I take issue with one of his contentions that people don't root for the bad guys. There have been many times when I'm watching a film or playing a video game where I support the antagonist. Often the 'evil' character is the most dynamic one, the person responsible for actually moving the plot along. Villains act, heroes react after all.<p>Now I say this not to just engage in trivial nitpicking, but because I think his thesis needs to be refined. The author attributes his idea to a moral compulsion for people to support the 'good' company, or the one thats trying to slay a monster. What he's actually identified is the natural tendency for people to define themselves in opposition to the other. You can't be insanely loyal to a product unless there is a challenge to it. Its less good versus evil, its group loyalty vs. the outsider.
Along the same vein, Kevin Rose wrote a blog post (<a href="http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2011/1/11/cityvilles-viral-growth-hooks-levels-1-3-deconstructed.html" rel="nofollow">http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2011/1/11/cityvilles-viral-growth...</a>) about Facebook games and why they're so popular. He came to the same conclusion that Ian Lurie did: people want to do stuff and then tell everybody about it. And I have to agree with both of them.<p>I bought Crysis 2 the other day and started playing through the story. For those that don't know, it's your standard FPS with the addition of two superpowers, invisibility and invulnerability. In a nutshell, my classmates and I end up spending quite a bit of time talking about how awesome our last session was, and essentially sharing war stories. And the fact is, we keep going back and playing, as much to finish the game as to have more stories tomorrow and the day after.
Hey, this also applies to minecraft. As a walk down the halls at my school, I hear people talking about what they have build, or the cave they escaped. It's talk-aboutable. Not to mention the joy of pure creation.