There’s two flavors of failure, I think, in games. Um, and this is one of the places where games are very different from other media because there is failure that is part of fulfillment. If you ask me, “Okay, uh, walk, uh, six feet over there, walk back and sit down.” I can do it. I’m not going to feel like I did anything great by doing it. If you say, “Oh, there’s a patch of ice over there; strap on ice skates, do a triple Lutz, land it perfectly and then leave the ice without falling, put your shoes back on and then pirouette like a ballerina da - back to this seat.” If I do that I’m going to feel pretty special about myself. So, we’re talking about extremes but the idea of presenting a quest that is worth doing and that we feel good about ourselves after we’ve done it. That kind of failure is very constructive but that’s a very different thing to different kinds of players and to different people. So, in that respect it’s about creating an experience that feels fun, is satisfying to have done, is not so easy as to just be boring and is not so hard as to just be, “The heck with you I’m not doing this anymore.” That balancing act is, in fact, what a lot of game design is, is that balancing act of, “Come hither. Come hither. Experience more. I’m going to make it a little hard for you. Now you’ll feel good about yourself. No, don’t go away.” That’s a lot of what game design is.
