Insert Coin to Retry: The Overcoming of Failure in Video Games

I still laugh at this picture. 

                                                      "We learn from failure, not from success"
                                                        Bram Stoker, Dracula

GAME OVER, YOU ARE DEAD, YOU HAVE FAILED and YOU HAVE BEEN KILLED are words that we see often, these words are usually colored red and are written in intimidating font. Yes my fellow gamers these are the words of the game over screens that all of us have seen at least once in our lives. However when we play a game there is a part of us that knows that failure will inevitably come biting at our very heels like some sort of rabid dog.

We have encountered (digital) death and failure so often that we tend to shrug it off but not before thinking about the mistakes leading up to our avatars kicking the bucket and then revising our strategies to ensure that the same mistakes will never happen again.

I have decided to go into the macabre topic of video game death and failure and see what motivates us to look at the Digital Grim Reaper in the face and laugh at his efforts to break our morale.

More after the jump, also note that there will be some minor spoilers ahead.

The purpose of this article is here to discuss some of the prime elements of video gaming which are failure and death (they are mixed up here because they are basically the same thing in video gaming terms) and difficulty. We as gamers have played games for years and we tend to treat death and failure in a couple of ways, we either rage like we are about to start a riot or we ignore it. I want to go deeper and tell you the important relationship that difficulty has with the overall fun of a game and I want to show the importance of failure within video gaming. I want to show that failure makes us better gamers in the sense that no matter how hard it gets we have a tendency to go back for more until we defeat our digital enemies.

In this article I want to explain the motivations of the gamer especially considering that they know that there is a strong possibility that they will fail at least once in the course of the game. I also want to show how gamers feel when they fail and whether or not failure diminishes the overall fun of the game or if it actually is a tenet of  a decent game. I want to show you my experience with games and failure and how I personally feel about being sent into the deep dark abyss that is the Game Over screen. I will back up this article using a legitimate study conducted by folks who may or may not be in white coats, testimonials from my other gamers and pieces from other writers (professional writers who are paid...not the kind of writer who sits in the dark in his boxers).

There will also be a few games which will be used as a sort of case study with each one carrying death, failure and difficulty in their own special way and let me be clear folks I will not use Dark/Demon Souls as an example mainly because that it has become a sort of stereotype when it comes to this topic and I feel that you my dear readers are intelligent enough to Google it for yourselves and instead I want to show you games that do not have that same label but still can be considered games that will not only give you a very decent fight but should also be remembered for its treatment of death and failure.

I want to touch on the difficulty of games throughout the ages first because modern gaming has this nasty reputation of being way too easy compared to the games found in earlier generations. To some extent I agree that modern games are easy compared with games like Contra and Ghosts N' Goblins with new mechanics like regenerating health and bountiful checkpoints being just some of the factors that diminish the reputation of modern gaming's difficulty but the true factor of this stereotype lies elsewhere.

Take Borderlands 2 as an example, once a player dies for any reason he/she will be teleported to the nearest checkpoint but is then penalized for their deaths by having a large chunk of money taken away from them however money in Borderlands 2 is abundant and can literally be found everywhere. However when a player decides to take on one of the many "Invincible" enemies in the game that is when the concept of " All of Modern Gaming is Too Easy" gets thrown out of the window. These special enemies are renown for having a massive amount of health, deal tonnes of damage and once all players have been killed these enemies will regenerate all of his health making the previous encounter with him nothing more than a painful and bitter memory.

Hyperius...aka The Ball Buster of Epic Doom

The real reason why modern games have this notion of being too easy is not just because of the aforementioned generous checkpoints and regenerating health mechanics but the fact that death is seen as nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Borderlands 2 is a prime example of this with the punishment being  the player's credits being taken away but in the same game there are enemies that will push the player to his/her limits because when it comes to these enemies death is more than a drain on your credits it has become a fair punishment for not having the right strategy for that particular enemy.

But then what of the older games? Holy relics like Contra and Mega Man are renown for their intense difficulty and punishments they handed out to players when they die but the thing is that these games also had a tendency to be quite linear. Linearity here is not a bad word per se but a player is capable of memorizing an entire level and that means they are capable of avoiding would be surprises that lay ahead as well as counter individual enemy attacks and in addition to that many "retro" games have a tendency to throw a seemingly endless supply of enemies at the player which by modern standards is considered cheap and dishonorable.

