Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-209.112.218.20-20150405021257/@comment-3014077-20170113220647

I believe the best explanation can be found in the "gift" Kayaba gave to every player: the mirror. He wanted his experiment to be real. He stripped every player of thier illusonary appearance to tell them "This is a real world and in a real world, people die." The threat of a real death of a player was also necessary to eliminate outside interference. So he let players die to continue his experiment. @Dim1 I think you only got half of the equation. Yes, SAO had to die with Kayaba, but I also think that Kayaba intended to die with SAO. Then again, I'm not totally convinced that Kayaba is TRULY dead.