Shopping Cart Theory

[@JBrander]

me, not looting Doc Mitchell's house (even tho the items inside can be taken for free) because he is a good man who saved my life and he's just trying to live peacefully after his wife died.

[@GeoDaddï]

but do you fix his 9mmsub then leave it because thats true good

[@colbymclemore7642]

You’re a better man than I.

[@TourFaint]

Not taking the platter from the census office in seyda neen is the biggest moral choice in video games ever.

[@Shapeshiftergreen]

What game is that from? ​@@TourFaint

[@dylmacaroni]

@@ShapeshiftergreenMorrowind : )

[@MilkmanYeti]

I once saw a guy just leave the cart next to his car and try to back up. It slowly rolled into his way and his bumper. He gets out and adjusts it again; then gets back in his car...the cart slowly slides into his bumper. He gets out cursing, grabs the cart and SHOVES it hard...up the hill. The cart gains quite a bit of speed, SLAMMING into the car and visibly scratches his rear left door. He doesn't even stop. He just backs out and with it scraping his car. I just stood there in awe.

[@Dogman262]

Smartest lazybones

[@benhickson6149]

Sunk cost, he had already committed to not putting it away and so couldn't do the right thing

[@JAcKyL6669]

@@benhickson6149 Well put! Ironic part is he punished himself and three times over no less. Case in point, put the cart in the corral so at minimum you don't damage your car. 😉

[@Bloodyshinta1]

having a person on your team like this in a multiplayer game is a nightmare, they will destroy themselves and everyone with them on principle.

[@jashloseher578]

I've witnessed similar before. May either of these people have learned a lesson (though I doubt they did).

[@ClellBiggs]

If you're one of those people that do things because it's the right thing to do you have to be careful around the people that only do things for rewards. They will use your sense of right and wrong to take advantage of you. I'm not sure if this is intentional or subconscious (I think most of them are unaware of it) but it's something you have to be aware of and watch out for. Took me a long time to learn this.

[@mandisaw]

Hmm, plenty of ppl need extrinsic motivation (reward or punishment), that's fine. What you have to watch for are the narcissists and users - the ones who will manipulate you into thinking that what they want = your idea of "good". That way lies pain, heartache, and in extreme cases, cults.

[@arcan762]

The Dog: "Who are you always talking to...?? 🤨"

[@eugeneworthington7042]

I often tell people that because this theory has become so widely aware, even though people might not call it “shopping cart theory”, people understand that they will be privately ridiculed for it. I live in NoVA with some of the rudest, apathetic people I’ve ever seen and/or met. I’ve never seen a single cart not returned to a corral. It’s like we’ve collectively recognized that it is sociopathic behavior, and now they realize it and have conformed to it. Like I actually unironically think that if a major party candidate… at least for one of the parties… was actively caught not returning a shopping cart, they would lose votes.

[@dajaca2586]

This is why we need to make popular theories for all the other antisocial behaviors

[@crust9889]

Doesn't matter if it's a Whole Foods or a Safeway, people just leave the damn carts in the parking spot or wherever in NoVA. It's the sense of privilege there.

[@mandisaw]

​@@crust9889It's the anonymity of the suburbs. Folks don't really know their neighbors / co-users of the supermarket, so there's an entitlement combined with relative anonymity. Any internet user of the post-Y2K era knows that's a recipe for shitty behavior. In places where you are likely to be known by the shop staff and/or the other patrons, you see people at least going through the motions, so as to avoid gossip (doesn't work LOL).

[@wormerine8029]

All I can throughout this video is is Tim questioning everyone whom he sees not returning the shopping cart.

[@Glimmlampe1982]

As a German my brain goes "there's the option not to return it?" :D (Ok, to be fair most carts use the put coin in and get it back on return, but more and more go back to no coin carts, or some people have a tool to open it without the coin and leave them that way, but still it's extremely rare to find a cart outside the coral)

[@chrisanderson687]

@@Glimmlampe1982 I have german ancestry so this was either passed to me genetically or subtly through my parents but: It drives me absolutely insane that people don't return the carts. I feel compelled to do so. If I was the last man on earth I'd still do it, LOL.

[@Glimmlampe1982]

There's a quote from Tucholsky about Germans along the line: Revolution in Germany? Never. When they want to storm a train station, they buy a ticket first. So I guess it's probably genetic:D

[@Spritevape]

I love your ghost in the shell pfp

[@Zoroasterisk]

He should fundraise for charity, with the 'prize' being bought just time Tim has to spend in a grocery store parking lot, miserable and nonverbally mean mugging everyone that doesn't return their cart, for hours at a time. Side note, there's a good chance that his personal hell consists of that, people arguing with him over the correct definition of a word, and emails with the money people, formatted at about a 4th grade reading level, over some new and reprehensible industry practice that is now mandatory

[@retropwned]

Tim starts off like everybody's favorite Grandpa but then slowly descends down the spiral to the dark side of game development

[@pavx45]

So true

[@evsrax9556]

After all, he is a game man.

