This, as with many things, depends on what you would define as a victory. Let us first look at a classic console or computer-based roleplaying game, commonly known as an RPG. In these such games, you have won once you have completed a storyline, though the actual points and side-quests you've taken part in it in each replay may vary. In this situation, the only true victory is reaching the ending titles after defeating the final 8oss. There is no continuation, it is the end.
There are, however, many other different types of games, and I will give a small disclaimer that while I enjoy various titles, I am no expert. (I should 8e asking Latula for assistance on this one, really.) There are various types of survival games as well as those focused on point ratios that will unlock secret abilities or higher level weapons. Sometimes those are only unlocked after one has completed a successful play through of the game. Which, in turn, leaves a player to restart the game with these new upgrades and give it a second go. Though one has completed the game to a satisfactory level, there is still more that can 8e done, if those involved choose to do so.
Can you call such an accomplishment a victory? I'm not sure. I 8elieve it is up to those who are playing to set those goals for themselves.
In a simplistic sense, one might suggest that winning SGUR8, or S8UR8 as my human compatriots call it, that creating a new universe is in and of itself worthy of the status of winning. You have completed a task that you were set out to do and su8sequently given the chance to do the same for another existence entirely. And yet, we still remain.
I 8elieve our situation is special. In this, multiple sessions have 8ecome entangled to the extent that one simply cannot go forward without the other. Null sessions, failed sessions, scratched sessions--all of these stack on top of one another and teeter carefully on a mutual center of gravity that fluctuates and constantly causes us to rise to new challenges.
If existing is all that one asks, then I could easily say I have "won" 8ecause I continue, even after death. 8ut I do not see that as the end of the game, even if my session itself is no more. To me, winning would mean that my species is a8le to continue on in a living realm without the looming threat of annihilation. Every moment I am discovering new things from the sessions of others, for I do not think my understanding of SGRU8 would 8e as complete without this valuable data.
I'm sorry, I ended up ram8ling quite a 8it. While I feel as if I have learned a great deal a8out the mechanics of this game and it's purpose in regards to reality itself, I have not yet 8een a8le to see it to a complete end. As long as I exist, I 8elieve that my jo8 will 8e to continue and watch it develop.
