Ruberg brings up a great example of games that subvert the expectation of failure as a bad thing when referencing the Burnout series. Furthermore, I found that Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment Limited Edition was far less fun than the original, because the challenge of never being able to win was much more interesting than being able to win and do nothing afterwards (to say nothing of the changed controls, less accessible on my laptop). What IS it about being able to fail in some games, that makes them so much fun?
Firstly, for games like Burnout, or even the Skate series, being able to fail for a score helps a lot. For Burnout, the goal is to crash your car into as many cars as possible, to cause a huge wreck. Obviously, this isn't the goal in a racing game, as typically you want your car as pristine as possible. The Burnout series actually encourages you destroying cars, to the effect that the more cars you destroy, the better. One major tenet to this is the cartoonish nature of this mode, which is called Crash Mode. If you hit enough cars, eventually massive explosions will come of it, almost as a reward to the player for their hard work. All of this, at least to me, makes the gameplay both very replayable, and enjoyable at that. The Skate series' take on Crash Mode, known as Hall of Meat, is slightly more sadistic, but still fun, in that your goal is to throw your skater down and break as many bones as possible. As a pre-med, I've personally appreciated the game's ability to drill me on what bones are where, all in a fun and not challenging environment. And of course, there's the pursuit of the high score, only the motivation for games since basically the onset of gaming itself. Second, being able to fail repeatedly, almost for fun, allows for alternative play that has a greater range of possibilities than just playing within the normal rules of the game. Some would call it queer play, but I'll just stick with alternative play. Technically, being "WASTED" in the Grand Theft Auto series is a failure, as your player has been killed, but often, being wasted brings to a close a rampage of gun violence and other crimes. Players, such as myself, will sometimes get bored and just rack up stars, such that the police have to intervene. This isn't the objective of the game, and considering I die (eventually) and lose money to respawn, this would be a failure. However, sometimes this alternative play is crucial to extending the life of the game beyond the storylines present. Alternative play can also be self-imposed rules, such as "one life one death" in some games, where you delete your save file after reaching a fail state once. No matter how we play, failure will always be a part of gaming, but the best games make failure fun or allow us to fail and create our own fun.
