If the "death penalty" in the game is too severe and your character is permanently destroyed - "permadeath," in designer parlance - you may stop playing the game and, even worse, stop paying the monthly subscription fee for it. But if the penalty is too light and you reappear with all your high-tech weapons and health intact, what's to stop you from engaging in reckless behavior, undermining the credibility and fun of the virtual universe, and then growing bored and dropping out anyway?