First and foremost: I don't have the data to validate this hypothesis or not, so this falls in the realm of opinions and thoughts. And after that disclaimer here we go...

I was re-listening to the Giant Beastcast episode 32, the one when Danielle Riendeau was invited while Jeff Backalar was outalar in CES and she talked a little bit about the Idle Thumbs podcast, I decided to give it a try and just listened to the last episode; on which they discuss how dying on certain games (primarily horror games) makes the game less stressful going forward and you are no longer afraid of the big scary thing that is out there to kill you(r character) or other characters changing the game mechanic. I have had this happen to me on a few games and it is very likely this has happened to you as well.

All of this got me thinking about the different game mechanics in games single player or multiplayer: the perma-deaths, the lives system, the respawn, the down system, and who knows what else. All of these systems eventually allow the player to resume their game with various degrees of punishment and penalties ranging from start to slap-on-the-wrist-penalties. I then shifted my conscious thought to real-life death and asked a question that echoed inside my head: Have games changed our view on death, personal or otherwise?

I don't mean that games are desensitizing us. I don't think that games have made us less empathic about death and the dying. I think that games have thought us that there are several ways to manage grief and the frustration around death. We still grieve, we still feel pain, we still mourn. There is no way around that. I think that games have made us look at the challenges ahead of us, assess the risks and face the outcome of our decisions/situations in a healthier way, and by healthier I mean less traumatizing.

I can't say I have had this happen to me with any recent loss, but because I am generally a calm person and over-rationalize things, yet I can foresee that many people have coped with their grieves better than they would've thanks to how video games introduce the various death mechanics and the implications around those.

Certainly, death in real life is permanent, as the saying goes: There are only two things anyone alive in this world can ever be certain of and those are that they were born and they will die.There is no "Continue" as games have thought us, but games have also thought us that death and dying don't need to be a traumatizing experience.

Have you ever experienced a loss of any kind that games helped you get over with either before or after the event?