Failure
Failure;
1] Lack of success
1.1] An unsuccessful person or thing
2] The neglect or omission of expected or required action
2.1] A lack or deficiency of a desirable quality.
3] The action or state of not functioning.
3.1] A sudden cessation of power.
3.2] The collapse of a business.
(Google Dictionary)
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What helps us grow as individuals? (Self Growth)
Effects of failure on subsequent performance: The importance of self-defining goals.
Understanding exactly what self-growth is and how individuals go about working towards goals is something that could reveal deep meaningful gameplay, challenging to design yet that is somewhat related to this theme. Setting a difficult goal to achieve with the possibility to fail will, in turn, help growth.
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Does failure in the natural world improve on DNA?
This could be a relatively one-word answer question which could be obtained by discussing with a biology scientist. Elaborating on the question, I'm curious if the process of natural selection requires failure within particular genes. Whether one animal failing to succeed in its environment is a positive thing as long as there is another animal capable, able to continue that species with efficient DNA. OR, is the failure to be focused on us as humans, failing to care and manage the wildlife effectively?
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What types of failure are there?
Losing a competition (Games, Business)
The loss of a system, process (Power, Heartbeat)
Life (In the case of someone not making the most of life or always unfortunate)
Fails (meme, fail compilations, tends to relate to silly embarrassing things)
https://everydaypower.com/types-failure-experienced/
fehlleistungen - Slip, Sigmund Freud https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/failing-successfully
Negative connotation; F is for Failure
'The Art of Failure, An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games' - Jesper Juul, PlayfulThinking
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How do we (as people) react to failure?
This could become an incredibly interesting way to approach game design, attempting to predict how someone might react to failing at a game and continue to engage with them and that emotion.
As this is a very generalised question and vastly open to different categories, what type of failure should be focused on and the people in those situations?
https://www.dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/7999
After a read of the abstract, it appears that there are many levels of understanding required to pinpoint certain types of reactions to failure. Although it appears very complex, the whole 'cause and effect' type of failure is intriguing. Providing a cause for failure and attempting to predict the effect could lead to some interesting design decisions.
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With all of these topics within the theme of failure, I've got several possibilities to further research and dive deeply into on a more phycology level of learning. Which is a topic that I find incredibly interesting and believe is greatly related to designing games.
After watching the Saw film series recently, observing the methods of the traps and how 'Jigsaw' provides his players (for lack of a better word in this case) with the ultimate way to fail yet that failure is up to them. The character John Kramer also says a very interesting quote which I think translates beautifully into game design. "If your good at anticipating the human mind, it leaves nothing to chance." Saw V. What if the feeling of failure is based on the feeling of only having one chance, one life so to speak?