dtgreene: I just happened to notice an article that describes what sort of people play idle clickers, and it's not what you would expect.
For me, It's actually what I expected since the clicking games are just heavily stripped off versions of farming&leveling games such as Diablo and all its derivatives in terms of game design and gameplay.
"Traditional" RPG's (and other type of games too) nowadays are filled with "hidden" gauges wich delivers rewards in one form or another (achievements, rare loots, etc.). You get further in the games not because your skills became godly but because you spent time playing it. On teh contrary, old school design based purely on skills had mainly three types of evaluations: high scores, time record or simply being able to finish the game.
That's what I call the "skills vs. work" design. I use the word "work" becaus that's what it is: you spent your time and then instead of getting money, you get virtual reward. That's why people can find this type of gameplay addictive in the first place because it "congratulates" you but after a while you realize, it's meaningless and move on to another thing. In itself, there's no difference between redoing the same gestures over and over when working in a factory, clicking/idle games and killing the same enemy for the 100th time just to get a rare loot.
A good example of the "skills vs. work" clashing against each other is the Borderlands series. As you progress through the story, you gradually unlock new weapons, thus new possibilities of defeating enemies but you'll always get hindered by the leveling system (a 5-level difference between you, your weapons and monsters makes a huge difference) which forces you to farm if llike me you like to rush the game instead (taht's why I always lose some interest in the Bordelands games after a while despite their other qualities).
