At a fundamental level, video games are about control---what you can control and how, when, in what contexts. It is the interactivity of the game media that sep

At a fundamental level, video games are about control---what you can control and how, when, in what contexts. It is the interactivity of the game media that separates it from other media. Death acts as a convenient lose-state because it's at first approximation a loss of control---transitioning from life to death (for a player-controlled avatar) is transitioning from a state where you can control an aspect of the world directly via your will to a point where your will no longer has bearing on the simulation playing out. It's convenient to use that no-control state as an indication that the player has done something "incorrect," i.e. "You messed up, we're going to punish you by time-out in the corner" (even if the time-out is just the few moments it takes to respawn). All of that having been said, I wouldn't agree with the author that death in games is a "crutch," per se, but I think there are other facets of death that are explorable that most games do not. Some games do; Wing Commander and the much-maligned Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor have the interesting aspect in that your decisions in play would cost you members of your team---and those costs were permanent (for a given session of the game's linear narrative). But in terms of what the player directly experiences, death is often just cutting of the strings between the controller and the on-screen avatar. Maybe there's room to grow there?