I would like to continue the discussion of winning and losing from the last update. In the previous post, I mentioned how I feel that games need some form of punishment for failure or else lose all meaning, as well as argued that failure in a game can be an enjoyable part and provide a different experience. Developers may find the balance between these two points difficult to achieve and either remove significant punishment to prevent players from becoming upset and turning away from the game or simply force the player to deal with the punishment for failure. While I do believe that players should face consequences, failure ought not to become a wall, and allow the player to continue onward while presenting another challenge to overcome, which brings me to my next point. Players should not care whether or not they lose. At the end of any game, a player ought to walk away being satisfied with whatever outcome they arrived at, and even better, have an entertaining anecdote to share with others. An example of this was a star wars role-playing game that myself and a few friends tried for the first time at Nanocon 2011, in which we were playing the role of sith acolytes attempting to become the next apprentice by secretly killing off all the other players. The game offered a very loose structure in the rules, and allowed for a lot of creative choices, and because of this we were capable of performing some crazy events. As the game progressed, I felt that my characters skills didn't offer much potential for me to win the game, but I was surprised when it came down to myself and one other person, in which the final duel came very close. I thoroughly enjoy the game despite losing due to the ridiculous antics we performed, my favorite being myself dashing down a hallway as far as I could in order to reach my friend's character before chucking and impaling a sharp triangular holocron into his face and nearly killing off his character. Branching of off this, I feel that developers put too much focus on winning or losing in a game rather than ensuring the game is fun for everyone. An example of this is the base version of Twilight Imperium. The game is fun in its own right; however, it had some major flaws, the main one being the strategy cards. If a player wanted to win, they were force to select the imperial card, which gave victory points, if they could, followed by the initiative card after so they could chose from the cards first next time. This forces the players' hands and prevents them from playing their way. The company made new cards in one of the expansions that allowed more choice and freedom in the game, and most preferred to play in a manner that was not efficient to win anyway.