Besides being macabre, I think the holocaust example is a bad one because there is no positive outcome. When throwing someone off a bridge, there is a clear positive outcome, lives are saved, at the expense of one innocent dead. Thus the moral dilemma is if this is acceptable to you or not, do you act or not. That's what makes the first example merely sadism, not a dilemma -- your choice is irrelevant, everybody except one person will die and the possible benefits of this choice or the other are purely speculative. Sadism = bad, the player loses because the game is preprogrammed to make him lose. Instant uninstall <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> Dilemma = good, if the sh*t hits the fan it's because the player made a choice and now has to stick with it, and perhaps next time not go for the obvious win. Every possible choice must bring Good at the cost of some Bad, then we can fret over which one has the best net gain. It's sadism when all the options have Bad, but no Good.
But isn't life exactly like that? Do you always have good consequences? Have you never had been in a situation without any really "good" outcomes?
I agree, people might think it's not really fun to play games in which you have to deal with bad situations and really hard decisions, but that's how life is and it would make the game much more "adult".
On the other hand, I don't think that the Larians will risk reactions like you explained... that people regard something as sadism even though such a situation can be far more important for character development than any other normal and known way of gameplay.
Cause the problem is: We still play a game... usually, we never get immersed that much that we don't think in game terms, that we don't think "Hmmm, if I kill this guy, it will help these people and then I will be able to get this item". And this kind of thinking is pretty much supported by normal decisions in which you can more or less clearly see the good and bad sides. We are used to it, there is no surprise. I think if a game had some disturbing situations, decisions without any really good outcome, problems which actively relates to the character.... then the scheme I tried to briefly explain could be changed... and finally it would be a better game experience.
Max Payne 2 for example was such a game for me personally... sure, I knew it was a game but it was such a personal case for Max Payne and the story telling quite dark that it was more disturbing than most of the other games I know. And disturbing doesn't mean "more blood and gore" here...
Therefore, I'd really like the Larians to step beyond current borders in game design... but we will see. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
