You are dead: Game Over

[jango]

I doubt this will be to everyone's taste or interest, but it was an interesting read if you have the patience for it ..


Death is everywhere in videogames, a colloquial representation of failure. From the earliest days, you were given three "lives" to try and best the patterns of enemies and obstacles between you and the goal. Every lapse in reflex, memory, or reason led to death in the form of an obliterated pixel cloud radiating outwards. You did something wrong, it says. Pac-Man dies, Mario dies, Marcus Fenix dies, Gordon Freeman dies, Cloud dies, and even Sims can die ..

Click here for the full article (http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/108/1081930p1.html).

[Kink3bird]

Very interesting read Jango, I liked the intelligent exploration of how death is the simplest form of communicating failure. It's like hardwired into our brains! I dunno if this was purposely discovered as a way for game designers to get the point of failure across but it's universal and brilliant if they did.

[Charlotte]

yeh, the easy way to prevent is by using cheat codes... huahuahua

[jango]

yeh, the easy way to prevent is by using cheat codes... huahuahua

did you even read the article ..

[Diligence109]

huh... not honestly the most interesting read, imho, but thanks for sharing!

I feel like he could have pulled the article in a direction that looked at sociological effects of what death has become in games - I feel like he just laid out a bunch of facts and did nothing with them. It's just a report on not much material...

On that note, I'm interested, how do you think the different meaning of death in games affects us as people as we grow and develop?

[jango]

aye it coulda gone deeper for sure, but i'm not sure it would be too accessible then - esp for ign

[Samus-Fan]

Great article, like you guys said, he could have gone deeper, but I like where he left it as that allows each of us to take what he laid out and put it in our own perspective.
He pretty much said that Death isn't the dramatic and surprising thing video games make it out to be, he stated that Death is something we all will reach, and chances are, we'll know when it'll be. It won't be a shadow walking around, jumping out when you least expect it.

[LiNuX]

Death has become so absolutely engrained in game culture that you might have just learned to look past it.

I agree and disagree with that part. I agree that dying in games won't bother someone and it may actually help dealing with dead bodies in real life but I don't know how games or anything else can help you look past death because it is the ultimate fate of everything.

Other than that it was an interesting read.

[BobTD]

Sometimes character deaths can be moving, as they are part of a storyline. We as a species (and like many other animals) know what "play" is, and its our mental state when dealing with the non fatal representation of death. So that way it becomes a learning tool, and not a physiologically frightening taboo.

I wonder why the writer didn't mention the last Prince of Persia, I dont think you can die, your teammate has to help you and enemies recover health in real time without resetting the level. A little different then the three types of examples he gave.

[youthism_is_me]

You cant die in tetris but you can lose , but you cant lose or die in Animal crossing just fale. So well killing must be done to make a good game.

[Kink3bird]

Actually in tetris when you lose the blocks suffocate because of over-population in the soviet union and die in the gulags. In animal crossing if you don't feed your family they die and you become a alcoholic and eventually die of liver failure.

[jango]

Actually in tetris when you lose the blocks suffocate because of over-population in the soviet union and die in the gulags. In animal crossing if you don't feed your family they die and you become a alcoholic and eventually die of liver failure.

i always knew the russian denials of being behind it were just a smoke-screen ..

[HamadaLFC8]

Great article man, thanks for sharing that!

You can't die in racing games either ^_^ except if you like wreck the crap out of your car and it blows up like in ... umm ... Death Race ? ahah

[youthism_is_me]

Actually in tetris when you lose the blocks suffocate because of over-population in the soviet union and die in the gulags. In animal crossing if you don't feed your family they die and you become a alcoholic and eventually die of liver failure.

Yeah but the blocks had it comming . And animal crossing gots Pagan Gods on there side so If they Die you never know about it . The drinking is strictly social.