Many Veterans Outgrow These Ideas
Now, as a cynical veteran of the MMORPG genre, one might have long since parted ways with such ideas. One knows: The boss does not die due to any heroic act, but because we managed to increase our gear score by 2 points since the last time, now everyone has installed the add-on, and we can better coordinate our cooldowns. Also, this lagging healer Sven is not here today, but we brought along a random. While he squeaks like a little pig, he hasn’t hit puberty yet, but he heals 8% better.
But not everyone is so cynical. Underneath, this plays a role for almost everyone. No one is so hard and calculating about their hobby.
Veterans also have their needs, they do not want to give up this power fantasy. As a tank, we want to feel needed, we want to have the sensation of making a difference, to be the one who matters. And we want to feel the shield on our arm, to feel like we survived only because we took the two steps to the left at the right moment.
If a game takes away part of this power fantasy from us, it makes it less fun, driving us to another game.
As a “veteran”, one also underestimates how important this power fantasy is for the success of a game. The industry knows this: Commercials, cinematics, and companies’ campaigns are strongly aimed at awakening and fulfilling this power fantasy. This is how “new players” are attracted, not by showing people the “everyday life”, but a “power fantasy” of it. The commercials for World of Warcraft have very little to do with reality.
Especially current games with strong graphics and visual appeal allow us to slip into this fantasy more easily. They are so desirable for newcomers. While older games can almost only regain returning players who can still reconcile their power fantasy with this graphics.
Power Fantasies and How Games Handle Them: Star Citizen, EVE Online, Destiny
As a trader in games like EVE Online, one is furthest away from a classic power fantasy: Here, one might have the power fantasy of an accountant or warehouseman, having to find out and figure out where the profit is to be made. It is an “abstract power fantasy”: virtual wealth. We are not the spaceship captain, but the wealthy world manager, the gray eminence in the background, the money shark.
To this day, EVE Online is considered a niche game. Probably also because this power fantasy is so hard to convey. And the game’s graphics, the complex UI, the numerous tables seem to make a fantasy as a “space pirate” so difficult – quite contrary to Star Citizen, which draws from this power fantasy that has long been unfulfilled and benefits immensely from it.
Even within a game, these power fantasies can be fulfilled to varying degrees: The job of a healer in an MMORPG like World of Warcraft has long been mocked. It has the charm of an Excel spreadsheet, clicking on one of 20 names at the right moment to heal them. The tank just had to hear that he always looked at the right big toe of one of those giant bosses. And the damage dealers came off lightly, as they were merely more worried about competing for first place in the damage meter than actually fighting the boss.
Theory-Crafting – The Exact Opposite of the Power Fantasy
During “Theory-Crafting”, during the theoretical examination of our heroes, we are as far away from a power fantasy as possible. We don’t see the “3 dagger strikes more” that we can now perform in a fight when we increase our speed stat by 20 points, but we think: “I get 40 more DPS out of it.”
Which games benefit the most from power fantasies?
