...there are legitimate reasons why people feel they're achieving less. These include the boring literal truths of jobs shipped overseas, stagnant wages, and a

...there are legitimate reasons why people feel they're achieving less. These include the boring literal truths of jobs shipped overseas, stagnant wages, and a taxation system that benefits the rich and hurts the middle class and poor. The author is trying to make too much of a sociopolitical connection to the proliferation of gaming. Achieving virtual points directly appeals to reward pathways in humans because the achievement is objective and directly gratified. That's really all there is to it. Maybe you can find a correlation between escapism tendencies and quality of living, but it's tangential to the discussion. If eating broccoli instead of Fun Dip increased some numbers on a real-time nutritional profile HUD on our forearm that we could check for gratification, we'd eat more greens. But the reality is that humans are incredibly dissonant. Forgoing dietary fiber for a morning Snickers bar might increase our chances of anal polyps in the future, but we don't really care. Achieving arbitrary points (like experience/level-up systems in games) appeals so well to our fundamental nature that taking successful games and adding this achievement level on top of it is a business model in itself. The world would be a different place if you received a +1 on your Recycled Items counter on your personal profile before you hit the gym to add +2 to your Fitness Level. It's less about corporate interest doom and gloom, and more about the nature of humans.