Niels Clark dropped by in the comment thread on the WoW addiction therapy guild to mention that Jim Rossignol has a detailed review of his new book Game Addiction: The Experience and the Effects.
What this means is that Game Addiction is damning of “grind” heavy games. At times, it seems like Clark is betraying his “not anti-games” by painting a deliberately bleak pictures of traditional MMOs. He’s quick to nod towards the complexity of these clever multiplayer constructs, and the positive side-effects of social gaming, but I couldn’t help feeling that grind-based games are beginning to become their own worst enemies when subjected to this kind of scrutiny. It seems like an impossible task to come away with a truly positive picture of their game model, and the way we gamers behave when playing them. They are not games that encourage balance in our lives.
via Rock, Paper, Shotgun: “Don’t push me because I’m close to the…” » Book: Game Addiction.
The discussion thread, needless to say, gets kind of contentious. Sounds worth picking up though!