Consecutive Endings and the Aesthetic Potential of Cognitive Dissonance

This extended abstract, presented at DiGRA 2018 by Hans-Joachim Backe of the IT University of Copenhagen, examines a specific structural phenomenon in digital games: "consecutive endings," in which a game signals that it has concluded only to allow play to continue. Building on Riccardo Fassone's (2017) taxonomy of game endings, the paper positions consecutive endings as a distinct phenotype within the broader logic of closure, identifies the cognitive challenge they pose to players, and proposes three aesthetic effects they contribute to the expressive vocabulary of games.

The central argument is that consecutive endings produce cognitive dissonance rather than the negation or renegotiation of closure found in voluntary replay. Drawing on Festinger's theory and psychological research on inaction and regret, the paper contends that a player confronted with a seemingly final ending must decide whether to continue, weighing the costs of action and inaction, and must reinterpret the game's nature in doing so. Titles such as NieR: Automata and Prince of Persia (2008) are cited as cases where continued play worsens the gameworld's state, intensifying this dilemma. The Binding of Isaac, discussed through Fassone's analysis, serves as a further example of a game built around multiplying and suppressing endings.

The paper identifies three aesthetic potentials: formal resonance between a game's themes and its nested ending structure, the foregrounding of tension between diegetic and extradiegetic teleology that challenges assumptions about linearity, and a staging of the clash between designer authority and player agency. The examples are drawn from a wide range of digital games from roughly the past decade, and the analysis is theoretical and interpretive rather than empirical, relying on close reading of selected titles and cross-media comparisons with film, poetry, and fable studies.