If there is a danger here, it is not the danger of mindless play but of infatuation with the challenge of simulated worlds. In the right circumstances, some people come to prefer them to the real. This danger is not specific to games; it reflects one of the ways in which the games are a microcosm of computation. Computers offer the possibility of creating and working within artificial worlds, whether to simulate the behavior of economies, political systems, or imaginary subatomic particles. Like Narcissus and his reflection, people who work with computers can easily fall in love with the worlds they have constructed or with their performances in the worlds created for them by others. Involvement with simulated worlds affects relationships with the real one.

- Turkle, 1984

This passage addresses the problem of video game addiction, and how it impacts on the lives of people in the real world. The simulated realities of many recent games, such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, are so intricately designed and challenging to the players that the division between the game world and the real world can easliy become blurred. In many cases, the games are designed to immerse the player totally in the artificial environment they present, and it becomes difficult for the addicted player to remove themselves properly from this “simulated world”. This problem is often aggravated by the presense of other players in the same game world, adding a social aspect to the simulation. If other real people are experiencing the same simulation, at the same time, in the same virtual 'place', then the simulation becomes far more believeable, and hence more real. Not only does the player's “involvement with simulated worlds” change how they react to situation in reality, it can often become their reality, as the computer designed environment seems far more real to them. The rule-based predictability of simulation is easier to comprehend and more comforting than the real world.

One of the biggest issues raised by this problem is whether or not these simulated worlds are any less real than what is commonly considered to be the 'real world'. Many post-modern theorists, such as Baudrillard and Lyotard, have suggested that reality is entirely subjective. From this point of view, the immersion and challenges presented to players by simulated worlds are just as authentic as anything encountered without the aid of a simulation. If simulation and reality are on the same continuum, then if a simulation is developed enough, it will eventually cross the threshold into the real. However complex a computation reality is, it can still be represented; therefore, a complex enough simulation will become reality.