There’s something about computer games that drowns you. They wrap you up and pull you into their warm embrace, and you can float there for days and days, not feeling a thing.
This is much stronger in RPG type games, of course. WoW is the obvious contender, but others such as NWN aren’t far behind. They draw you into their inner world, full of little people and little plots, and you can forget everything, and nothing else matters.

It’s not just the plot or the world, though. Books have that, but books are different. Books can surprise you. Books can make you think. Books can force you to think about where you are and what you’re going through. Books aren’t very friendly.

Movies are usually better – click into brain-candy mode and there’s nothing you need to do but watch, absorb, digest. But movies are short, and you stay easily distracted, and you can only watch so many episodes of a show at one sitting.

What makes the games so absorbing, so non-threatening, is that they have rules. These aren’t wishy-washy should-I-could-I type of decisions. In the game, there are rules. Things work the way they work, and you know how they work. Things are predictable. A click is stll a click and you know that you can win. There’s no moral ambiguity and no life-altering decisions and you can easily see and choose the right choice with very few side effects.

 And Saved Games. Don’t get me started about Saved Games…