I think it’s dangerous that games pair the evocative imagery of death with the concept of failure. It makes failure absolute, unfixable, without offering a course from which to grow.
And I don’t agree with that. Having the failure state be “death” does not mean that it is any worse-if enemies in Bloodborne just teleported you back to your last checkpoint and made you drop your money, without a “YOU DIED” screen, the consequences would still be the same. Most of these games make it very clear that death is not absolute or unfixable, and deaths always offer a learning experience to grow from.
I think it’s a very interesting question/topic, especially for game designers/devs. That death is so common abviously has to do with the fact that a very high percentage of all games (that might actually be wrong if you count mobile games, let’s say AAA games) are about figting/killing. And even in adventures/puzzle games (e.g. Fez) it’s often possible to fall to your death or get crushed by some kind of trap/machinery (Limbo). I can’t really think of many games where you play a character/person where dying isn’t part of the game mechanic.
Thanks for picking up on her mentioning of Bloodborne/Souls games. I think these games are a prime example of how failure (not necessarily death) can teach you to get better at things. I’m pretty sure I read an article not so long ago by a person who transferred these experiences to „real life“ (wasn’t that even here on boingboing?).
The Souls games/Bloodborne also are a very interesting way to learn how through persistence you can succeed in doing something that seemed completely impossible.
