Inside the bubble, this is just called "morale". It's very visible as a phenomenon in gaming. What gets pitched in new games is not rules and assets, but a who

Inside the bubble, this is just called "morale". It's very visible as a phenomenon in gaming. What gets pitched in new games is not rules and assets, but a whole set of beliefs and values: there are games where you are spurred towards world conquest, and games where you are meant to relax and socialize. The value system is literally encoded into the play through those rules and assets. Therefore, game makers have a ready-made market wherever they can pitch people's beliefs back to them, like "I'm secretly the hero", or "playing longer makes me more powerful." And then the negative side of that comes into play when the game pops someone's bubble: "that's unrealistic", "it doesn't let me play how I want", "that other player is using a cheap move" - and it gets really out of control in video gaming specifically when the hype is built on a promise of all possible worlds being contained within the game, or being patched in through updates. Star Citizen has been managing this sort of hype for years, and No Man's Sky had the player bubble popped but eventually came out the other end of it many, many updates later. Cyberpunk 2077 likewise had feverish hype followed by massive disappointment, though that story still has time to play out. I often tell myself to reexamine my grip on things. If I hold an idea too tight, I'm sure to lose objectivity - I don't need a tight grip on anything, just the pragmatically useful one. And playing very difficult games has helped me loosen my grip, in fact; good strategy and techniques often result just from seeing the game as it "really" is and playing into that, and that's a useful life lesson.