Great post man. I think its one of the best posts I found lately on HGC. I love this topic. I've been allways thinking about it, if I could work in real life like I do in games, I would probably already have a lot of money. I'm 26yo depressed guy, who tried to work IRL once, I lasted 4 days and that was my first and last try to get a real job. But for example in games like Persona5 (Its some kind of social simulator) I really care about my character. I go to school, work, dates. I study etc. I can spent a lot of time on doing things I hate IRL. Same goes with Path of Exile and other MMO or Hack&Slash games. I can grind for hours just to get a virtual currency. Even tho its repetetive, sometimes its boring I still do it in order to be more rich, have better equipement and be stronger. I have some kind of consequence in games, when in real life I can quit my ideas really fast. I still can't understand why its like that. You said about satisfaction , because things are going smooth and we like to see things going well. I think it might be actually true. For some reason I've allways thought I'm a shit IRL, I have no value as a human, I'm just trash. But while playing games I have this mentality of being strong, being valuable. Its like I've been allways good at games and obviously getting good results. But is that the case? Maybe I'm getting good results in games because I spent so much time on it. Maybe its just an illussion that I suck IRL and I'm good at games. Who knows... The other thing might be the fact that its not exhausting to play games, I mean u sit on your chair, probably have some good drink like cola/beer and some food to eat, you can listen music while playing. Its all more flexible, you feel freedom. While in real job u feel like a prisoner, you need to be on someone else rules. While in games you are the one that controls everything. I think this might be the real point why we enjoy working in games. Because we don't feel like we are controlled by someone else or being bound by rules. I also think probably everyone have other reasons why they enjoy working in games. Its all about whats in our head's. Thats my point of view at this topic.