S&S News: Games Don’t Need Endings, Says Ubisoft Creative Director

Games don’t necessarily need endings, so who cares if most players don't see yours? That’s the argument Ubisoft creative director Jason VandenBerghe recently made to Gamasutra.  
In a Game Developer article republished onGamasutra, VandenBerghe argued that designers are perfectly justified in choosing not to include an ending in their game design.
“Games are loops, and if you want to leave yours closed, you will be in good company. No one has ever ‘finished’ poker, or football,” he said.
“There are a ton of games that don’t even have endings. Most arcade-style games and most MMOs don’t have real endings. The Sims doesn’t have an ending. Poker? Chess? Football?
“In fact, a broad majority of the world’s long-standing favorite games are specifically designed to never be finished. One game of Sudoku leads to another, which leads to another.”
“Putting down the controller somewhere before the final climactic scene in a video game is not a sin. It is an intrinsic part of our art form,” he said again.
“I never finished the first BioShock, yet it remains a game I thoroughly enjoyed. Grim Fandango? Never finished it. But I sure as hell use it as an example in design discussions! I have never finished a single Z, but, man, they are fun (usually).”