Playstation and Plato

Plato's "Allegory of a Cave" reinforces knowledge that we as a society have slowly learned: an individual's experience and reality is largely based on their perception and recollection. How is one supposed to expect reality to be any different from what they are currently touching, tasting, smelling, hearing or seeing? And of course our perception of whatever we are experiencing is so colored by numerous other factors that what we think we are remembering is much different than what may have been reality.
Holding this knowledge as our basis, it is only logical to look at electronic games along with other media as having the ability to shape our perception of reality and change what we think of experience. Plato explains to us that what we experience-- defined as that which can be felt through one of our five senses, shapes what our reality is. He says that reality is subjective, based on the owner's experiences and knowledge. The prisoners have a vastly different version of reality when faced away from the light than they do once they have been exposed to the light and allowed to see freely.

The philosopher referred to the fact that the prisoner who had to return to the darkness may not have truly been fortunate in being permitted to see the light as he had previously thought, because he was then forced to endure a reality that he had previously accepted but now knew was incomplete. We can see this as it may apply to games: many people suffer crippling addictions to various forms of gaming, which may be because the reality offered within their gaming world is much more attractive to the gamer than the everyday life they are in possesion of outside of their game of choice. Perhaps these people would have been happier if they had not played their game at all, if the reality and experiences offered by the games had never changed their perception.