Again, commendably, DX:HR did that at one point. If you've been breaking into offices at Sarif Enterprises and looting them, when you return there next time you get e-mails from your coworkers requesting that you, Head of Security, investigate the recent thieving incidents you, player, caused. It's actually useful, since you get the door codes.
Ah, I remember. It's a funny moment, but the fact that it is useful is sad. They're rewarding the 'stealing' behavior, in a game that doesn't even feature a thief archetype. It'd be more hilarious if you got an email from HR to come by their office, and then some lady made you sit through a long concerned lecture about your habit of entering people's offices and money disappearing.
In Witcher 2, if you walk around town with an unsheathed sword, the civilians have special negative reactions, guards threaten you, etc. This is immersive. Villagers not noticing or caring about stealing breaks immersion. Furthermore, having virtually all of the games' crafting supplies in chests and barrels that you need to steal from (buying the supplies is pretty steep) is actively encouraging the stealing trope. In the Witcher novels,
Geralt is not a thief!What I'd like to see is if a game allows you to steal, show some consequences. Rewarding conversation options that disappear as villagers begin to suspect the newcomer of the thefts. Quests lines that close off (choice: money or xp). New quest options ("Widow Angus didn't make rent again, says she was robbed. Would you go shake her down?") Children making comments ("Why do you go into people's houses?") Less reward money. Limited selling options. What I'd also love to see is RPG loot systems that are not based around randomly running around looking for openable objects. I'm tired of this dated game mechanic that encourages mindless exploration purely by lootable nodes. Enter room, look for shinies, exit. Give me earnable money instead and let me buy my shit, like a normal person! Let me walk into places and enjoy them without a handful of glitternig containers. We've got hyper-realistic computer graphics that depict every last little detail of a world, but how many games make you
knock on a door to enter a house?
Bethesda games at least have some thought to the issue. Stealing is not terribly worth it in their games, if you're not a thief. Its fairly entertaining to steal, if you are, but most of that comes from quests related to it. Its a hassle to find a fence for stolen items weighing down your pack all the time. You must steal when backs our turned. Containers usually have crap in them - its fairly easy to walk by most of the containers in the game and not worry that you missed something important. Its not inspired, but very little of it breaks immersion.
Its just a lazy game mechanic, and it'd be so trivial to improve it or turn it on its head and play it for laughs.