Marcus Carter, Martin Gibbs and Greg Wadley

Abstract:
Avatar death is essentially universal in combat games, and ubiquitous in all other genres; death of a player’s materialization in the game space is used to identify the player’s failure and temporary removal from play. Yet the possibilities for creating interesting social dynamics and game play experiences through the design and configuration of death mechanics in games remains largely unexplored. In this paper we discuss the first person shooter game DayZ, which has configured death with an extreme level of consequentiality not found in other online first-personshooters. We examine the affect of this consequentiality on the player experience and attitudes towards death and dying in DayZ. On the basis of our research data, we find that the increased consequentiality of death in DayZ principally affects the game experience by intensifying social interactions, raising a player’s perceived level of investment and invoking moral dilemmas.