When it comes to punishing the player in times of failure some of these games take it too far by sending the player right back to the start of the level or even right to the beginning of the game. I know some of you enjoy this concept but think about it for a second, you have  fight the same bunch of enemies who use the same attacks and charge from the same places every time you retry the level.

Mega Man V haunted me in my childhood.

There has to be this fair balance of punishment and mercy that the game doles out to the player because the fact is that games are there to be beaten by the gamer but not in a way where the game holds the hand of the gamer every step of the way nor should it punish the gamer extensively to the point that they will give up.

Which brings me to the point at hand, both modern and "retro" gaming have their faults when it comes to the challenge given to the player but the true test of a good game is not an overly insane difficulty or an overabundance of player aides but it's how the game teaches the player about their failures.

In his book "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" Raph Koster said that a good game “ is one that teaches everything it has to offer before the player stops playing”. It is this concept of a game teaching the player that forms the backbone of this article. I want to show you that games in general need to strike a very fine balance of challenge, punishment and reward for the player to take the time to bear the pain and agony of being sent to the Game Over screen and that the entire concept of failure is good for a gamer.

There is something special about failure in video gaming, Randall Fujimoto of gametrainlearning.org an organization dedicated to game based learning mentioned that games are a safe area where a person can fail and learn from  failure and he even goes as far as to say every failure is a partial success mainly because should a player fail a task a hand he/she learns from that mistake and tries their best to avoid making that same mistake.

This safe environment for failure is something that not even schools can even begin to think of having because as we all know failure in school feels downright shameful however failure in gaming leads to learning to overcome mistakes which itself leads to a sort of confidence boost to the gamer in their general everyday lives.

So this brings me to my previous point of retro vs modern gaming's level of difficulty, a game does not need to be insanely hard to be fun nor should it to be easy enough for a player to breeze through the game but it needs a good balance because games are there to be fun for all players and should they tumble and fall in the process of completing the game then so be it, let them fall as many times as they need to so that they learn how to think on their next move in order to complete the game.

So what is this decent balance of difficulty am I blabbering on about? What are the optimal difficulty levels and how does a gamer feel actually they fail a particular area within a game?

A study  was conducted by game researcher Jesper Juul and Gamelab and in this study players were given a game specifically designed for the study. The game according to Juul was a combination of Pac Man and Snake whereby the player controls a snake like avatar using the mouse, the snake grows as it collects more pills and during the game the player must avoid enemies but can also attack these enemies with a special power up pill  that lasts temporarily. Players were then asked what they thought of it.

The game used in the study

It showed that the players who failed at some points of the game but completed it had a more positive response than players who beat the game yet didn't fail at all. So in other words players who enjoyed the game most were the ones who beat it yet failed along the way. This shows in many ways that a good game must neither be too easy nor too hard for true enjoyment to be achieved. Freelance game designer Noah Falstein also mentioned that the difficulty in games should vary in waves, in other words the game should be easy at times while at other times it should be hard. This irregularity in difficulty will result in the player feeling both success and failure within their playthrough of the game.

A friend of mine made a good point about the difficulty of a game not present in the study, "Personally I'm the sort of gamer that absolutely loves tough games, so long as the difficulty is fair. Two of my favourite game series are known for being hard, but fair in their hardness, rather than being cheap." he said.

So in other words the game has to have a sort of gentlemanly agreement with the player in the sense that a game shall attempt to destroy the player but in a way that is legitimate and honorable. An unfair encounter for example would be an enemy AI hitting the player constantly with a flying hammer giving him no time to counter (Mortal Kombat), another example would be enemies having the abilities of a god when it comes to the throwing of grenades in which they are able to throw it from a mile away amidst a torrent of gunfire and have the grenade land right in front of the player (Call of Duty...every Call of Duty).

Shao Khan's Hammerthrow is cheaper than air and dog turds. 

Going back to study, it was found that even though gamers do not actively want to fail they may enjoy feeling personally responsible for their own failures within the course of the game. The mere act of failing adds to the overall playability of the game. If a game is too easy it can be seen as lacking any depth and tension which will result in the game being boring. It can be argued that casual games like the ones seen in Apple's App Store and Android's Play Store should be easy to play however should the game go too far in lowering the difficulty of a game it could run the risk of being disliked by players even the casual ones.

