Our world didn't used to be real. In fact, there is still quite a bit of scholarly debate on that subject. You see, unlike a lot of worlds, we knew exactly when, and how, we came to be.
The story goes like this.
Before I was born (but not long before I was born) this world was just a game. A game beloved by a little girl in the meta world -- the world that ours rests within. The little girl made a wish. Some stories say it was a genie wish, or a wish upon a star. Others argue it wasn't magic at all, and that we're living in a simulation coded by some person or AI who loved her very, very much. There probably is a real answer, out in the meta world, but they seem to think telling us that information will cause us to have some sort of worldwide existential crisis. As if we haven't already done that ten times over, and come out of it just fine, thank you very much.
The stories all agree that she made a wish, for her favorite game to be "real." The wish was granted, and our world was born, already fully formed with people and towns and a whole backstory that was significantly less real than the world itself now was. I'm told it was utter chaos for a while.
In a lot of ways we're lucky it was a little girl, and not an adult or a little boy. She wasn't interested in the violent bits of the game, preferring to live out her fantasies of being a powerful, influential adult. She played on kid-friendly mode, where you can do and be whatever you like and where nothing can truly hurt you.
Our game was a superhero game, you see, and it very much did have villains. Everything from your basic goons, essentially cannon fodder, to full-on mad scientist supervillains. But they didn't do any real violence, not in kid mode, so whatever woke us all up on Creation Day made them less pure evil and more schemers and pranksters. Most of them are more liable to put soap flakes in all the public fountains than blow up buildings. (The fountains where this might cause a real inconvenience have long since been disconnected from the water lines.)
The kid grew up, and while she still visits from time to time, we mostly get other visitors now. Scientists, who hole up at the university trying to learn more about our world (while telling us as little as possible about theirs.) Tourists, who keep getting copies of the game somehow despite the scientist's best efforts (and who sometimes let tantalizing crumbs slip). Some of them come in thinking that this is all still a game, with no consequences. Luckily they usually come in at level one, weak as kittens and with no idea how to use their powers. We throw those in prison, and they tend to lose interest pretty quickly when they realize that's all they're going to see of our world.
Since I already told you I was born here, you know we can have kids. That was a big question, at first, and once the initial chaos settled people quickly set about trying to answer it. There were a lot of babies born around the same time as me. We even get powers, sometimes, though only from the "villain" table. (A few years after C-Day, one of the devs snuck in our entire source code, at what I am sure was great risk to themself. They haven't been seen since. I hope they're okay out there.) I haven't gotten one yet, and I'm not sure if I want to or not. Whoever wrote the villain table had a sick sense of humor - most of them are downright weird.
The question that caused the most panic was whether the world might cease to exist if all the players log off. It doesn't, thankfully. They were worried about that in the meta world, too, and kept someone logged in at all times for the first few years. Then some hacker group that, I guess, didn't believe we were real or had a right to exist, figured out how to boot everyone out at once and shut down the servers. It took them hours to get back online, and absolutely nothing happened, except of course that the city devolved into complete pandemonium. And there was a toilet paper shortage for months. Apparently the world possibly ending means we need to loot all the toilet paper from the grocery store. Don't ask me why, I was four.
So, yeah. Definitely here. Debatably real, but real enough, as far as most of us are concerned. You should come visit sometime.