Do Americans have problems accepting failure in games?

It's actually quite the opposite.

Most people want complexity and challenge within their games. They want that greater chance of fail but not by bullshit mechanics. If we were intolerant of failing than various rogueslike games wouldn't be here.

Faster Than Light an indie game that is successful yet the whole notion is that you will die a ton and it is challenging. Yet it's still successful.

Well in the state I live, in which I graduated HS over 6 years ago, they have since removed the ability to fail a grade. I'm unsure if this is national or state policy, but back when I was young, if you failed you got held back. Now the kids just simply move to the next grade anyways

When you take this into consideration, I think you could say the ability to fail is being removed. Also when I first did my written exam for driving a vehicle, it was 25 questions or so, mostly things like:

At a red light, do you A stop. B honk your horn while driving through. C Speed up and try to cut through before any cars show up.

Again this was 6 years ago, I have no idea if it got better, but it probably got worse if I know my society. I also work as an IT analyst for a company, however I started off at the helpdesk for computer troubleshooting. I remember in 2010 one of the Executives in the CEO's Office (Who makes 250k/year) called and asked me if the top or bottom power socket in the wall outlet was better for his laptop.

The culmination of these events leads me to be very afraid for my societies future as a whole. These are simply a few pieces of what I've experienced in my life.

They seem to have a general problem with loosing. Or the truth, if it makes them appear in bad light.

See:

Bradley Manning

Edward Snowden

You're expecting people to give you a specific answer to an essentially unanswerable question. You can't pin down all of a country under a single label, feeling, or state of affairs. I mean no offence to the people posting, but none of them will be able to give you, one way or another, a correct, useful, or verifiable answer, because there isn't one. We can offer all the anecdotal evidence we want without ever being able to shed real light on the subject. Some people like challenging games (look at Dwarf Fortress, where "fun" is a euphemism for failure--or the various games that present the same attitude, such as DayZ). Others prefer casual games, that they can jump right into at a moment's notice, games that can have a more relaxed attitude towards failure. And then there are people who like a combination of the two, a middle ground, or who play both types.

So no, you can't say that America likes games that are easy and lack failure. Nor can you say they like extremely challenging games where death or failure is guaranteed (or even considered a feature). There are simply too many people who like too many different things.

And no, this post isn't an answer, either

I find the article you've linked to be heavy on claims but light on any sort of support. I wouldn't take his word on it just because he worked on Neverwinter Nights.

We still have quite a lot of people who fail to graduate high school in my state. Failing is far from removed from education. As to how that effects games, I don't really know. But the US does tend to consume games where death doesn't set you back too much.

Everybody knows that Americans are generally dumber and inferior to Europeans in every way. They like fast food, winning, and simplified games. Americans are obese, lazy, stupid and poorly educated. Contrary to the refined gentleman European (who, of course, despises Call of Duty), the Average Joe is mostly indistinguishable from a chimpanse or other ape.

/sarcastic post

American - "Your answer was wrong, but creative - full marks!"

European - "Your answer was correct, but not polite enough.  You fail."

I think there is an issue, based on the fighting game genre and what is popular.  Competitive gaming in general.

It makes economic sense though- people don't want to have negative rewards when they're gaming.  Losing is only fun in Dredmor on hard difficulty .

Dwarf Fortress - losing is fun!

Why are so many Europeans obsessed with what Americans think?

I don't know of anyone in my circle that gives a rats ass what Europeans think.

Pretty much this. It's like asking if the British have an aversion to dentistry and sunblock or if Australians have an obsession with shrimp, barbecues and surfing. I can tell you that my experience in the American education system was rife with the fear of failure. When I was doing poorly, there would be instructors and parents to help out and give you the tools necessary to get back on track (in elementary and high school anyways, once you were in college you were completely responsible for your own crap). 

Maybe it isn't a fear of failure, maybe they just can't read maps!   hehe  

 In the words of my favourite 'american'......

So now we are gauging citizens of the United States of America by it's teenage youth? 

Interesting... It's no wonder, even with it's set of issues, the USA is still predominantly more successful than any other nation.

I prefer to judge us by the corrupt retard we have for a president, and our legislature full of asshat lawyers that all want to screw us for their own personal gain, just in different ways.

Seriously now, how smart can we be...

No problems with losing for me. I just set the AI to easy and implement massive cheating...

I would suggest that there are many people who fear failure. The question raised is whether one would like to fail in a game? I don't know about most people, but when faced with a decision for a game where you spend 50 hours to build up a character and then lose all of that work you just did to restart (no coming back... talking hardcore mode). The result is not a great feeling and no something that people should strive for in making a game.

