featured four characters, each of which had to clear their own level before rejoining the others. If one of them died, they were lost permanently. In multiplayer video games In mass multiplayer online role-playing games Permadeath in multiplayer video games is controversial. Due to player desires and the resulting market forces involved, Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (such as World of Warcraft) and other multiplayer-focused RPGs rarely implement it. Generally speaking, there is little support in multiplayer culture for permadeath. Summarizing academic Richard Bartle's comments on player distaste for permadeath, Engadget characterized fans of MMORPGs as horrified by the concept. For games that charge an ongoing fee to play, permadeath may drive players away, creating a financial disincentive to permadeath. Diablo II, Diablo III, Minecraft, Terraria, and Torchlight II are mainstream exceptions that include support for an optional "hardcore" mode that subjects characters to permadeath. Star Wars Galaxies had permadeath for Jedi characters for a short period but later eliminated that functionality after other players targeted them. Even World of Warcraft has a following of players who call it the "Hardcore Challenge". Players who join this challenge use an addon in their game to track their combat. If their character ever dies, the rule is they must delete their character. Proponents attribute a number of reasons why others oppose permadeath. Some attribute tainted perceptions to poor early implementations. They also believe that confusion exists between "player killing" and permadeath, when the two do not need to be used together. Proponents also believe that players initially exposed to games without permadeath consider new games from that point of view. Those players are attributed as eventually "maturing", to a level of accepting permadeath, but only for other players' characters. The majority of MMORPG players are unwilling to accept the penalty of losing their characters. MMORPGs have experimented with permadeath in an attempt to simulate a more realistic world, but a majority of players preferred not to risk permadeath for their characters. As a result, while they occasionally announce games that feature permadeath, most either remove or never ship with it so as to increase the game's mass appeal. Proponents of permadeath claim the risk gives additional significance to their in-game actions. While games without it often impose an in-game penalty for restoring a dead character, the penalty is relatively minor compared to being forced to create a new character. Therefore, the primary