Why do players invest themselves emotionally in a game's success or failure?

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

Okay so obviously the next 3 weeks are gonna be a bit of a slow news day here at the forums with everyone waiting for the new patch and many not bothering to play until after the wipe. So I figured this might be a decent time to discuss a topic relevant not just to Atlas, but to gaming in general. 

Namely, why do players invest themselves emotionally in a game's success or failure? 

It's a safe bet that most players on a game's forums aren't employees working on the game, or related to them by blood or marriage. I have yet to see a single post on any game's forums that amounts to "My Johnny works really hard on this game so you should all be nice and appreciate his hard work." -Johnny's Mom. These games are a product that we invest time and money into, and don't misunderstand me, I'm by no means suggesting that we shouldn't have opinions on them. Rather what I would like to discuss is the fact that many posters seem invested in a polar extreme view of the game they are playing that amounts to either

"This game is the source of all that is good in my life. It cured my cancer,  made my kids smarter, house trained my pets and got the chic weed out of my lawn. I am nominating the developers for a Nobel Prize, an Oscar, a Pulitzer and voting for them on American Idol."

or

"This game and it's developers are the spawn of Satan and should all die screaming. Playing this game is worse than a North Korean prison or a Yoko Ono solo album. It has destroyed my will to live, put stains in my living room carpet and will probably blot out the sun if we don't stop it."

The problem with these approaches imo is they are pretty much never reflective of reality when translated into expressed opinions and create an environment that disallows for nuanced discussion of what is both good and bad about a game. Most importantly, they lock people into a state where their pride and ego are attached to the rightness of these extremes and proving them regardless of facts on the ground.

I am curious to see what others make of this tendency, why it happens and thoughts on how to address it. Do you consider it a problem or just a mildly amusing quirk of human nature? Do you think I'm delusional and everyone is approaching things just fine thank you? Just thought it might be an interesting thing to discuss while we listen to the elevator music.

[Coggage 239]

Too many pople have too little in real-life to worry them, so in their sheltered lives and limited mindsets a computer game becomes something paramount to them, at an almost tribal level.  The amount of importance they attach to $20 of pixels is both funny and at the same time, pitiable.

[Draalei 31]

1 hour ago, boomervoncannon said:

Namely, why do players invest themselves emotionally in a game's success or failure? 

The same reason people invest themselves emotionally in a sports teams success or failure.

[Grongash 201]

I think there are various reasons. For some, those games seem to be a large part of their social contacts, and i dont mean any "basement dweller" or "mummies basement" clichés here. I guess everything is taken a lot more dramatic if you dont have much going on to counterbalance it outside of your current game of the month. It probably helps them to pin down a person as the root of all evil, i guess it makes it easier to digest. 

And then there are the "instant gratification generation" kiddies, who think that buying a 20 bucks box also bought all of the Developers souls and all of their past, current and future time  I usually just ignore those, it was their parents job to teach them frustration control, not mine.

But lets not forget that those are usually just the loudest. The forum may not look like it right now, but there are others too  I myself (like a lot of players here) am not too thrilled about a reset in a MMO, but i get that it is needed. I am more concerned about the fact that they didnt really fix the root of all the problems yet. I will however give it a shot in march, and if it doesnt work out for me ill move on to another game.

[Iaxa DeVaux 28]

For many reasons. Like someone who takes up fishing. Then buys a $20k boat to support that. Or bike riding and buys a $2k bike to support that. For many it becomes addiction. For many a safe way to feel risk and danger. For some maybe they have limited options to get around due to the turns of life. Or escapism for someone that spend 8 hours a day at a desk.

It's often stronger in MMOs because unlike say a shooter game, it does not end in 25 minutes and restarts like it never happened. MMOs offer a long and building string of goals and accomplishments to invest in. Over time their character becomes a part of them. Many non-MMO progressive minded people will never understand those who are. Those who are fully understand.  It becomes a culture and sometimes a tribe that travels together to other games. There is a reason 14 million people played WoW.