Editor's note: Tyler brings up a great point that most games don't have an adequate failure state. The question is, would players be comfortable if games delivered more realistic, punishing consequences? -Greg

Games differ widely in their content. From sport games to RPGs, they provide completely different experiences. But they all share a common thread: Failure is not an option.

Players can die, lose a race, and pass out in games, but do these states constitute true failure? In these situations, the game does not end. If a player dies, he reloads from his last save and tries again; when he loses a race, he goes back to the start and tries again; and when he fails a mission, he starts over again. See a pattern?

When a player fails to do something a designer has set out for him, he will just have to do it again and again until he succeeds.

The question remains, though, why is this important? Games have been operating this way since that first ship fired its first shot against overbearing asteroids. Certainly, you can understand why it's a good reason to maintain the status quo in most games; after all, what sense would it make to continue driving around the track after losing a race or for a player to move to the next level once their screen is full in Tetris? The genres in which this idea becomes important are those that are more narrative driven: adventure and role-playing games.

These game types are hamstrung by the lack of long-term consequences for player actions. When every challenge must be met with success before the story can continue, a major aspect of reality is lost. Endless replays strip important events of meaning.

For instance, playing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, I met difficult shooting segments that took me countless tries to complete. When I finally cleared those areas, I didn't feel like the amazing Nathan Drake, quick-shooting my way through the jungle -- I felt like the schmuck whose friends let him win because he can't do it on his own. All immersion was lost.

BioShock is one of a few games that challenges this paradigm, though with mixed results. BioShock has no penalty for death. After dying, players respawn at the nearest vita-chamber with renewed health and continue forth.

This produced an interesting phenomenon amongst test audiences. For some, it was a marvelous invention that plugged the plot hole of an infinitely resurrected hero and removed the tedium of repetitive reloads.

For others, though, it presented something terrible. According to Ken Levine*, many hardcore players could not accept the absence of a death penalty. To remedy this flaw, they would impose their own punishment by turning off the game and loading up a previous save. I must admit that I played the game this way.

The problem with the solution posed by BioShock is that it forms a cheap Spackle cover over a glaring plot and gameplay hole. Without some lasting effect, death lost all meaning. Free will, which the game happens to be about, ceased to exist, making the player a simple automaton, searching out the end of the game. If only they had taken the idea a little further and presented some consequence for continued failure.

Consider the ending of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. At the end, Frodo can no longer deliver the ring himself, and Samwise Gamgee must carry him to the mouth of Mount Doom. In a game, this would be presented in one of two ways, either 1) the player is Frodo and the end is a cut-scene, or 2) the player is Sam and the end is an escort mission.

But if failure is incorporated into the story, a different option emerges. The player could be Sam, running an escort mission up Mount Doom. If he protects Frodo, they arrive safely at the mouth of the mountain, but if Frodo sustains too much damage, he falls, and the player has to carry him to the end. This example still has flaws, but it illustrates the idea of creating greater immersion through possible failure states.

Certainly, this is not an avenue that every story should take, but it presents an opportunity for furthering the medium through options only available in video games. After all, more of life is determined by the consequences of failures than successes.

As they say, when Thomas Edison was asked of the invention of the light bulb, "How does it feel to have failed 700 times?" he responded, "I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work."

It is time that games removed failures and provided alternative forms of success.

*Note: I read an article in which Mr. Levine spoke about this issue a long time ago, but I have recently scoured the internet, looking for it, to no avail. If you can find this article, please link it in the comments.