[@octavianpopescu4776]

Anything involving returning shopping carts was bound to get dark. 😀

[@mandisaw]

My grandpa taught US History, so "most ppl are not inherently good" & "good intentions to bad outcomes" are just normal grandpa-wisdom to me 😅

[@SyndicateOperative]

It's all about maintaining order for me. Such institutions are systems that our communities rely on - each customer is a cog in the system. I do it for the next person, just as the previous person did it for me. One thing I'd like to mention is a notable pitfall of having a reasonable/justified villain: Often, the player will want to side with them rather than whatever milquetoast "good" side they're railroaded into. A series that is infamous for this is Far Cry - people always want to side with Hoyt and Pagan Min, because they're just far more reasonable than your allies, and far more ambitious and charismatic. Now, let's think about Fallout 1: What if the super mutants *weren't* infertile? How many players would instead want to side with the super mutants, with the "bad end" where you join them instead being seen as a potential good ending?

[@mementomori771]

In the case of Pagan Min the objective best ending for the setting is the one Ajay sits at the table in the start of the game

[@Bundle85]

Yeah, it's not good vs evil, it's lawful vs chaos

[@talideon]

There's a twist on this: I know of a lot of parents who will put the coin in the trolley lock and leave it up to their kids to bring the trolley back. The kid gets to keep the coin while the parent incentives prosocial behaviour.

[@chem-z9718]

There's also a problem: this can incentivize the same behavior Tim was talking about. When a person always does something good just for a reward, there can be no reason to act good in a situation where morality would be the only motive.

[@sumguy63]

Never underestimate a player's desire to do good for no reason.

[@jobiy1999]

Compassion begins when you can see yourself as the cart deserter and redemption begins when you can see yourself as the cart returner.

[@gamesafoot]

Hi Tim, as a British person, can I just say what a lovely and unexpected outing that was for the word "trolley"? Also, as a budding videogame developer, your channel has been a constant source of information and inspiration. Thank you for all you have done in your career and continue to do. ETA: For cart/trolley enthusiasts; in the UK it is standard for trolleys to require a £1 coin to unlock, which you get back when you return the trolley. It seems to be a very effective system.

[@President_Dave]

The not-returning-shopping-carts phenomenon seems to be mostly American - I don't think I've ever heard anyone else complain about it. I've got a keychain that saves me having to keep coins on me, but I still return the trolley because I'm not a bellend.

[@porkwhisperer3050]

@@President_Dave Some Sainsbury’s have trolleys that don’t require a coin and they don’t get returned frequently.

[@jashloseher578]

Here in Canada, they're $1 or $2 coins being used. Amusingly, when I lived in a very working class city (oil sands), it was exceedingly common to find the shopping carts still abandoned around the cart corral. So, friends and I, on our days off, would put the carts back and get a pizza or something with the proceeds. My local grocer doesn't use this system (though they used to!), and I see the odd cart get stolen and left sitting in some random places in town occasionally.

[@kromlok]

If you don't have a pound coin the "key" from a corned beef tin works just as well.

[@Anubis1101]

Working in retail for over a decade, i see this almost every single day, and the shopping cart example doesnt even scratch the surface of how petty, lazy or malicious people can be. Its really quite fascinating from a sociological perspective! Over the last two years, we've had three fights in my store, in the exact same location, and all for the same reason: someone blocked the aisle with their cart, and instead of taking half a second to move, they started arguing about it. Last time was just a couple weeks ago, and the offending person threw a glass jar of salsa that almost hit someone else. It's incredible how people will risk physical harm instead lifting even a finger to avoid inconveniencing someone else. Like you said, this can teach narrative designers a lot about behavior. Not everything needs to have some structured, lore-based reason, or clear and logical cause or purpose. Without some direct benefit, people will do whatever they feel like doing, consequences be damned. Sometimes, people are just dicks.

[@Anubis1101]

Also "they pay someone to do it, so why should I?" Is something I've not just heard, but been directly told as an employee. I have watched people casually dump trash and food on the floor and use that mindset as an excuse. Ironically, I see this attitude among players in games. We get used to the idea that everything is gonna be okay, because it's a narrative with a predetermined ending. We don't have to worry about saving the world, because the game will make sure it turns out okay anyway. I think it's a fascinating challenge for game designers to try and subvert that.

[@omiwa9718]

Having the material rewards for being good be better than the rewards for being bad never made any sense. This can suck the fun out of evil playthroughs. The “I don’t care” expedient shopping cart dumper would be a paladin of good if it paid the most. I thought Infamous for the ps3 handled this well. Good playthroughs felt like making a sacrifice to save those characters who you care about. Evil playthroughs were about getting drunk on power.

[@Sauvva_]

the rewards for being evil are always better if you can kill the characters and loot them, but in a short term, since you lose access to those characters, dark souls let you kill shopkeepers and loot their items, but then there is no restock anymore, i killed the arrow merchant by accident on my first playthrough and i thought bows were just useless because i never found arrows anywhere

[@octavianpopescu4776]

I honestly never liked evil playthroughs in games. It felt like I was missing the fun in an evil playthrough, missing content, interactions, missing the world basically.

[@Soumein]

I remember the tower scene in Infamous and already knew I didn't really have a choice. It's either: My character feels bad, or everyone makes my character feel bad. I think most of the Good side powers were better than the Evil powers right? Maybe it was just my playstyle. Though, I think I remember wanting to mix the two at one point. As far as the shopping carts go, I see people return them, but they just get them in the aisle, not caring how they're arranged, or even if they're with the same size cart. Bugs me enough to sort them myself.

