I came across a link on Twitter that was retweeted by one of the writers on the new Thundercats show currently airing on Cartoon Network. The link pointed a tumblr page with an image of different species from Third Earth, the planet, on which, the series takes place.
The text of the tweet I followed was:

This probably shouldn’t have been released, but it’s on this guy’s Tumblr, soooooo – species of Third Earth: skullgrin140.tumblr.com/post/830086461…

When did video games start using “lives”? More importantly, when and why did they stop? With this changing, what does it mean to die in a game? Vinnk and SeanOrange examine the games that pioneered this mechanism, and take a look at when and why it started changing. Was it with games like Myst, or did adventure-style games always buck this trend? Has the fall of arcade gaming lead games to be easier, and therefore no longer need “lives”?

(Listen to the episode after the jump)

[Listen to the episode after the jump…!]