Failures don't last forever: death in video games

If there is anything that is similar across the vast amount of different video game genres is the inevitable moment of death, failure or screw ups. I cannot think of a single video game that would not somehow make it possible for you to lose, die, have to start over. Ever since the video games emerged there was always a way to lose - and much like there was always a way to win, those particular elements have to be present in every game. Sure, sometimes the game allows you to have control over your destiny (Prince of Persia) but even those are limited and if you make a mistake a couple of times, you are bound to lose progress, experience, items or whatever else those sadistic game developers thought of.

Naturally, without such death system the games would lose it's appeal - and while yes - we all want to win win win, but without the sense of impending doom, of losing if a mistake is made, the games wouldn't be very exciting to play. I believe that Game Over in games is meant as a way to keep players in check and not give them a sense of being the god in the game and being able to do whatever it is that they want - deaths provide a way to punish bad play and allow for the game difficulty to raise. While there is only a handful of games that upon death ask you to restart the entire adventure, those would not be very popular as players would simply get sick of having to re-do the same thing over and over again - a savegame was born.

In the book excerpt we were to read, Klastrup explains the vision and the idea behind video game death through WoW, which isn't terribly accurate as there are no save points, and death is merely reduced to missing out on some items or losing item durability - and eventually money.

Ultimately, if your not willing to lose and die, why play?