- CAVX
- |
- Exalted Legendary Member
A lot of people here do it because they've elevated the company to a pretty high spot in their minds. Most start here out of loyalty and appreciation to the company. A specific product from Bungie merited enough appreciation, and you had a calling to join and discuss it. For many, this effect snowballs. Bungie becomes an object of perfection. No product is better, no one is better. Employees become celebrities. Moderators become celebrities. Your heart skips a beat when you see a gold septagon next to a thread. Suddenly you realize the potential. In this new realm, you have the ability to become known. You can be recognized, revered, and known by your favorite new celebrities due to the levels of interaction. This results in droves of members striving unnecessarily for higher member titles and popularity, and trying way too hard to make "productive" or "useful" posts that end up only slightly more exciting than churning butter.
In that sense, you could say that the community is addictive, though I would suggest that people with these thoughts might be suffering from a bit of delusion. I like Bungie, but the people who work there aren't celebrities. The website isn't perfect, nor are the games (both are, of course, very nice, but definitely not perfect). And you're not likely to gain much from lurking for hours on end.
I'm not saying that this applies to everyone, although I think that a lot of people (myself included) have been this way at some point, to some degree - even if we don't care to admit it. Most of the other motives I see for people coming here for are, in my opinion, derived from the original purpose above, except with more mature and legitimate approaches. These are things like community interaction (by other members, this isn't you if you consider colored text your idea of interaction), private groups, or perhaps an actual interest in one or many products that Bungie has released.
A lot of people do come here because they like a single community for online interaction, so they default to it. But even then, there's always a reason for the initial choice, and for you staying around as long as you have. To be honest, I'm probably in that last camp at the moment. I used to do a lot here, and I'm used to it here, so I default to the site.