Is dying a necessary concept in video games?

>>381030789

Well obviously not considering there are some great games that don't have dying as a mechanic.

Not necessarily, though most games will naturally rely on it as a default fail state.

>>381030789
ask Prince of Persia 2008

>>381030789
No, but you need some way or another to punish the player for mistakes and failures. Easy example is a platformer where you take no damage but receive knockback from enemies, and falling is punishing because the levels are vertically designed. You never die, but a particularly cruel hit might send you plummeting all the way back to the start.

>>381030789
No. See animal crossing.

>>381030940
I see you have also played Planescape Torment.

>>381030789
If the game is for amusement, no.

If it's for competition, then yes, Because the concept is necessary. Dying typically indicates that you failed or lost the game. The simple fact that you can lose or fail at an aspect of a game is necessary. Because if you can't fail then where's the challenge in that?

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Not at all. There are plenty of games where failure doesn't result in death. Some games are so basically abstract that the concept of death isn't even a consideration. Nobody associates death with Tetris. Well, almost nobody.

>be good at games
>don't die
it's that easy, OP

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>>381031687
But what if you can't die?
Does that mean you were ever alive in the first place?

It sure is interesting how the concept of death and killing is a common theme among the most popular games.

But you have to kill to eat irl so maybe it's a basic instinct to enjoy this

some form of fail state is needed in ALL games,tabletop,schoolyard and vidya

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>>381031872
>Does that mean you were ever alive in the first place?
i wish

>>381031547
>If it's for competition, then yes
If that's true then why don't sports have post-season death purges?

>>381030789
not really, like no one has to die in mario kart or everybodys golf or tetris.

Failure, however, has to be a part of it.
If you can't fail at it, it's not a game, it's a simulator, or an "interactive experience" or whatever.

A labyrinth doesn't have a fail state.
The answer to OP's question is no.

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>>381031615
>that pic
3's execution was so much worse though

>>381032126
Because it's death as a concept of failure. Not the actual concept of death.

Obviously, if you can repeatedly play the game then it's not actual death.

>>381032380
For all things that have binary solved or non-solved positions could you then say that every non-solved position is a fail state until you arrive at the solved position?

>>381032629
Not necessarily, especially if there's no solved position.
There are many games with no clear goal. And a fail state can be subjective depending on the player.

>>381030789
Nope. Consider some of the Wario Land games. They were perfectly normal adventure platformers, but it was impossible for the player to die. Getting knocked around/subjected to status changes worked well enough as a punishment.

>>381032629
I'd say solved, unsolved, and unsolvable would be the three states. Be default games shouldn't be unsolvable, but by failing the player has made the game unsolvable. At that point the only options are to either return to an earlier solvable state or to reset the game into a new state.

>>381030789
Most of the people responding don't seem to be able to wrap their head around "dying as a concept" and seem to be taking it quite literally.

>>381030789
Clearly not, but a game has to pose some sort of challenge and that implies it has to have some sort of way to fail or to otherwise prevent you from progressing if you aren't playing it well enough. It doesn't have to be dying and reloading, it doesn't have to be a straight-up failure state at all, it's enough for instance if it simply doesn't let you progress until you manage to do whatever it is that's required.

>>381030789
At my last job, we made edutaintment games. The one I worked on was a simple arcadey joint with p cool/novel mechanics, held back of course by the educational focus. Unfortunately, after lots of playtesting and iteration to tighten up the controls & visual feedback of everything, we ultimately found out that little kids do little to nothing to avoid danger. Just like a bunch of sperglords.

We had to remove death as a mechanic. The kids couldn't function with it. That ruined whatever iota of value the game had

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>>381031872
>Does that mean you were ever alive in the first place?
Woah...

Unless the game is supposed to be for "Hardcore Gamers," a developer isn't allowed to make Death have any real consequences without the massive casuals that make up a vocal chunk of what we call "people who play videogames" bitching and moaning until said consequences are removed or lessened to have no actual downside.

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Why is there so much death in video games?

>>381034947
For the longest time my nephew considered losing at video games to be a failure of the game's design instead of a failure of whatever strategy he had come up with. Kid was getting seriously upset about getting splits on Wii Bowling.

>>381036369
Not surprised. I think the "ease of use" meme has gone too far. Kids nowadays grow up with simplistic, instantly-gratifying tech, which creates expectations they level on video games. IT JUST WERKS and you succeed at the game, or the game's fucked up and you fail.

>>381035580
Because we used to see some shit.