Humans have an intrinsic need to play. Video games are play for the modern era and technology has just about reached a point where this play medium is only limited by our imagination. When we're only limited by our imagination though why do we seem to always come back to games that have good guys and bad guys, winners and losers? As Constantine pointed out, why do we have to have game designed focused on health and living or dying? I think the answer is actually a simple one... a very human one. It's what we expect. It's what we know. Most importantly, it's what we can relate to. They say art imitates life and video games as a very power art form of play. What we understand is no one lives forever and you have to be careful of the choices you make. Choices have consequences in real life; after all it's what causes us pause to think. If video games didn't have consequences we'd just barrel through and miss important aspect of the story. Victory or finishing the story would be meaningless. I can remember playing games that were very very hard. I'd get frustrated. I'd scream at the screen. I'd turn it off and walk away. But I always came back and when I finished something difficult or tricky the feeling of accomplishment was amazing. I always wondered what people got of a game if they used a cheat code that allowed them to waltz through the game. What good did that do? Why bother? What possible sense of accomplishment could have gotten out of the game.
Now, this still doesn't answer the question of why can't we have that same sort of accomplishment WITHOUT a hard fail state, like a character dying. After all, games can be puzzled based and still give you the same sense of accomplishment. Myst was extremely popular and it had that same sense of accomplishment but didn't have a hard fail state. When I was in college I played the Gabriel Knight series and it remains to this day one of my all time favorite game series. Again, all the satisfaction without the hard fail state. So why do we have a hard fail state? I don't think the answer is an easy one quiet honestly, certainly not one that can be answered here. I think there are numerous variables that feed into why we need this...and I firmly believe we absolutely NEED to have that fail state. Even though there are no fast and easy answers, I leave you with a few reasons (none which are the end all be all to answering the question). This need for a fail state comes from a triad of reason compromising design, real to unreal transition, and what we relate to as humans. First is a plain and simple design mechanism. How do players know that they've done well? They continue...they don't die. Second, when we step into the role of our game avatar we need to feel a connection or the game's playability and story are just images that flash before our eyes. The way you establish that connection is to give you a vested interest in the avatar and that interest comes in the form of you keeping them alive. Finally, I believe we can probably liken the reason to something a bit more primal. We like games that are combative in nature. We like to play the "hero's" role of beating the monster under our bed (so to speak). We like to play a role that allows us to take control and through brain AND brawn we work through the world and come out winners. It appeals to our nature of being human.