The other question raised is should we design games where failure is not an option. To that I say yes and no. Yes, you should design parts of a game where failure is not an option...or a weak option. Challenge is important, but forcing failure is not what you want to accomplish with most game designs. There are easy / sandbox modes for a reason. They target a good part of the audience who purchase games... for fun. No need to add stress to a stressful life, but rather provide a release. Does this mean we should eliminate failure, NO. Difficulty should exist in a game, and failure is an option for many successful games, especially competition based games or bragging rights games. People are more likely to brag about or feel more accomplished if they succeed in a game where many have failed. Part of the enticement of hardcore mode to say, look I've accomplished a feat, and people like that feat grabbing.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a fun game, in fact they have a survival mode where the challenge is to survive as long as you can... you will fail, but how long till you do? Same with Mineralz on StarCraft. A game where failure is an option and most likely will occur, just a matter of when.

Do not oversimplify the game to you can't fail, but don't severally put people in a situation where failing is forced upon the individual without some warning.

The OP's beliefs are pretty much on-point.  As an American, I can confirm that the school system is doing a real doozy on our youth lately.  I won't get into specifics (because I see it first hand and will begin ranting about this topic endlessly), but the entire concept of failing is indeed a thing of the past, on all fronts.  Losing in sports, doing badly on a test, simply saying the wrong answer -- it's no different than doing well anymore -- all is praised and rewarded.  One can imagine what this does to a child's motivations and life goals.  DaxxTrias gave some wonderful examples of how this educational erosion has changed other areas of society.  And as much as hate to sound any more negative, it's only going to get worse.

It only makes perfect logical sense when you see which video games are most popular in the US.  And as the OP wisely stated, this forum is one place you won't see many of these types of people, if any.

You're describing the minority of gamers; in most cases this is not the "mainstream" ideology (especially in the US).  While a very small amount of indie games see large success, it still pales in comparison to how many are playing/buying AAA titles.  To drive this home, I might as well display the top selling games in 2012 for the US (taken from The Guardian):

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
2. Madden NFL 13 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Vita, Wii U)
3. Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
4. Assassin's Creed 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
5. Just Dance 4 (Xbox 360, Wii, Wii U, PS3)
6. NBA 2K13 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, Wii U, PC)
7. Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC)
9. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, Xbox 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, Vita, PC)
10. FIFA 13 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Vita, 3DS, Wii U, PSP)

While we are getting dumber here in the US, that's got dick to do with the game sales.  Europe isn't creating best sellers out of logic puzzles and war simulations.  The lists are different, but of similar content.

Madden instead of FIFA does say something about our intellect as a country, but American Football has been disturbingly popular for a great many decades now and bears no relation to the decline of our education system.

You are correct sir.  This generation and unfortunately, the one before it as well, want instant gratification.  They get everything else in life right when they want it and do not think they should HAVE to invest any time or effort into a game to get the super-rare armor or BFG weapon.

AS for the school system, don't get me started.  The American system has become nothing but progressive indoctrination where everyone is equal, there are no winners or losers and you just need to follow directions, DO NOT DARE to think for yourself or question what you are being told and just study the answers for the standardized tests. 

America, as the world has known it up until the 1990s, is dead....and I am dead serious about that statement.

Agreed, and unless some major overhauls are made, it will only get worse.

What that we were a very interventionalist nation during the reign of the USSR? What exactly has changed so much from the 1990s to today that we were already? Economy wasn't exactly a boom neither was education.

THe big change was the fall of the USSR.  The USSR with its spectre of communism was a scary boogeyman for the influential in America, it kept them from trying to roll back too many worker and consumer rights.  

With communism discredited, they've been able to go on with their agenda for the last 20 years, and it, combined with globalization, has caused profound negative change (unless you're a billionaire)

The fall of Communism was great for those in Communist countries, but it was a disaster for the middle-class American.

Nostalgia. Most people like to think it was better back in the "good ole" days.

Corrupt politicians (check still exist).

Pushing certain kids through school (check still exists).

Shifting economy (check still exists).

Economic calamities (check still exists).

Anti-american sentiment (check still exists).

Anti-american sentiment prevalent with americans (check still exists).

Afraid to fail in video games. Seriously this is laughable as a statement and clearly meant to attack some preconceived notion you have of the US.

Games are clearly meant as an escape for the VAST majority of people, whether it be from board games to the more prevalent digital variety now. Everyone would be playing TIC-TAC-TOE if failure was not a natural process and fun component of playing and mastering video games. Our entire lives starting from birth are ripe with failures that we learn from (how to roll over, walk, tie your shoe, write your name, shoot a basket, kick a ball, catch a ball, perform multiplication, read a book, date a girl, get a job, etc). Seriously you guys hang out with way to many soccer moms.

Canadian - "Your answer was wrong, but polite - Full marks!"

German: "Your answer was right, but you did not mention § 4374, section 4, subsection A4 of SVKomm-DapG law and Article 178 section 2, subsection 13, sentence 21 b of VV-LUS-WN-AKIN-GG policy. Zero points, test failed.

Have a nice day.