Not much, since I don' actually play them. I do play video games when I find one I like enough to pull the time and money away from me. I had a thought recently about video game mentalities and paradigms and a major difference between the MMORPG and the kind I've played. The games I've played, mostly shooters and real time strategy, are level by level, outcome oriented games. You start a mission, play through it, and then start another one until you're done with the game. MMORPGs on the other hand only loosely follow this paradigm. Much more important, as I understand, is the in game character you make. You play the game not so much to finish a level and beat the game but to "level up" your character. Curiously, I think this is a great analogy for life and a good paradigm to live by, even if it's not the type of game I've been playing.
My types of games our outwardly oriented. Your focus is on manipulating the world around you: shooting the bad guys, destroying the enemy nuclear facility, stopping the end of the world. While these make for stories and situations I enjoy, it's not a good way to live your life. A wise word of advice is that you should not set goals for yourself based on other's agency (free will). We should be more concerned with carrying out good actions rather than the outcome of our actions. In an MMORPG is a quest is too hard and you can't get it to work out, you can abondanon it and look for other ways to gain experience. So in life we need to understand that if something isn't working out the way we want it to we can look to other things for fulfillment and joy. It is O.K. when things don't work out the way we'd hope.
"Leveling up" is something we could all stand to take a lesson from, too. Returning again to the concept of a PGF and it's derivative we should all be striving for the next level in our own personal growth. Realizing that there's always a higher level that comes with it's own rewards, or developing skills, abilities, and powers are what keep the MMORPG player playing. Likewise, developing our skills, abilities, and knowledge should keep all of us living.
