Videogame Rewards and Non-player Character Neediness: How the Moral Context of Helping in Videogames Shapes Reasoning and Moral Satisfaction

Prosocial behaviour in videogames can enhance well-being outcomes and increase engagement in post-game prosocial behaviours, such as donations to charity. While some studies show that rewarding in-game helping can diminish charitable donations, others find no significant effects. An enhanced moral context for helping, driven by awareness of need, offers a potential explanation for the mixed findings. This study examined how the in-game moral context, manipulated through non-player character (NPC) neediness, influences the effect of rewards on post-game charitable donations, using a 2 (High Need, Low Need) x 2 (Reward, No Reward) experimental design. Results from 170 participants show no significant effects on charitable donations, high NPC neediness evoked greater moral satisfaction for helping, and in-game rewards for helping increased strategic reasoning. A significant interaction between rewards and NPC neediness was found on reasoning, where the No Reward/Low Need condition had the highest moral reasoning for helping, but also the lowest moral satisfaction from helping. This discrepancy between moral reasoning and moral satisfaction is discussed, along with practical methods to manipulate and measure NPC neediness, and recommendations to improve the research of moral decision-making in videogames.