The Five Ways Video Games Make Failure Matter

I agree that death is meaningless when you're Kirby. I appreciate any time a game just brings me up to where I just was. Like Dark Souls makes you risk your XP, the way that those games are clever about saying, well, you want to go in here and try to get this thing. You're going to drop down and you're not going to be able to climb back out. That's what you get for like trying to get the fast way to this glowy item. And they kind of punish you, but also mess with you and reward you in cool ways which then makes you feel really exhilarated when you make it out.