Well this has certainly ballooned nicely into a lively thread.

Not being as intellectual as I try to be I can say that the deep analysis of the subject seems to check out with my limited knowledge base. Thurston Veblin’s “Theory of the Leisure Class” is about as far afield as I can claim to have read on economics. If that is married to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs then we can see that we’re pretty well off with playing/painting tiny fighting men.

Taking the matter of “someone wants to take my toys away” or being told “those toys aren’t yours” really hits at a core notion of the fun principle. We do have parts of us that are childish. It could be called immature by those outside our hobby, but they don’t find what we like to be fun.

If we have within ourselves a sense of agreeableness and some sense of cooperation then we want to share that same fun with others. That isn’t possible if a message is delivered that says “this is mine and you can’t have it, unless….”.

This might well be a simple affront to the emotions of fun. We see the motivation of how money leads business (not to forget the afore mentioned politicians) and a sobering ponder on the dark triad of personality can be brought forth. Perhaps this is an instinctual rejection of a situation from one personality group as it might encounter narcissism. Gaming is emotional hero-play. Throw your tinfoil helm on and don’t forget to get a wooden sword and maybe a towel as a cape. A bigger world exists beyond the 4×6 space and unfortunately those who might share it have been lulled into the sole use of a desktop with 1s an 0s as their prepackaged suite of imagination.