[yibg]

Looking back yes not much skills gained. At the time what kept me in there were a couple of things:

1) chasing the next thing. Next item, next perfect build, next stat.

2) the multi player aspect. Be it pvp or a coop game with some online “friends”

Both of these are good ways to keep people engaged / addicted I guess.

[gwd]

Yeah, I definitely felt the pull of the first thing, and after a while resented it, because I felt like I was being manipulated.

I definitely think there's value in the second thing, though. Basically, I used to tell people that I play video games "socially" -- until a few months ago (when I decided to actually skill up on Starcraft 2), I almost never played video games unless it was with a group of other people.