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| 02.15.2007Re: Losing For the Win: Defeat and Failure in Gaming
I fundamentally reject Ben Schneider's initial assertion that failure within a game cannot be the player's fault. If the player is ever to feel successful, there must have been the risk of failure accompanying her gameplay decisions. Otherwise, her success is illusory, her ultimate achievement is guaranteed, and why is she even bothering to play the game?
Certainly some setbacks will occur independently of the player's actions (Frodo could not have known Boromir would try to take the ring), but if all player decisions lead to the same place then the player is being railroaded, and this applies to failure just as much as it does to overall linearity.-Evan Rodwell
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Letters to the Editor