[@TheMrRoc]

The coins in the trolley thing is pretty rare in Australia, mostly the ALDI chain do it but few other places do. For the most part, depending upon region, Aussies will simply return the trolley to the corral (or coral to my adult children; they get a giggle) but there are always some that 'just want to watch the world burn'. But having said that, there are near whole suburbs Downunder where only a handful of shoppers return their trolleys and yeah, because they 'can't be arsed' or 'they pay people to collect them' (I should add that here they pay people to collect the trolleys FROM the corrals to take back to the stores where they are kept outside and those people are then forced to go and collect the trolleys from wherever they are left to roam wild). On the other side of the coin to be sure, there are some centre car parks that are designed terribly for returning trolleys where there may be few trolley corrals and trying to put another one into the 'stack' that already blocks most of the carriageway will completely make it impassable to cars so it is actually a better option to just leave it somewhere not in the way. Other carparks as long as you get in the row that has the corral is fine as a rule, but for some elderly (who nearly always return their trolleys) can't make it up the bloody hill to do so! And others you have to dodge motorist looking for a park to take it several rows over (NOT 10ft/3.04m) some 50-100 metres... and don't get me started on the whole 'park next to the corral' thing which is often impossible unless you are the first to arrive or after that, just lucky, and when you do you find it is on the line of the marked parking bay and can't open your door! *For the record, my wife and I always grab a trolley from the corral in the car park and put our shopping bags (most Aussies are being trained slowly to bring your own--it's that reward thing Tim speaks of where you are punished/charged per bag for the store having to supply you with bags) and then return it to the corral when we load the car.

[@x5132]

I've read some discussion online on morally complex side quests. Many times it's a question: "what should I do?" or "what did you do?" And just as many times the first or most popular answer goes something like: "Best reward? Do this; Now what I did...", followed by paragraphs explaining how they reached a conclusion after much analyzing. Going by the answers, many go for the most morally correct over the reward, but maybe it's just the autoselected group that actually considers the morality of the options in the first place.

[@bugzymaccode]

The soda pop bottling company I worked for in the 80's used to have machines that would serve the old 6.5 and 10 oz. bottles for free. People would grab one and leave them all around about 2/3 full in the break room. The company started charging a nickel, and people started appreciating them.

[@aNerdNamedJames]

I'd always heard the theory discussed in relation to self-governance, but applying it to narrative design is definitely a cool idea. I especially like the point about multiple NPCs providing different excuses for the same wrongdoing only to have the last one be the only one who just straightforwardly says that it's because of knowing there's no punishment.

[@Dark_Kevlarian]

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater did this WONDERFULLY actually! It kept a tally of every person you killed even though the game details that you don't NEED to kill anyone that's not a boss. First time I played it, I got to the "River Styx," and the ghosts that take a small bit of your life were nearly unlimited! It was so hard to walk that river. Second time I played it, I made sure not kill anyone and that river...was clear the entire way through.

[@ronniebarter3857]

Did not expect Tim to go off on 'Lazybones' as part of the videogame design channel.

[@UlissesSampaio]

7:02 Philosophical: there is a great video by Veritasium on Game Theory ("What Game Theory Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything") which was an eye opener on human interactions.

[@UlissesSampaio]

9:07 btw I loved those types of quests in Bloodlines & Elder Scrolls. My justification is: that those are fun quests. The dark brotherhood one in Oblivion where you are at a party is pure genius. Before you judge me: I return my shopping carts (in real life that is :D)

[@TristenSarelvun]

@@UlissesSampaio There should be no judgement. Roleplaying an evil (or not-the-best) character in a game doesn't make someone remotely evil IRL. I mean, even playing "good" characters, most of us aren't going around IRL killing bandits, blowing up evil lairs, or negotiating peace between political leaders to begin with (and we wouldn't if we could).

[@UlissesSampaio]

@@TristenSarelvun I agree. I like to do things in games that are pretty much the opposite of what I would do in real life. Also, seems to me that most games railroad you to "playing nice". Thus it's refreshing to see games like Bloodlines and Elder Scrolls depart a bit from the norm. It's fun to see how far you can push a game to its limits.

[@TristenSarelvun]

@@UlissesSampaio Yeah. It's a bit disappointing to see series like Dragon Age allow less and less bad or even gray choices as the series goes on, and I'm the person who feels too sympathetic towards these virtual NPCs to make said "bad" choices (if I can help it). Even just knowing you have the option of playing nearly anybody you want and of really exploring the nuances of this fictional world enhances the experience, even if I rarely take those options. It also be argued that having bad choices available makes doing the right thing more fulfilling or genuine.

[@UlissesSampaio]

@@TristenSarelvun Indeed: you do good even though it will be worse for you. Btw, the ideal game for me is one that has a positive feedback loop: you are rewarded for playing the playstyle you want to play with. And the best reward imo is *content. This is why the games I mentioned above were great: you get quality content* (i.e. great side-stories) for doing those quests. Most other games will cut you off from content if you took the evil route, which railroads people for making the good choice.

[@connorwilcox146]

Now I wanna see an RPG about a single trip to the grocery store, where small actions like taking/leaving the last name brand item, greeting/ignoring the cashier, spending too much money or buying too cheap of food, taking too much time in the store, etc. all have an impact on the end slides. And of course, one of the decisions is whether or not you return the shopping cart.

[@jashloseher578]

Postal 2 will suit your needs greatly, I am sure. Few complete the game with the good ending.

[@UndeadFleshgod]

Tim, I hope you're watching Cart Narc. Absolute gold content! The length people go to not put it back go far beyond the effort of putting it back, it's very insightful about human nature haha

[@greggoat6570]

It is actually not gold content at all. It is a guy who obviously gets off on insulting people choosing targets that he thinks he can get away with being openly shitty towards without being called out himself. I’m convinced that guy is a way worse person than any of the people he has harassed and posted online. He isn’t doing anything to make anything better.

