This concept is used to a lesser degree in a lot of games with regenerating content such as monsters or items. You never really 'beat' the game persay.

On another note, pinball and other arcade games with "High Score" mentality are also in the mix. Old concept, but could possibly be used to ones advantage in any style of game.
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Original post by Yvanhoe I would refer to a multiplayer online game. Preferably persistent but that is optional.

Not persistent but ages ago one of the online modes for Aliens vs. Predator (the first one) pitted human colonial marines against infinite waves of aliens. What was cool was that there were bunkers on some maps to hole up in, and it was fun because you had to move about to scavenge ammo. Blazing Angels also has a mode with this same dynamic, but I can't remember if the enemy fighters are infinite or not.

Great inputs ! Thanks for the insights. The sand castle/tide analogy gives me another idea : ineluctable ecological decline. People have to play on an increasingly narrow area of terrain.

About Dwarf Fortress, however, a skilled player usually can get his fortress to work indefinitely. And it turns out that the other face of "losing is fun" is "winning is boring" ! (Great game though)

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Original post by Stangler If you are interested in trying to incorporate this idea into an MMO you could make it so that in order to mine for a certain item the player had to be "king of the hill" for as long as possible. The longer they remained king the more mining they could get done.

I especially love this idea. That puts the "unwinnable" factor in the hands of other players. But what if the mined resources warrant an unbeatable situation ? It requires careful design...

As I was reading this a suggestion that I had made about Diablo 3 came to mind.

Anyone familiar with the structure of diablo 2 knows that there are three modes of difficulty: Normal, Nightmare and Hell. After you have completed Hell mode (which is a challenge), you are left to rerun content or park your character.

What if the were infinite modes of difficulty. Instead of stopping at Hell, maybe diablo 2 could have used a scaling factor for each subsequent difficulty level to create more of a challenge. This thinking would change to focus of the game from "is this build Hell viable" to "how far can I take this build". Naturally this concept would appeal more to softcore players, as there would be a point where death would be very hard to avoid.

I just really think that pushing characters to their absolute limit would be a fun exercise for any game. The leaderboard would be populated by who vetured farthest.

Just a thought.

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Original post by Wavinator Not persistent but ages ago one of the online modes for Aliens vs. Predator (the first one) pitted human colonial marines against infinite waves of aliens. What was cool was that there were bunkers on some maps to hole up in, and it was fun because you had to move about to scavenge ammo.

I was going to mention this one as well. One of the best co-op experiences I can remember having :-)