Yes, I'm exaggerating a smidgen. But the headline above is the first thing that came to mind when I read Ben Mattes' personal blog this afternoon. Citing a recent video at Game|Life that compares and contrasts his game Prince of Persia with the free-running Mirror's Edge, Mattes explains that when the Ubisoft dev team decided that the Prince should never die, they thought along these lines:
One thing [Game|Life's Chris Baker] said that really made me smile was (paraphrasing again) that even though he found the game easy, he still felt a sense of disappointment in himself when he needed Elika to save him - effectively that he internalized the sense of failure. He did not need the game to remind him he failed.
This was something we talked about a lot internally when trying to convince ourselves that the Save-Me mechanic would not be universally despised by the hardcore gaming set. Our rational, simply put, is that people who play a lot of videogames are good at them and generally don't fail a given sequence very often. When they do fail, they likely punish themselves for said failure ("oh you lame n00b! This game is so easy, why can't you pass this one stupid level! dj00 suxjirz") and would likely prefer to not have to see a loading screen upon each failure (I don't think anyone can argue that loading screens add to the enjoyment of a game).
I find it intriguing that when a smart, gorgeous, magically endowed lady regularly keeps one from certain demise, this is considered "failure."
Would that I could fail so gloriously every day of the week.
Check out our full review of Prince of Persia at the preceeding link.
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