[@greggoat6570]

“The length people go to not put it back” is just so profoundly disingenuous, I’ve seen the stupid videos. Going around brow beating and insulting people does not mean that they have to do what you say. If some random asshole shoves a camera in my face unprovoked and starts mocking me I’m not exactly going to bend over backwards to make sure that I am a saint in THAT lunatics’ mind.

[@UndeadFleshgod]

@@greggoat6570 Spoken like a true lazybones

[@colinfrederick2603]

Chaotic neutral: always get a loose cart and put it back (to the wrong place) when you’re done.

[@TheinternetArchaeologist]

As A chaotic neutral internet entity I can confirm this is the Is officially endorsed method... We decided on a whim

[@misterj8815]

I saw this yesterday and put it in the right spot out of anger lol. *Shakes fist at those damn Chaotic neutral kids

[@daminit6]

would chaotic evil be returning a cart to a different store?

[@JokerDoom]

@@daminit6it would be taking all of the carts out of the corral and spreading them across the parking lot

[@SuperStewcat]

As someone whose job was grocery store maintenance for four years, the majority of my job consisted of grabbing shopping carts from corrals and bringing them into the store. Without the apathy of those who leave carts unattended I would've been out of a job long ago. Kudos to the apathetic

[@appidydafoo]

Thank you Tim. I'm not involved in game design, but I am involved in a creative writing project. I find that your advice consistently translates into more robust world, plot and character development.

[@sofaking1627]

I love this. Thank you for sharing. I always love when an RPG doesn't just let you "be" good, it makes you put in effort to be good. Meanwhile the bad route always looks easier, or faster, or more rewarding up front so it's always tempting. I can think of maybe less than 10 games I've played that really nail this.

[@garchomowner]

Hi tim! Great video topic! I am not a dev, but lifelong gamer for 20+ years now. The problem with shopping cart theory being put inside a game is a lot of players think the act of consuming a game's content is a reward of itself. Sometimes doing the "good choice" is a more satisfying character arc for the player character/overal story theme/ or the quest NPCs. For example red dead redemption 1/2 or disco elysium. While games and trick or incentives players by giving them better rewards when they do the not moral choice, but at the same time these evil choices can conflict with the overall game's theme or character arc. Sure you can play Arthur morgan as murdering psycho arsehat but playing as good arthur is more satisfying because it completes his overall character development that fully support the redemption title. The same with games like disco elysium while you can play harry as fuckjob drunk 24/7 detective, having him heal and rediscover his purpose is more satisfying that leaving harry in the mire of depression and darkness.

[@planet1416]

I had a white chocolate ad before this video

[@bluespiritrecords1709]

I've never had a term for this, but it's something I've noticed before and always wished was implemented in games more. So often, the good or right thing to do in games is assumed, and it's on the player to go out of their way to do something selfish or bad if they feel like it. But that's not how actual bad things happen, really; it's actually the inverse, as you said. More games should have the bad/evil/selfish thing to do be the easiest or most rewarding, as that's how it often is in real life. All you have to do to be a bad person is not be bothered. While you often have to care and go out of your way in order to be a good person.

[@kirglow4639]

Whenever I watch Tim's videos, I always wish I could give multiple likes to the video. So much wisdom, such eloquent presentation, and I always learn something. Thank you Tim

[@lxdougla831]

Tim you are awesome. Going to try to apply this in my classroom

[@garrenbrooks4778]

I think this idea actually applies across the board. Even if you do good without consciously expecting a reward the fact that you feel good about yourself by doing good is in itself a reward.

[@Vulkan1998]

Thats a weird one. Here in germany if you dont return your shopping cart people won't kindly on that and I have never seen parking lots where one cart isn't returned.

[@HerrDoktorWeberMD]

I never thought of shopping cart theory as a character writing question before, love this

[@zarlg]

The Tim Cain / Cart Narcs crossover I didn't know I needed

[@ChaseTheDisgrace]

Hi Tim! Thank you for all of your videos sharing your stories and extensive knowledge on game production. I appreciate the time you have put into making these videos- I hope you keep it up, as your insight is priceless!

[@greenya84]

Thank you for great video as always. Just my five cents on it -- All those action can be placed in one of two categories: required and optional. Getting the cart before going shopping is a required (you just don't have enough hands to hold all you need, and you don't have time to go shopping multiple times a day). Returning the cart after you used it is an optional action. I think it's a main reason why people act like that. If you can come up with the way to make returning a cart a required act somehow, it would be all different. For example, just imagine, when you get the cart, you have to leave a key to your car (or some other important item) in exchange. So you can get it back only when you return the cart.

[@justinquarantine]

The Quarter thing Tim brought up actually works they don't have workers to get the carts and only have the carts in the front of the store and I've never seen a single cart in the parking lot... The only thing stopping people from being lazy is losing a quarter it's crazy but it actually works...

[@wesss9353]

In the middle of a snow storm, it's reasonable because they push the snow into the cart corral. I put the cart back in the cart corral. Or take it back into the store.

[@Ares42]

This made me think of the Diablo 4 story, and how a bunch of people actually fell for the villains "I'm the good guy" rhetoric.

