I don't know if there are only a few people like me in the sense of liking good endings. I after "working" long hours in a game I don't like to be killed or thinking I might've been killed or having an ambiguous ending that I and most players don't understand.

How do other people feel about this?

My hubby and I always discuss this when we watch movies mcc. I want a happy ending. Always. In movies, games etc, give me something to cheer about and feel good. REal life is just full of gloom all by itself so I don't need anymore reality. I play for fun.

Ana

For me getting a good feeling at the end of a movie or a game, lifts my spirit for the rest of the evening, night, or day . A good ending is a completion of a game well played, it is a feeling of satisfaction .

I agree. Sometimes, the ending is very anticlimatic.

I'm with you Ana. Life has enough trials and tribulations! Give me a happy ending!

Depends on what you view as a happy ending. Sometimes a meaningful death of the main hero is much more uplifting than an artificial "and they lived happily ever after" kind of ending.

For me a game is like a good book, I want to escape my 'real' life and get involved, I change the type of game according to mood and don't want to play the same type all the time, but the ending is really important, it has to fit in with the mood of the game and a happy ending is always a plus, but I like it when it leaves you wanting more and there is a possibility of a sequal.

Why? There is no reason it cannot be meaningful and still live happily ever after.

Ana

I'm with Ana. Sometimes I turn off the TV news since it's so depressing.
I want a "Happily-ever-after"-type ending. And please--no games that imply "to be continued". They probably won't ever get made, and if they do, I won't remember what happened before anyhow!

It can, but not for every kind of story.

But what I meant is that personally I don't find the hero's death necessarily depressing. Depressing stories are for example like Dorian Gray where the hero just degenerated morally and hurt lots of people without any hope for redemption.

Unhappy endings have gotten every bit as stale, predictable and stereotypical as happy endings ever were -- and they don't even have the advantage of allowing gamers to feel good about the ending.

How many unhappy endings have really been thought-provoking or eye-opening rather than some variation of "hero sacrifices self to save the world" or "hero sacrifices self to save some other character or "hero fails in quest" or "hero succeeds but at great cost to himself?"

Is there really any point in finishing a game where you're essentially doomed to lose? It's not like watching the hero sacrifice himself or suffer some other loss is going to make the real world any better. So if you don't enjoy stories with unhappy endings, avoid games that have them -- or don't finish them.

Hi Jenny100, how could you know a story has an unhappy ending unless you finish it? Reviews generally don't touch on the nature of an ending & I'm not sure that they should, as it could be percieved as a spoiler. I get very immersed in games & have cried at some endings but I don't think I've played anything that I would relate with real life & very few where there has been a very sad ending (a few bad ones though! )

Word of mouth. When people are disappointed in a sad or bad ending, they usually complain about it, even if they don't give spoiler-level details.


I don't think you understand what I was saying. In real life it might be worth sacrificing your life to save your world or to save a friend or loved one. But a game is supposed to be entertainment, and there's nothing to be gained by watching your character have a sad end (unless you enjoy that sort of thing). In real life, failure is inevitable. In something you do for entertainment -- especially something you pay money for, you can avoid the games where you're doomed to failure.

Doomed to failure? What about the games that one can't finish? Now those are the *endings* that really bother me, anything else I can handle and feel I got my money's worth.

I have always believed that the hardest thing to generalize about is the ending for a 'good' game. Still Life had the worst/best ending ever. Outcry had an rather gloomy ending that I thought about for days. Scratches had an ending that we argued about (Pleasantly!) for months on this site. All of these games are high on my 'keeper' list and none had what could be called a happy ending.

If the ending makes me laugh, I like it. If it makes me think, I like it. I even liked the couple of endings that made me cry.

The endings I don't like are the ones that come suddenly out of nowhere and don't tie into the game very well. Including the "to be continued" endings that don't give the story for THAT game a substantial resolution.

I think "happily ever after" can mean different things. To me, it doesn't mean "they lived in ecstasy at every moment for the rest of their lives." It means, "they went on to lead good lives."