Avatars

So I've been reading 'Alter Ego: Avatars and their creators'. It gives a really interesting insight into the reasons people immerse themselves in virtual worlds, some of the people featured in the book made money of purely playing games in order to up the level of other peoples' characters'. Others found it as an escape route from the problems in the 'real world'. This was quite a poignant quote from the books' introduction by Julian Dibbell;

"We fall in love there. We lust for power and for wealth. We seek adventure and escape from the tedium of our more enduring, realer lives. We say they're only games, these little worlds, but often we end up devoting more time to them than to any other realm of our existence, until it starts to make less sense to think of our avatars as fictional characters than as our second selves..."

It's kind of daunting thinking of the possibilities the future holds for this kind of immersive gaming culture, like what sort of level of virtual worlds will people 'play' in in years to come. However, I think its important to add that there is the more accessible, interactive, kind of more passive gaming offered by the Wii, PSP etc.