[@stenis0]

This is fascinating, and there are videos where people confront those who don't return carts. I still remember when I was a kid when me and my mom went shopping. There were always carts left abandoned right after the cashiers. I would assemble as many as I could and return them. I remember one time, the entrance was completely filled with carts, and I got to work.. thinking back, the staff must have been so appreciative of these silly kids coming in and doing "their" jobs. These days of course, there is a monetary incentive to return the carts. I never understood - and still don't- why people just couldn't return the carts. Well, time to watch the video!

[@toffotin]

One thing that I have thought about a lot in RPGs is that the bad options should be much more rewarding, at least occasionally. I like to play good and moral characters, but I don't really ever feel tempted to try the bad options. The good option is usually also the best option.

[@rhapsody5065]

I think immaterial rewards that still have tangible benefit to you as a player are a great way to handle good acts. I very distinctly remember the starport visa sidequest in Knights of the Old Republic II, where people are desperately looking to get off a planet that's on the cusp of civil war. You can find visas to give to people who want them, but you only get two, and there are several more than that. The best rewards by far are the ones that give you dark side points: a very powerful lightsaber crystal and tons of money. On the other end, you get nothing material at all for helping the poor and desperate single mother and her two children. But you DO get light side points and build trust with your light side companions. When you reach the point when you are fully light or dark in Kotor, you gain a pretty strong attribute bonus (wisdom for light and strength for dark), and when you build your companions' trust, you can further their stories and see growth in them and their abilities. There are reasons that help you to do the selfless act, represented in a way that's (somewhat) true to life. Although outside of a clear cut world like star wars, there's definitely some possibility for nuance there too. I don't think there are enough RPGs that explore the idea of the player performing selfless acts for selfish, hidden reasons enough. Maybe someone out there will!

[@patricktkeegan]

I appreciate the subtlety with which you delivered the classic “I took an arrow to the knee” 😂❤

[@MJ-mk8jg]

I just want to say thanks for doing all these videos, its so great to hear from someone who's been there & done it. I'm 61 but i still remember playing Fallout for the first time. All the best from Yorkshire

[@verisimilitone]

You love to see a Subject Matter Expert elaborate on supererogatory vs. obligatory behavior. Thanks Tim!

[@BuzzKirill3D]

...and return your damn shopping carts

[@jashloseher578]

I cannot agree harder than a like and a comment, Tim. Definitely a good lesson to put out there.

[@colbymclemore7642]

I just finished Project Gorgon DLC and felt it did a great job of representing this exact scenario. Doing the right thing didn’t necessarily lead to the best reward, but my character couldn’t justify the bad actions.

[@RazielIgor]

I always returned the cart, and even when I said "This time I'm going to try to be an evil character" in an CRPG, I always ended up helping NPCs even if they can not reward me for it (and if they looked poor I ended up giving money to them instead). So I can see the relation.

[@SarovokTheFallen]

I've never heard of this problem before today, because you had to insert a euro where I live to get the cart, which unlocks a chain from the next cart. You get the euro back when you rehook the chain into the slot... so you have a financial reason to return it (it's been like this for 35 years)

[@mohawklogan]

We do that in Canada too and I'm sure they do it in the states. Some people just don't give a fuck even if they lose out on a quarter (which is what it is here)

[@octavianpopescu4776]

It's more of a US thing. Americans have a different service philosophy compared to us in Europe. In the US, the customer is supposed to be treated as a god among mortals, service staff doing everything for them (why Tim mentions the "there are people paid to put the cart back", as in "if I pay for something, whatever I don't like doing should be done by others"). They operate on the assumption that paying and tipping for a service means others should do it. Throw money at a problem to make it go away. In Europe, we tend to treat service staff as equals and we apply the normal social rules in our interactions with them. We don't have a god complex as customers (it's why Karens are common in the US, they think that normal social rules don't apply in a customer-service staff interaction). For us it's normal to bag your own groceries and not have someone do it for you, it's normal not to have greeters when entering a story, it's normal for a waiter not to ask you how you are every 2 minutes, it's why we don't expect service staff to smile all the time and why it's normal to return your own cart instead of expecting others to do it for you (coin or not, I return it even without coins). We have different interpretations of what service staff should do as part of their interactions with customers and frequently Europeans going to the US and Americans coming here complain about these things, expecting to see the same things they're familiar/comfortable with.

[@AHungryHunky]

​@@mohawkloganI know Aldi's does, but they are an exception not the norm here in Pittsburgh.

[@liaminwales]

@@octavianpopescu4776 There's an amazing doc about Walmart's failed push in to Germany, the locals relay did not like being greeted going in to the shop. It was an almost hostile conflict in service culture, workers where forced to 'smile' at people even!

[@mattc7420]

Sounds like communism. Here in America Freedom land we leave all public spaces disorganized and blame our problems on someone else 🦅🇺🇲

[@harpake]

I remember I once left an IKEA shopping cart on the loading area. I think there's usually some place to return it nearby but I couldn't find it. Looking for it would have meant I would maybe inconvenience someone that wanted to use the spot my car was in. I still have nightmares about it.

[@CaptainFancyCat]

Thank you for making these videos! They feel like bite size college lectures.

[@liaminwales]

This just made me want to see more NPC's actions and dialogue not match up, the kind worded NPC who steals items or talks bad to random NPC's. Events where the player can judge the actions of there companions and the companions actions effect the player, maybe a healer who heals random (or only kids etc.) people in a town without the player doing anything. Events that happen and can be seen or missed by the player that can also effect the player, only thing is the system needs' to be well done. Iv seen a lot of games that clearly just follow the dev's personal ideals/culture and punish anything the dev did not like.

