This undercuts the moral of not judging others and looking past stereotypes.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The original trilogy's big themes is that sometimes the hero must make hard decisions. But once the major decisions the game treats as clearly and morally ideal (like not sacrificing anyone if possible, siding with the krogan instead of the {{Jerkass}} salarian unless a even worse krogan is in power) are far more likely to get a better outcome and come ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' which qualifies your desertions throughout the trilogy, more War Assets leading to better endings. The only times what's treated as a less idealistic choice gets a morally and objectively better outcome are [[spoiler:convincing Kelly Chambers to hide her identity saving her from assassination]], which isn't really ruthless, and [[spoiler:destroying the heretic geth]] in "Legion: A House Divided", which helps get an optimal outcome in "Priority: Rannoch" but isn't required. [[IdealHero Paragon]] decisions tend to be harder and less entertaining than [[AntiHero Renegade]] so this could be "Long-term gains are better than short-term satisfaction," but the game rarely makes that distinction. Meanwhile, the choices morally grey enough to be difficult (like [[spoiler:which party member you have to leave to die on Virmire, if you save the Collector Base, whether or not to brainwash or destroy the heretic geth, side with the quarian or geth dooming the other if you fail the requirements to save both]]) will have little to no difference in Assets.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The original trilogy's big themes is that sometimes the hero must make hard decisions. But once the major decisions the game treats as clearly and morally ideal (like not sacrificing anyone if possible, siding with the krogan instead of the {{Jerkass}} salarian unless a even worse krogan is in power) are far more likely to get a better outcome and come ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' which qualifies your desertions throughout the trilogy, more War Assets leading to better endings. The only times what's treated as a less idealistic choice gets a morally and objectively better outcome are [[spoiler:convincing Kelly Chambers to hide her identity saving her from assassination]], which isn't really ruthless, and [[spoiler:destroying the heretic geth]] in "Legion: A House Divided", which helps get an optimal outcome in "Priority: Rannoch" but isn't required. [[IdealHero Paragon]] decisions tend to be harder and less entertaining than [[AntiHero Renegade]] so this could be "Long-term gains are better than short-term satisfaction," but the game rarely makes that distinction. Meanwhile, the choices morally grey enough to be difficult (like [[spoiler:which party member you have to leave to die on Virmire, if you save the Collector Base, whether or not to brainwash destroy the heretic geth, side with the quarian or geth dooming the other if you fail the requirements to save both]]) will have little to no difference in Assets.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The original trilogy's big themes is that sometimes the hero must make hard decisions. But once the major decisions the game treats as clearly and morally ideal (like not sacrificing anyone if possible, siding with the krogan instead of the {{Jerkass}} salarian unless a even worse krogan is in power) are far more likely to get a better outcome and come ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' which qualifies your desertions throughout the trilogy, more War Assets leading to better endings. The only times what's treated as a less idealistic choice gets a morally and objectively better outcome are [[spoiler:convincing Kelly Chambers to hide her identity saving her from assassination]], which isn't really ruthless, and [[spoiler:destroying the heretic geth]] in "Legion: A House Divided", which helps get an optimal outcome in "Priority: Rannoch" but isn't required. [[IdealHero Paragon]] decisions tend to be harder and less entertaining than [[AntiHero Renegade]] so this could be "Long-term gains are better than short-term satisfaction," but the game rarely makes that distinction. Meanwhile, the choices morally grey enough to be difficult (like [[spoiler:which party member you have to leave to die on Virmire, if you save the Collector Base, side with the quarian or geth dooming the other if you fail the requirements to save both]]) will have little to no difference in Assets.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The original trilogy's big themes is that sometimes the hero must make hard decisions. But once the major decisions the game treats as clearly and morally ideal (like not sacrificing anyone if possible, siding with the krogan instead of the {{Jerkass}} salarian unless a even worse krogan is in power) are far more likely to get a better outcome and come ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' which qualifies your desertions throughout the trilogy, more War Assets leading to better endings. The one time what's treated as a less idealistic choice gets a morally and objectively better outcome, [[spoiler:convincing Kelly Chambers to hide her identity saving her from assassination]], isn't really ruthless. [[IdealHero Paragon]] decisions tend to be harder and less entertaining than [[AntiHero Renegade]] so this could be "Long-term gains are better than short-term satisfaction," but the game rarely makes that distinction. Meanwhile, the choices morally grey enough to be difficult (like [[spoiler:which party member you have to leave to die on Virmire, whether or not to brainwash destroy the heretic geth, if you save the Collector Base, side with the quarian or geth dooming the other if you fail the requirements to save both]]) will have little to no difference in Assets.

* ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'' has a horrible one for a side quest. Wei goes after a street racer to get him arrested for deliberately forcing his opponents to crash during races and Wei is clearly disgusted with him for this. The problem? To even get access to this side quest you have to do street racing missions and you've almost definitely had to deliberately force your opponents to crash (especially on the first one where you have to race with an awful car) and most of those crashes looked pretty fatal...

* Misha's route in ''VideoGame/ArTonelicoMelodyOfElemia'' has an event where Aurica's best friend, Claire, is being harassed by a couple of bigoted thugs. Things are escalating, and it looks like its about to turn physically violent in a few seconds. The protagonist, Lyner, steps in tells them to knock it off. This angers the thugs, who attack him. Lyner, a highly trained and gifted member of an elite knighthood, kicks the crap out of them with ease, and they scuttle off, terrified. His thanks? Getting scolded by everyone in his party, because "violence is never the answer". Never mind that his intervention probably saved both Claire and her bar from a beating, and [[CrimeOfSelfDefense the thugs attacked him]]. Apparently the solution is to just stand there and let them send you to the hospital and possibly kill you, because that's exactly what Lyner does later in response to this valuable lesson.

* ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' tries to tell players not to let themselves be manipulated by things like drugs or overzealous, charismatic cults manipulate them because it will only bring destruction to those around them. This is shown with Joseph Seed's cult, the mind conditioning they use for their sleeper agents, and the drug they make called Bliss, which causes those who take it to commit multiple atrocities (up to and including murder) to those around them, including loved ones. It shows that faith, like anything else, can be used to bring disaster if used wrongly. Unfortunately, the entire moral is ''literally'' blown up in the "good ending", as after Joseph Seed is defeated and is on the verge of arrest, a nuke goes off -- [[TheCuckoolanderWasRight proving that Joseph's claims about the collapse were right all along]].

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The original trilogy's morality system is this. A huge message throughout the games is that sometimes the hero must make hard decisions, and the KarmaMeter is supposed to reflect that. But in the entire trilogy, there is exactly ''one'' situation where the [[AntiHero Renegade]] option gets you a better outcome than being a [[TheParagon Paragon]] (choosing to [[spoiler:destroy the heretic Geth in "Legion: A House Divided"]] in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''). In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' where the game tallies up all the allies you've amassed across the trilogy, if you had chosen the Renegade option every time, you'd actually end up with fewer allies because either you killed most of them or they died by your inaction, so being a Renegade is ''objectively'' worse for you. Since the Paragon choices often require extra work, you could argue that the Aesop is "Long-term gains are better than short-term satisfaction," but the game never makes that distinction, and the ''really'' hard decisions, like [[spoiler:deciding which party member to save and which one to leave to die on Virmire]], aren't counted on the karma meter.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The original trilogy's morality system is this. A huge message throughout the games is that sometimes the hero must make hard decisions, and the KarmaMeter is supposed to reflect that. But at no point in the entire trilogy does the [[AntiHero Renegade]] option get you a better outcome than being a [[AlwaysLawfulGood Paragon]]. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' where the game tallies up all the allies you've amassed across the trilogy, if you had chosen the Renegade option every time, you'd actually end up with fewer allies because either you killed most of them or they died by your inaction, so being a Renegade is ''objectively'' worse for you. Since the Paragon choices often require extra work, you could argue that the Aesop is "Long-term gains are better than short-term satisfaction," but the game never makes that distinction, and the ''really'' hard decisions, like [[spoiler:deciding which party member to save and which one to leave to die on Virmire]], aren't counted on the karma meter.

