I think it is a bit sad that the only connection people really had to him was in the gaming world. I doubly think that it is sad that acceptance came only in the form of a denial of sorts of his actual reality.
I guess this is part of what the article tries to comment on though. The traditional viewpoint is: This is denial of reality, and it's sad.
But players themselves often just see it more as an extension of themselves, where it easier to find like-minded individuals, or others who see themselves like outcasts in some way. The fact that they're banding together in virtual space is in my eyes not necessarily a negative, although excessive gaming to run away from other responsibilities can be negative.
I think Mats was very aware of his own reality, and even seemed to write prose about how these two worlds contrasted for him on his blog (which I can't find directly atm, so I'm just basing that on the excerpts in the article).
The connections he made with people, were real, even though the space he made them in was man-made, abstract or non-real.
Which is probably something that could not easily be achieved to this degree with the limitations he had in the physical world.
But players themselves often just see it more as an extension of themselves, where it easier to find like-minded individuals, or others who see themselves like outcasts in some way. The fact that they're banding together in virtual space is in my eyes not necessarily a negative, although excessive gaming to run away from other responsibilities can be negative.
I think Mats was very aware of his own reality, and even seemed to write prose about how these two worlds contrasted for him on his blog (which I can't find directly atm, so I'm just basing that on the excerpts in the article).
The connections he made with people, were real, even though the space he made them in was man-made, abstract or non-real. Which is probably something that could not easily be achieved to this degree with the limitations he had in the physical world.