[@adamdravian]

Today I learned I'm inherently good. Thanks, Tim!

[@MaskedImposter]

That depends. Did you also like and subscribe!?

[@JohnnyTheWolf-d3p]

This reminds me: lately, I have taken to picking up empty cans and beer bottles on the side of the road. When you bring them to a supermarket with a reverse vending machine, you can make money this way. The whole process is quite reminiscent of a video game or at the very least a scavenger hunt, except what I make from it I try giving it to beggars I encounter. I also make a point not to compete with other people doing the same, especially when they look more desperate than I am.

[@mellit6630]

Good morning, Tim! Thank you for another video. These start my morning and help start my mindset to make time after work for my game!!

[@MercenaryTau]

Or there's those people that take the shopping cart home and respond with "you can bring it back if it bothers you so much."

[@jashloseher578]

The exact phrase of the lady that abandons it on the apartment's lawn here.

[@JesseColeArts]

I see this a lot working in retail when it comes to 12 packs of soda/water people suddenly become 1000x weaker when they get to the checkout counter and will refuse to pick it up to scan even for a second so I have to go around the counter for them even though they’ve already picked it up and will eventually have to put it in their car and later put it in their house, I’ve made a small test in dating/friendship in whether or not they put a cart back and it’s worked wonders to tell me their true nature especially when I ask them why.

[@anthonygonzalez3308]

something that i feel needs to be added is the design of shopping cart corrals in certain parking lots. the location of these corrals and whether or not they are accessible in the portion of the parking lot you are in can be a major driving factor in the return of shopping carts. there is a publix by where i live that has only 3 corrals and all three are only accessible from one direction in a parking lot that is almost always full and cars are constantly move in and out. while i normally return carts to the corrals, this is the only lot where i say its not worth returning it to the corral because its not worth the effort to return it.

[@Algorhythmic]

In the UK this is known as the trolley problem. Wait…

[@SyndicateOperative]

The trolley problem is something very different, haha. The trolley problem involves the sort of trolley that moves on tracks, i.e. a carriage of a train. It's a "sacrifice one or many" scenario, which some people have added a twist to, where they ensure there's a loop at the end of the railway so both parties get hit...

[@dragontear1638]

Heheheh.

[@spaceiliad2001]

Tim we love you. Thank you for being you and existing.🙏

[@CAInandAIbel]

Then there are those people at Aldi who give you their shipping cart without requesting a quarter from you.

[@wesss9353]

I had a cute girl talk to me, because of the cart. It was a good day.

[@kaisokusekkendou1498]

A big concern I have with rewarding morality choices in games is that it kind of "gamifies" morality. The people focused on experiencing all the content will then pick good or bad options specifically to "experience all the content" or "complete the collection". The games with moral choices that hit the hardest seem to be when you have zero incentive either way (shopping cart situation), and the player gets to live with the ramifications of what they chose to do. You actually feel bad about abandoning someone to save your own skin, while in another game you might think "that's 5 more points down the Evil Path, 10 more and I can use the purple lightning skill".

[@Therealnferno]

You made me feel a lot better that I return my shopping cart thank you, Tim

[@nerdock4747]

KoToR 2 is a fantastic example of this in practice. There's one quest on Nar Shadaa where a woman in a refugee camp is trying to find her husband and there are guards in the way of the exit. There's no conversation option to get the guards to move, the only way to get them out of the way is to kill them and you get dark side points for that action - BUT the intrinsic nature of the quest is that you are doing a good thing. it's very interesting.

[@dragontear1638]

That sounds like a lack of a conversation or non-violent method is just missing, rather than intentionally making you question whether it's good or not. Trying to convince the guards to be compassionate would be more interesting.

[@nerdock4747]

@@dragontear1638 Well while that's true, I think the intent was likely "do you want to take the risk to do something perceived as bad, but for a good reason?" Either way, what you said makes sense as well.

[@JavierBonnemaison]

"Logical" emphasized with a perfect Vulcan 🖖. Respect! 😊

[@KarnizArchada]

This speaks so loudly to how I play games even if there is no inherent reward for being 'good'. Heck, in V Rising I will never go out of my way to kill villagers that run and hide from me. When I ransack their villages for loot I do not attack, even the ones coming at me with pitchforks. I simply run past, take what I need, and leave. Did I have to? No. And yes, I always return the damned shopping cart...!

[@fiddlebender88]

2:53 Palpatine moment.

[@uchusky08]

I'm 37 years old and have never thought about parking next to the corral to make putting the cart back easier. Thanks for that. 😅 I have always parked as close to the entrance as I could find. For the record, I usually put the cart back in the corral, typically by seeing from how far away I can push it and get it in the corral. I may be 37, but I haven't grown up much.

[@helloimatapir]

Every time I play an RPG I tell myself I am going to make a full-blown evil character, but when it comes time to make the big decisions, I can't do it! It doesn't matter how good the rewards are. There is one particular quest in Tyranny where I have refused the most evil option on every play through, even though I made some other choices that were certainly not "good".

[@adamsbja]

It can be neat when those situations come up and you maybe learn about a line you didn't know you had. Sometimes it's obvious (do you kick the puppies) but sometimes even if there's a "good" and "bad" option they make them more ambiguous. Suppose you have an enemy army and a bomb, do you blow up a bridge to keep them from retreating into the city, blow up some ships you know the enemy general will try to escape by, or chase the enemy into the city and blow them (and civilians) up when they're clustered?

