[arkades]

Video games don't have NPCs in the same way. They have scripts.

The key distinction being that the purpose of knowing their wants/fears is to know how they should respond as unforeseen events unfold. Real RPGs have unforeseen events. Video games have branching, but highly deterministic, events - therefore, the "NPC" just needs a set of scripts that cover those branches. You don't need to predict anything. They don't need to be characters in the way that RPG characters are characters; they need to be characters the way that fiction characters are characters.