I disagree with the author's fundamental assumption that games (and mountain climbing) are fundamentally about experience, and that pretty much undercuts everything else in this article.  To say that climbing Everest is about experiencing nature is actually absurd.  People climb Everest because it is an accomplishment that is as much about personal triumph as it is about experiencing nature.  If the trek is modified to require no personal growth, it is no longer the same trek.  The author's cool approach to the subject allows him to convincingly deconstruct the hardcore perspective, but when I look at what remains after he's done, I am not convinced that it is gaming.<p>TL;DR:  The logical extension of the article is that someone who watches a real-time movie of people climbing Everest has a similar experience to those <i>actually climbing Everest</i>, and should be allowed to claim that they too have climbed Everest.  In my opinion the author does a disservice to us all by making a convincing argument of this.