Game designers Eric Zimmerman and Catherine Herdlick discussed about this topic using a game known as Shopmania as a case study. In their analysis players criticized the overly easy game for being like a glorified tutorial with one player saying "After 20 minutes, it felt like I saw the whole game."

So it can be gathered that games should have this appropriate level of difficulty and even games targeted to the more casual audience needs to challenge their players in a way that honors their intelligence and skill. Developers need to have faith in the gamer, they should not regard them as a bunch of oafish buffoons who are entertained when keys are being jiggled in front of them but they should regard the player as being competent in the handling of challenges.

Failure in many ways has become more than just a simple feeling that a player experiences, it has become a necessary component of a game because without a challenge given to the player the game doesn't become a game anymore and in the words of Zimmerman and Herdlick it just becomes "interactive muzak".

I wanted a more personal view on how gamers perceived failure in games so I decided to ask a few of my friends on how they reacted to failure, one friend said "I find failure or death in a game is telling you that you placed the wrong piece in a puzzle that you must solve to proceed.

The challenge is somewhat like risk/reward: how hard is it and what happens when you beat that challenge?

Harder challenges reap greater rewards, but tend to piss you off when you lose or die. You deal with the consequences in different ways, some rage at the game if they are hardcore gamers, some find walkthroughs/cheats, some simply sigh, some give up, and some change the difficulty setting.

Though we react negatively when we lose/fail, we celebrate when we beat that prick that manages to get you every time. It relies on the effort you put into the game, and the more effort you put in, the more deserving you feel when you win. Some call it perseverance, some call it madness.

Personally I either set the difficulty down if there is no risk to the reward to setting it down, or I find a walkthrough to get me through the tough bind."

There are three things that we need to take note here, one is that the concept of level of difficulty varies from person to person in the sense that some people enjoy playing the game on the hardest difficulty while others enjoy a more brisk pace at normal. I for one set it to normal most of the time for the same reason as my friend and I only crank up the difficulty if I am Achievement/Trophy Hunting or if I wanted to get a reward not accessible on easier difficulties. Secondly, gamers enjoy being rewarded for their efforts even if it means spending hours fighting a really tough enemy which brings me back to my Borderlands 2 example, the "Invincible" enemies are always difficult to beat in comparison with other enemies within the game but the rewards for doing so are worth the effort. Thirdly, the concept of walkthroughs is something of a tradition within gaming in which players who are in a difficult spot in a game go to different sources like a website or magazine to gain advice for that particular part of the game which is a legitimate way to beat the game and it's much like seeking guidance from a teacher.

Doom was the first game where I cranked the difficulty up to max just to prove to myself that I could handle it. Also it was the first game where I read a walkthrough so I could find all the secrets. 

Another friend said "At times I rage, at times I don't. Then again there's also that moment in time when you gave up on one playthrough just because some things didn't go just right just to start up a new game or two only to realize the mistake you did and go back to the first game (because why the hell not keep multiple saves?) and get better success."

One example of me failing to use the gray market or not using rockets to full effectiveness [Editor's Note: He was referring to XCOM Enemy Unknown].You win some, you lose some."

This goes to the point at hand in which failure in games can be seen as a form of education in which a person who makes mistakes during the course of the game can learn from said mistakes even if it may take repeated attempts to do so.

So in many ways failure is what makes the game truly great, if a game does not allow the player to fail that game will feel shallow, unrewarding and as a result it would mean that it would be a bad game. Failure educates us about the mistakes we make, it then forces us to think about what we should do and in many cases it motivates us to beat the game.

Pharaoh was a city building game where the main objective was to build and maintain a massive city. There was so much that could go wrong like poor placement of buildings, massive fires and invading armies. As a child I failed many times and saw my city crumble but I always managed to rebuild because I understood what I had done wrong...that and I was an insane lonely child who played city building games all day. 

Some games however take the concept of failure and death slightly further by twisting it in ways that not only strengthen the game itself but also pushes the boundaries of gaming as a media form as well.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a turn based strategy game that my friends and I been playing for a while now and needless to say we love it. We each have our strategies when it comes to playing the game, some of us enjoy splitting our forces around the map to cover more ground while others never separate their team. Strategies may differ from player to player but the concept of failure is not and in a game where once a character dies they are dead permanently this concept is taken even further.