* ''VideoGame/FarCry5''' tries to tell players not to let themselves be manipulated by things like drugs or overzealous, charismatic cults manipulate them because it will only bring destruction to those around them. This is shown with Joseph Seed's cult, the mind conditioning they use for their sleeper agents, and the drug they make called Bliss, which causes those who take it to commit multiple atrocities (up to and including murder) to those around them, including loved ones. It shows that faith, like anything else, can be used to bring disaster if used wrongly. Unfortunately, the entire moral is ''literally'' blown up in the "good ending", as after Joseph Seed is defeated and is on the verge of arrest, a nuke goes off -- [[TheCuckoolanderWasRight proving that Joseph's claims about the collapse were right all along]].

** Overall, the general setting and lore are supposed to satirize the worst aspects of American ultra-nationalism and [[CapitalismIsBad hypercapitalism,]] both of which supposedly lead to the Great War. But like in ''VideoGame/BioShock'', the scientific advances made by the society that's supposed to be being mocked were truly sci-fi in nature. Granted, Pre-war America's advances came over a more realistic timeframe and we're shown China made some advancements as well. But the established timeline shows that, by the Great War, the US had invented tech like the fusion cells and humanoid robot workers that all but make conventional resources and labor obsolete, and by all the info we're given it was Communist China that started the Great War by launching the first nukes. A more accurate aseop might be "{{Eagleland}}, while far from a utopia for the foreseeable future, will invent tech to solve the common issues of capitalism, and only get destroyed if DirtyCommunists invade it, then decide to [[TakingYouWithMe nuke the world when they lose.]]"

*** The original ending of the game had a pretty simple moral of "self-sacrifice is good, being selfish is bad." A lot of people didn't like this, as the execution ([[spoiler:all your radiation-immune companions refuse to walk into the area full of deadly radiation, so you either kill yourself walking in there or order a Brotherhood paladin to do it instead]]) was so clumsily written that it came across as a StupidSacrifice. The ''Broken Steel'' add-on made it even worse in two ways: one, it retconned it so that you somehow survived, meaning that now the moral was completely pointless since you didn't actually sacrifice anything; and two, it also added the pragmatic option to [[spoiler:actually send one of your radiation-immune companions to do what's needed]], only for the ending narration to still treat you as just as big a bastard as if you'd [[spoiler:sent the Brotherhood paladin in with full knowledge that she would die from the radiation]], which takes the "self-sacrifice is good" message and warps it into something like HonorBeforeReason.
*** In the tutorial, one of the choices involved is to kill the Overseer. If you do this, Amata [[WhatTheHellHero tells you off]] and you lose karma; the intended message evidently being the old-fashioned "killing people is bad." Except to get to the Overseer, you need to get past a half-dozen or so security guards who are JustFollowingOrders, with there being no option to talk down any except the very first one who sees you, no option to non-lethally take care of them other than simply running away as they shoot you in the back, and - despite them, like the Overseer, being people you've known your entire life before then, and which you probably got along with miles better than with the Overseer - [[WhatMeasureIsAMook no penalty whatsoever for killing them]]. And even with the "self-defense" argument, over the course of the game, you'll kill a ''lot'' of people, many of whom [[NonActionBigBad pose even less threat than those guards did]]. In many cases, [[ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer you even gain karma for it.]] This gets broken even further by ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', where [[ActionizedSequel killing people en masse is so accepted]] that a PacifistRun is only possible through exploiting bugs.

