I have just finished a game.. where... the main character dies. And her mother. And her brother. And her adoptive father. And most of the human population. And like one third of the population of the other races... And.. strangely enough, lately, in all games with a story I play, someone has to die, someone has to go away... there are no more happy endings anymore. Do you think that including sad elements in a story are necesary to make it good now days?

The problem with a happy ending is that we've all been burned by the real world and know that its never the case that you get the girl and run off to live in a castle on the hill with thousands of servants. A little bit of tragedy brings it back down into the realm of believability. Of course, death and sadness aren't the only means for doing this kind of thing. Anger and seperation would work, and those always have the possibility of reunion and happy ending.

Hmm..

If you remember this old SNES game Secret of Mana 2...
There some people died.. pets, friends, and more than one tragedy...
But compare it to the the stories written today.

Now days in stories... most of your friends betrays you, one by one. People isn't unlucky to die, now they are lucky if they survive... Entire races are enslaved and threated like dirt.. all your family dies... the most precious things are lost. Or even better, someone close to your character dies, then it turns out he survived, but no, there he dies again, this time for real.

It's like.. you always end in a situation that is worse than what you started with. Sure you eliminated a great threat and/or evil from the land. But the price there is to pay even makes you wonder if it would have better to have done nothing from the start and just go with the flow...

Maybe story writers became trigger happy after things like Aeris' death made the game more interesting. Maybe there are so many Aerises dieing nowdays that people are even expecting without having a reason from the game.

My problem is not that it happens. Surely it does in real life. But it always happens now. Not even in real life people is so unlucky that we have an unwritten rule that says that when you do something good for others your entire family must die.

Its a weak ploy for sympathy and identification. "No good deed goes unpunished." I understand what you're trying to pinpoint, but I'm not sure theres anything we can consciously do in this forum and thread to fix the problem.

But like I said, there are alternatives we could discuss.

What alternatives do you think that could have more or less the same psycological impact on a player?

It seems hard to be find something with the same impact as losing something precious forever.

However, if we add some insecurity, for example, in a game you could have an ending where a person and his clone that look exactly the same(even their clothes), one of them good and one of them evil, are left fighting each other in some building with a bomb. After everyone gets out, the building explodes... in the ending, you see that after 3 days, something moves, and one of the two persons stands up hurt... he looks at the floor when he sees the other one with a huge wound in the chest, obviously already dead... this is sort of the same kind of feeling you get, except you wouldn't know if it's the good guy who survived or the bad one. It would make things a little softer, even if you think that it's probably the bad guy for one reason or another.

Maybe this also falls under the category of morals and mental protection. You wouldn't let a 10yr bang a prostitute in Grand Thief Auto, and maybe they shouldn't play a game where the end is miserable.

Interesting scenario.

Personally, I think that the roots of all tragedy is failure, and there are plenty of other means for failure to be displayed. And not neccessarily as gameplay, because failure in gameplay is fustrating, but a failing success, where by your actions, something gets destroyed and its perceived as a failure. Maybe others can produce some scenarios which get at this.

People love drama and misery - it makes them feel better about their own life.

Just look at the ungody popularity of soap-operas.

Asking if stories use sadness too frequently is like asking if they use happiness too frequently. Misuse and abuse of both are merely elements of poor storywriting, but the use of both is essential in a good story.

Take poor Mario. Through seven countries, he journeyed tirelessly through danger to find his princess. He reaches the capitols, defeats their evil tyrant lizard-king and celebrates in victory... only to find that, time and again, his princess is in another castle! Unsure of what to expect next, he journeys to the eighth castle, a dark monolith upon the world with a more horrible tyrant emperor lizard. His victory over the evil Bowser is glorious but half-hearted, as he expects to find yet another mushroom retainer to point him in the right direction. Instead, his lackluster celebration is turned into true triumph as he realizes that this time he has rescued his princess at last.

Seriously, with more story detail, dialog, character development, and just a smidge less repetition, the basic plot of Super Mario Bros. sounds like a better story than the game that you just beat. Sadness comes in many forms, death is one form, but all stories need SOME negative element to keep the plot moving.