Permanent death in XCOM Enemy Unknown is a harsh and brutal mechanic because even the character that has been with you since the beginning of the game can die and the only thing you have to remember him by are the memories and his name on the Memorial Wall.

Permanent death in games is a mechanic that I love dearly mainly because it forces the player to think before acting and if they don't they have a very painful reminder of their mistake. It also gives the avatar a tiny degree of humanity which results in the player becoming attached to their onscreen hero.

In an interview with Wired, the lead designer of XCOM: Enemy Unknown Jake Solomon said "“Permanent death brings real consequences to the games we play, it evokes dread and a real sense of loss in players, because it’s something that they don’t want and they can’t undo once it has happened.”

He went on by saying "“It’s authentic. It’s real. Those emotions are real. The loss is real. The challenge that arises out of that loss is real. In some way, that makes the game real.”

I have lost many men in the game, some of whom I considered heroes in the war against the alien menace and from time to time I go to the Memorial Wall in the game to pay my respects to their sacrifice and in some ways remember my own failings as their commander only to promise myself that I will not repeat the same mistakes. In some way, permanent death pushes me to become a better player because of the care I developed for my digital army.

Sniff...sniff..*raises glass of whiskey* [Editor's Note: Nah it's not my game, I have fewer deaths ]

One other game that treats death and failure is One Chance, here the premise is simple the world is about to end due to a virus. The game gives you six days till the virus wipes out every living being on the planet but what you do in those six days is up to  you, do you want to spend your last days with your family? or do you want find a cure to the virus? The choice is up to the player but each choice can have horrible consequences such as your wife slitting her wrists in the bathtub or seeing your character slowly go insane.

Failure in this game is not just used as a plot device but it is a key component within the game itself because the perception of failure will vary from player to player. Some players would go all out in the discovery of the cure even if it means ignoring their in-game family while some players choose to be with said family and watch the whole world crumble into oblivion.

"Failure" in One Chance can be beautiful, in one ending I had my daughter on my shoulders we played in the park and in the middle of chaos and death we enjoyed the love we had for each other and even though I failed the main objective of finding a cure I knew my last days were happy ones.

Well...this is bad. [Editor's Note: Screengrab from One Chance]

Other games however treat failure with a more comedic approach and in many ways this is a way to stimulate the player in completing the task. For example in Portal 2 GLaDOS the digital overlord of testing teases the player if they fail a specific mission but in my personal experience the constant verbal jabs put a smile on my face and motivates me to do better. 

In the flash game Give Up the concept of failure is less subtle, the game literally gives the player the option to give up on the entire game. Should the player press this button they are treated to this very humorous on screen rant where the game will sarcastically mock you for giving up. There is even a GLaDOS like computer that will tease the player if he/she dies on a level.

No game...I WILL beat you.  [Editor's Note: Screengrab from Give Up]

Games like Portal and Give Up joke about the player's failures but in many ways the game still motivates the player to do well through by prodding them with humorous jabs to the player's confidence but it never goes to the point that it makes the player inferior or unworthy.

In many ways gaming is that one teacher in school that you admired because he pushed you to do better in your studies. He showed that giving up was never the answer and that we ought to always think before putting pen to paper. Occasionally you will disappoint him but he never loses in faith in you and will always stick by you until you overcome the obstacle at hand.

We should not mock modern gaming for being more accessible nor should we forget the harsh tutelage we received from games of old. We should also never be afraid to turn up the difficulty in our games because not only will we truly experience what a game has to offer but we also get that smug satisfaction if we beat the game and unless you have the abilities of a god you have been sent to the previous checkpoint or the very famous You Are Dead/Game Over screen at least once in your life.

Games are more fun when we fail them and for many of us who have failed in something in our personal lives, games are a way of reminding us that we all fall hard at times but the important thing is never to give up not even in the face of Armageddon.

Never give up till you reach a screen like this...

Editor's Note...(heheh I like being my own editor): I would like to thank all my friends who participated for this article, you know who you are. I want to thank you for supporting my article and know that I love you guys like brothers.

Also here a bunch of links in relation to the article:
Jesper Juul's Study
Randall Fujimoto's Game-Based Learning Blog
Play Give Up
Play One Chance