A good game gives us meaningful accomplishment - clear achievement that we don't necessarily get from real life. In a game, you've beaten level four, the boss monster is dead, you have a badge, and now you have a super laser sword. Real life isn't like that, right?
We should note that this latter type of shift was successfully amplified to a considerable extent by Russian physicists using the intense light of a ruby laser whose wavelength is close to that of a transition of the potassium atom.
My wife and I were on our honeymoon in Turks and Caicos, in the middle of nowhere, and I'm sitting on this deserted beach, and I see one lone person walking along the shore. He walks right up to me and says, 'I love 'Laser Cats,' and then just walks away.
The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.
We didn't even think about it, you know? I used to collect laser discs, and you'd have some college professor analyzing It's a Wonderful Life or Citizen Kane, and now it is pretty funny - the idea of commentary for a silly kid's movie, you know?