Sin And Punishment In Games

Thanks to NTSC-UK for their article discussing how games punish players for dying. The article starts: "Repetition has always been considered to be a pretty basic form of punishment and is still quite commonly used form even today. Fail a task, go back to the start of the level. Fail too many times and you go right back to the start of the game." It goes on to highlight save/restart points as changing this dynamic, saying that "...the most controversial aspect of the save point's growing role in videogames was the confusion between its two roles: acting as a marker which players are taken to when punished, and as a point where players could stop in order to resume play later on." Is there such a thing as being able to save too often?

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[Anonymous Coward]

...scratch, scratch, scratch...

It's all I hear as the sound of pencil upon paper etches itself into my mind like an old record. Still I look on. A boy sits opposite me, the two of us dwarfed by the emptiness of the classroom. ...scratch, scratch, scratch...

He's about half my size. In fact he's pretty much myself reduced by a factor of two: his hands are twice as small, his arms, legs... ...scratch, scratch, scratch...

Still I look on, head rested upon fist as I lean on the desk in front of me, examining every stroke of his pencil, half the size of the board marker that lies before me. He's on his second page and every successive line has now become a carbon copy of the ones preceding it, so well practised is he at the task that he has been repeating for the last thirty minutes. ...scratch, scratch...

He looks up.
"Why do I have to do this?"
"Because it's your punishment"
"But why?"
"Because you've done something wrong" ...scratch, scratch, scratch...

"And I'm the only one here because everyone else did something right?"
"Well, they haven't done anything wrong, so I guess that, yes, they have done something right." ...scratch... "Well why do I have to be punished?" he mutters under his breath. "They say 'Life's A Game' so why's everything so..." he trails off, his voice drowned out by the scratch, scratch, scratch of his pencil once again.
"Who says that?" I ask, inquisitively.
"They do. On the telly."
I smile to myself. The marketing men have another punter strung up already.
"But even games need some form of punishment"
"No" he bluntly replies. "They should be all about having fun. That's what games are for, aren't they?"
"But, surely, without punishment to compare the fun to, the fun ceases to exist"
My diminutive friend looks up, the pencil laid down firmly on the desk. Cocking his head to one side, he gives me a bemused look. I raise my eyebrows in a smug notion of victory as I lean back into my chair, but then realise that I may have broken one of his beliefs without any real justification of my statements. My cock grows hard in my trousers as I imagine myself thrusting into his delicate backside, but I cannot reveal this 'game' to him just yet, as I've kept my prior pre-teen misdemeanours very quiet. So I continue:
"Okay, imagine this. Mario has to jump over a chasm. No one knows what awaits our rotund plumber if he fails the jump, but one presumes that death is a likely outcome. So he jumps. And falls. But instead of ending up in a heap at the bottom of whatever nasty trap Bowser has laid for him, Mario simply reappears on the other side of the chasm, ready to continue onwards. Without the penalty of losing a life and restarting the level, there is no incentive to try and make the jump. You could complete the level by simply running forwards and being replaced on the other side of each obstacle you fail to traverse, which is why even games need punishments. You try and find me a game that's like the example I just mentioned"
"Extreme G"
"That was a poor game anyway, wise guy. Another."
"Gran Turismo"
"Okay, have you ever tried braking for that hairpin when you could just ride the rails around it and get a quicker lap time?"
"Uh....."
"Don't worry, I won't give you more lines if you say no"
"....."
"And I'm guessing that riding rails was hardly the most enjoyable part of the game for you either, eh?"
"Okay, so I need to be punished, then. But why punish me like this?"
"Well, there's not much else that we can make you do. Your parents would probably be a bit annoyed if we tried anything more than detention and..."
"I'm not talking about school. I want to talk about games"
"Oh, right" I grin once again as I begin to think that maybe my words are having an effect upon him. I'm starting to make him think. "Heh, now you're asking some proper questions." I lean forwards onto the desk, eager to discuss the matter furth