Online games involve interaction with other humans. We are wired to like these, even if we are paranoid little monkeys who have forgotten how to leave our own h

Online games involve interaction with other humans. We are wired to like these, even if we are paranoid little monkeys who have forgotten how to leave our own houses. When you spend all your time staring into the screen, interacting with people through the medium of a game, after a while your only friends are people you've met through the game. And you usually can't say "fuck this game, let's go have some beer iRL" very easily, because your game friends have no guarantee of living anywhere near you. So you keep on meeting in the space of the game. You end up with nothing but these tenuous virtual relationships. Ones founded entirely on text, ones where there's the immediacy of real time but never a touch, or a kiss. They're shitty relationships that can't fully sustain you, but they're better than the absolute lack of anything out in the real world that you'll have to suffer for who knows how long until you start making friends and lovers in reality? Less frightening to stay. It sucks, it's miserable, but it's just enough emotional contact to get by on. Leave it and you'd have nothing. It doesn't matter what you're playing. My time in that particular downward spiral was via a socialization-focused MUD.