Why do so many virtual worlds feature magic?
One explanation is that virtual worlds have to be the same as the real world to a great extent (so that players aren't distracted by trying to understand an alien physics), but that they also have to be different in key ways (so that players can perceive them to be separate from reality, thereby freeing them to act in ways they wouldn't ordinarily). Magic is a well-understood trope that enables this distinction to be made very easily.
But still, why magic rather than technology or the supernatural or even history? All of them can easily separate the real from the imagined without distracting the player. Why magic?
Roy Trubshaw had read more SF than Fantasy when he began MUD1, but he still went for a Fantasy world. Most of the players had read more SF, too, but it was never suggested that we wrote for that genre. Fantasy seemed just to be the natural thing.
I gave a talk in Amsterdam this week (masochists will shortly be able to download it from here), where the subject of magic came up. I advanced the same explanation that I did at the start of this post, which is a fair enough functional account. However, it doesn't suggest any reason why people would prefer magic over any other mechanism for separating the real and the virtual in players' minds. Some 85% of virtual worlds are Fantasy by genre; can it all be explained in terms of jumping on bandwagons, or is there a deeper reason for it?
What do you think?