[@ColonelRPG]

As an European, I can't believe what I'm hearing. You mean that people DO NOT TAKE THE CART BACK TO THE PLACE!!!! I think this isn't a morality issue. It's a sociology issue.

[@hirovast10100]

i feel like a good example of the right way it was done was with choosing whether or not to harvest the little sisters in Bioshock

[@zaphodbond]

When I was younger, people where complete savages with their shopping carts, leaving them everywhere, then like in many places the token/quarter/dollar deposit system was introduced and it solved the problem pretty well and it remained that way for years. Then when the pandemic happened, they temporarily removed that requirement and shopping carts were free to take without any coin. Surprisingly everything remained organized and people remained civil. I haven't seen a single place who activated it again since then and it's not an issue. So I believe there is other nuances to that behavior, once people get use for years to act civilized, even if you remove the punishment/reward then people continue to do the good behavior just by habit.

[@SiriusMined]

My propensity is to choose the good path because that's who I am. The very rare occasions when I've done in the bad thing it's because I'm metagaming, and the benefit of doing the bad thing is just so much greater, and the consequences to others isn't morally reprehensible to me. But if it is straight up evil, I can't do it even if I'm met a gaming

[@chromdom9301]

I reject your premise that returning the cart is a good. I had the job of getting the carts from the parking lot, and let me tell you, getting out, away from the managers and customers and piped in music, that was the best part of my day. Returning a cart to a corral is not necessarily a Good Thing.

[@JM_Traslo]

In Britain it's basically the complete norm for a full £1 coin to be needed to use trolleys, it's definitely popular to get them to invest in its use

[@chaddickhaut140]

Another way to approach it is to offer no immediate reward (or at least a lesser reward) for doing the good action, but have it subtly adjust the attitudes of the recipient(s) and/or onlookers in your favor in the long term. Yes, reputation increases are a form of reward, but rather than having the immediate dopamine hit of a karma/rep meter ticking up, keep the response/indicator more organic (i.e. gain rep with people and they will generally react to you more favorably, and it takes time for that improvement to propagate within a group). I know this isn't exactly an innovative idea, but I prefer it to an instant notification and everyone being telepathically informed of your good deeds. 😉

[@MrJekken]

I think a good way games can handle this, at least for some quest lines is to either make the material reward for good and bad outcomes equal or at least unknown to the player when they encounter it for the first time

[@tafellappen8551]

I work at a convenience store and i think there is at least one psychology study worth doing on the people who will just keep adding to the pile of dubious-probably-dirty self-serve drink cups ON TOP of the table which literally has a labelled trash bin underneath. The only vaguely reasonable possibility is they didnt see it because its at knee height but its not like its the only trash in the store. The amount that this happens is absurd. This is my shopping cart theory and possibly my villain origin story

[@ptr_mic]

I wonder if all the rewards and perks throughout the whole game were inherently better for the bad side, would majority pick the good or bad? I mean a game where people would be literally punished/crippled for trying to act decent. Makes you think about life morality, because, that how it feels sometimes - there are situations one knows there will be consequences, but the individual still decides to do the right thing in spite of the consequences. This falls on the spectrum and can be about small things or big matters. I think about most persecuted individuals who oppose power structure for example (plenty of examples in both recent and distant history) - what is driving those people if both, reward or punishment is insufficient to influence their behaviour? Fascinating stuff.

[@1nown]

There are, (primarily outside America) many places where the personal benefit from not putting the trolley back (we call them that in Australia as well) is much higher due to people living closer to the shops and/or not having a car. Trying to lug groceries in plastic bags doesn't work or you might even be banned. Yes, you can buy a backpack or a wheeled doodad to carry your shopping but the capacity is far lower than the cart so you can't buy as much at once. And of course, both cost more to buy than that dime/dollar/euro in the deposit system. As a result, people that have to a lot of shopping (mainly parents) will sometimes take their trolley home, perhaps even to an area outside their apartment. Stores don't like this but they also like to have people spend more so unless there is a punishment for the environmental waste and disruption of abandoned or displaces trollies for letting people take their trollies out of the store they simply say 'why should we make our customers mad by stopping this? It's more expensive to us than eating the cost.' This is where group morality and individual morality conflict in a different way. If the problem gets bad enough, people will push back in a bigger way than usual. The local authorities might (like they did here) enforce a crackdown to order the cost of abandoned trolley up to flip that business logic. An action can be a trivial good for one person or a huge sacrifice for another, even if the monetary or material value might be a same. Binary quests where one action is 'good' and another is bad would miss the complexity described here. I loved the way New Vegas provided for how moral decisions change based on other decisions, actions and contexts - when it did, at least. It obviously increases dev work and if you have full voice acting in particular, a whole lot of recording hours and money.

[@1nown]

For the record, I don't have kids so I can do personal shopping with just a backpack. But I live near and walk past almsot daily places where this happens or happened. Some even came up with a de facto trolley-parking area near the flats and once they had to go back, would simply take an empty trolley from there back to the mall. Always fascinating how context and perspective changes what might otherwise seen as an inherently 'good' or 'evil' binary question.

[@ThaetusZain]

makes think of something I heard, how often do game characters just lie? Not as plot point or anything, but just lie to you for any stupid reason. It happens but it's very rare. Yet irl it happens constantly. Like take every time you knew someone lied to you and multiply it by 50 common.

