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I think it ties into a human need to have a purpose and feel important. By leading others or being a part of something, they can create (to some extent) purpose and importance.


Agreed Deg, totally. Though I've come to look at it from the other way around: that the feeling of satisfaction and importance are driven by how valuable these are as social roles. I mean, having a hero in your group is really useful. Hence, being a hero feels really good: net effect, the group thrives.
Games, I think, have always been a chance to experiment with success and trying new strategies, but the new realm of games really opens the door to a lot of learning. Basically, we're training ourselves to be really effective really collaborative achievers. And it feels really good!
What's coming next?

aion kinah

I agree, especially if in real life you can't be as good as you can be in an online game. You can be whoever you want to be without any limitations, it will all depend to you. Like you, WoW was my training ground on being sociable and now there's another chance to excel with Aion online.

RPG Titles

Well I have to agree that you can be a different person in a game, but that doesn't mean you can't strive to better yourself in RL. Excellent post.

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