** The "nukes are bad" message has been frequently broken thanks to [[DependingOnTheWriter the different writing teams]] between Black Isle/Obsidian for ''1'', ''2'' and ''New Vegas'', and Bethesda for ''3'', ''4'', and ''[[VideoGame/Fallout76 76]]''. The series generally tries to show that the world is entirely screwed because of all the nukes that were dropped, even beyond [[SceneryGorn the first and most obvious sign of such]], going so far that Caesar's Legion from ''New Vegas'' fully immerses itself in several utterly savage practices like slavery, mass rape/murder, etc., purely out of desperation to attempt to properly reunite the people of the wastes. The first two games and ''New Vegas'' take this message to heart and for the most part show just how shitty nukes, and the ravaged world their overuse brought about, really are. By contrast, ''Fallout 3'' has a super-awesome giant death robot that assists you by tossing nukes like footballs all over the place in its climax; ''Fallout 4'', after mostly brushing the question aside in favor of a somewhat more optimistic look at how the people are trying to rebuild, almost [[ButThouMust invariably]] ends with you nuking one faction on the orders of one of the others despite this being an active hindrance to one's goals and completely at odds with another's philosophy; and ''76'' requires dropping nukes as part of the story and lets you do so at will to spawn awesome bosses that drop all sorts of cool loot.

* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'': The game has been criticized for its message of "violence is bad" being subverted by continuing to not only allow, but even frequently ''[[BlamedForBeingRailroaded require]]'', the player to kill enemies with executions and live burial by sand, even after the game tries to hammer the moral home with [[spoiler:Walker mass-murdering civilians with white phosphorous]]. Apparently, WordOfGod claims the only way for you, the player, to avoid committing a serious war crime was turn off and walk away from the game[[note]]In fact, earlier drafts planned on letting you do this in-game, but was scrapped, supposedly because playtesters kept taking that option and defeating the game's narrative entirely[[/note]], which would extend you getting blamed for being railroaded on a meta level.

** This is further broken by the fact that whether you love your Pokémon with all your heart or not, it doesn't make much difference. Friendship, the main stat meant to determine this, has almost no meaningful effects: it can cause one move to become fairly strong, and it can cause certain Pokémon to evolve. If you don't use that move or a Pokémon that evolves with Friendship, then you can play the whole game with your party's Friendship at 0 and never notice. Not that it's actually ''possible'' to do that, because a Pokémon's Friendship starts going up if you do ''anything'' to it, from leveling up to giving it a single-use item to just walking around with it in your party, but only goes down if the Pokémon uses one of a small handful of situational items, or faints. Even the most talentless player would probably achieve decently high Friendship by accident; to actually hit low Friendship would more or less require you to do so on purpose.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' introduce Affection to mitigate this, which can only be raised by actually treating your Pokémon like a pet/friend and taking care of them, and Pokémon with higher affection get significant benefits in battle like LastChanceHitPoint and self-curing statuses -- benefits [[DoubleSubversion that don't apply in]] competitive battles, where you would desire them the most.

* ''REFLEXIA Prototype ver.'', a visual novel on Steam that is a [[NoFourthWall meta-parody]] of DatingSim, is meant to be a [[SatireParodyPastiche Juvenalian satire]] on how visual novels trick people into caring about one-dimensional characters. This is taken so far as to [[TakeThatAudience insult the player for caring about fictional characters]]. However, the second half is devoted to [[spoiler: the character's emotional problems. So, the VN insults you for carrying about fictional characters then expects you to care about ''its'' fictional characters.]] The hypocrisy is never address despite it undermining the entire satire of the game.

* ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'' makes a big deal about how the protagonist, Raz, shouldn't alter people's mind with his PsychicPowers without their constent, after [[spoiler: he accidentally gives Hollis a [[TheGamblingAddict gambling addiction]]]]. However later on in the game, Raz uses his powers to alter the minds of [[spoiler: Ford Cruller and [[TheAlcoholic Bob Zanotto]]]] without their consent. In fact, the former explicitly tells Raz not to [[spoiler: fix his mind]]. Yet, neither the story or characters treat this as bad beyond Ford being grumpy. Even then, that seems to be more about [[spoiler:not wanting to tell Raz the AwfulTruth than being mad at Raz for altering his mind without his consent.]]