[@rhapsody5065]

I noticed your dog sitting by you in the glass case reflection he's a good boy who would definitely return the shopping cart

[@zurcarak]

Great theory and video. I wouldn't mind if it was illegal to not retrieve the shopping cart to the queue, but then the theory wouldn't exist

[@Kai_Ning]

Lots of other european here explaining how it works here. But there's not only the need to put 1€ to get the cart, most stores give plastic coin designed just for that so you can get around this. And even in store without this system (like ikea), nobody never leave the cart around and they're always returned. It baffled me when i learned how it works in the US and somehow, it didn't surprised me seeing how the "customer is king" mentality is so present. As a french, you tend to not want to be treated as a king. It's a head loosing interaction in our book.

[@rudysmith1552]

Hey, what do you think about soft reboot of game franchises, often accompanied by major changes in format like from fallout one and two being top down RPG’s going into fallout three being a 3-D open world or persona one and two being 3-D dungeon crawler’s having a bunch of mechanical difference. It’s going into persona three which has the modern persona formula with the one more system.

[@MannerdDesert7]

Rasczak: Tell me the moral difference, if any, between the Citizen & the Civilian? Rico: A Citizen returns the shopping cart, a civilian does not. Rasczak: The exact words of the text.

[@MrAntraxico]

I remember back when I was a kid playing WOW vanilla, that there was a quest for Night Elves in which a faun of some sort gave you a quest chain and despite knowing that the fauns where evil and that I was getting tricked, did them anyway because ya know XP is a drug. I felt so gladly surprised when I actually got caught, faun was killed and I got called out for abeting the enemy. The game even took away some reputation which I found so cool at the time. Shame that was pretty much the only quest that did this because it took away from the gameplay loop. In fact it might have even been erased from the game since I can't seem to find it. Or it could be that my memory is broken and I am just making it up but I swear I remember something so impactful. To me that made the game feel alive. Like it telling me to not act like a zombie and that there stakes of some sort. I guess that was before it was decided to go full throtle into the poorly disguised hamster wheel that is now WOW.

[@daemir2143]

What I feel almost every game does not manage to do is to make declining the rewards for quests for either good/bad/neutral whatever side, meaningful. All games will end up flooding the player with resources, so it's a reward you never need. I have real hard time thinking of a single game where by the midgame most "material" goods aren't rather irrelevant either because I already have tons of them or have the means to get tons of them, or the growth of my characters power means I don't need them. You can't really bribe me to do the evil thing for 1000 gold, if after an hour or 2 I have 20 000 gold in the bank. But things like the end slides being affected is a prime motivator for me.

[@TourFaint]

I remember in icewind dale 2, if you have a paladin or a monk as the lead in the party, they will almost always refuse the reward, while evil characters or rogues could finagle a better one once or twice.

[@johnsmith6497]

I literally today was playing through nuka world and was in kiddy kingdom talking to Oswald when I googled whether or not I should kill him and expected everyone to say kill him for his unique outfit and weapon but was surprised to see a lot of people sticking up for him and saying he was just trying to protect his people now immediately after I'm listening to Tim Cain explaining how people will often attempt to explain their strange behaviors haha!

[@marcbraun5342]

Nier is an interesting case, and yes I love that game. You basically get no reward for completing quests, experience is only gained from fights which are questionable at some point. Nevertheless this was one of the few games I did the completionist route, crossed every flower, catched every fish and so on, although the rewards of quest only came from hearing the full, most tragic and sad, stories of the inhabitants. This method was a huge gample, and maybe not even fully conscious and it certainly didn't payed out (at the beginnign at least, it got a remaster) but somehow it was perfect for me. Maybe despite this structure, of course I would have liked xp on top of it, but it was enough for me to want to do every single side quest.

[@Soumein]

Has Tim done a video on hidden quests? Tasks to do from talking to an NPC, but not logged into a journal, therefore communicating to the player it's unimportant? I guess it's related to secrets or easter eggs in a way. This just made me think of random NPC's who say things like, "Winter's're getting colder. Wish I were younger or my axe were sharper." Then you go and bring them a new Axe.

[@AcedAspect]

In Ireland we have to put a pound in the shopping cart so we have to return them

[@mina7572]

If I returned it I would be putting the cart collector out of a job!

[@xyhmo]

Tim, it'd be awesome if you started an ethics channel. ^^ You may not be a professional philosopher, but you got a good pro-social instinct and an advanced common sense to go with that, and a lot of experience to make it grounded with examples and observations. And you could make a lot of connections to RPGs. It would be a new completely unexpected adventure. ”Be good with Tim Cain”. ^^ Not a joke, I think that would be awesome, and educational for a lot of people.

[@DSprich]

In the UK, the coin we use for the trolly/cart is £1 which, at the time of writing, is $1.27. I'd love to know how much of a difference the charge makes when it's 5 times as much, or if the effect is the just same as long as there's a marginal punishment.

[@REXanadu]

All of this implies 'doing the right thing' = 'being a good person,' which is why most game morality feels so performative - morality being shown by a meter or pop-up notice Morality is also relative, so it's hard to judge what is 'right' all the time. I thought gamers learned this during that famous conversation with Kreia(sp?) from Knight of the Old Empire 2 about this very thing

[@HoboWithAShotgun]

Im usually a saint in games. Also i always return the cart to the corral. This brings animal crossing to mind. The rewards arent always good but you can feel a sense of minor dread if you dont complete a task lol