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Does a Game Have To Fail To Get a Real Ending?
After the closure of Tabula Rasa over the weekend, the Opposable Thumbs blog asks if that's what it takes for a game to have an actual ending these days. Quoting: "It's no surprise that most games hope for a sequel, as it's the easiest way to get some of that money back while taking advantage of the staff, engine, assets, and other advantages you've banked while creating the first title. The problem? This has lead to a generation of cliff-hangers at worst, and endings that hedge their bets at best. ... As all the game's characters die, as the servers are shut down, as the data is erased or backed up and then boxed or whatever happens to MMO data once the game is done, it's hard not to be a little sad. The sights and sounds of the world of Tabula Rasa are gone, forever. All the memories written into those ones and zeroes will quickly be forgotten, and no one will walk those grounds again." Massively put together a few screenshots and videos to commemorate the ending of the game.
TOS - canceled by NBC, revived by fan campaign, canceled again. Was intended to be "Episodic", such that Episode X being broadcast before Episode Y really didn't mean much. There was no "ongoing story" intended.
TNG - A tad of ongoing story but not really enough intended to matter. The "ending" I thought was a pretty damn well-done episode.
DS9 - one hell of an ending, especially after the "switch" from episodic (early seasons) to arc-driven (later seasons, cardassian/dominion war stuff).
Voyager - only existed because it was Berman & Braga's toy. Also, Seven of Boobs. "Ending" was a fanwank from Berman & Braga
Enterprise - could have gone on a lot longer, ESPECIALLY after Paramount execs finally got the message and kicked Berman & Braga off the franchise to get some real writing staff in. Sadly, they were too late and most viewers couldn't be won back.
If you'd like a series that REALLY never ends, try Doctor Who.
Now as for the rest of sci-fi and the rest of writing in general, you have a few different scenarios:
#1 - "Drag it on forever" - arguably you can put shows like Cheers, Frasier, Simpsons (which has jumped the shark so many times the damn thing is just getting bored) here. Also, Dragonball/Dragonball Z/Dragonball GT, or InuYasha/Bleach/Naruto.
#2 - "Oh crap the creator just left but it's still popular" - see West Wing (which got crappy within a season of Sorkin leaving but dragged on two more seasons), or Smallville.
#3 - "Why won't they let it die?" - Lost, Heroes, etc. Caused by desperate networks that know damn well they have nothing palatable to replace it with and we're bored out of our gourds with so-called "reality TV."
#4 - Last, but definitely not least, the rushed/tacked ending, personified by a number of tropes from anime such as the Gainax Ending, Mandatory Twist Ending, and similar. Basically where you have the writers "counting on" a 2-3 season arc, doing the 3-4 episode "premise and characters" intro, 16-18 episodes of happy silly fluffy slapstick, and then needing to "turn the show serious" at the end. Great examples: just about any anime out there, including (but not limited to) Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion (though that was also the result of Anno going off his meds)...
Now if you want to see a series that had multiple seasons all of which had a real ending, and which kicked the ass of all of these conventions, pick up Slayers sometime.
As for video games... it doesn't have to fail to get a real ending. Some games get an ending, some don't. The Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale games all had pretty encapsulated stories. Legacy of Kain has a definite cyclical storyline - sure there was "room" for a game centering on Kain afterwards, but they wrapped up Raziel in a nice neat package and there's no harm in leaving the "what happens now" question behind: the focus of contention ever since Soul Reaver (given that the original Blood Omen had a "definite ending" pair and the rest of the series is premised on assuming which ending the player chose and running with it) has been resolved. Hell, we even got to take care of the unfinished business and kill Turel.