The reason this all came up is because I read an article on cnn.com (don't hate don't hate) here and it talks about a South Korean couple who neglected their actual real life infant to raise a virtual child character in an online game. They've been charged and are obviously looking at jail time. There's no mental defense or anything like that, they've basically been straight out neglecting their child and ducking the responsibilities of parenting and escape reality with a game.
In a way the whole Web 2.0 idea really caught on with them; they've basically been extremely caught up in the game that they lost touch with reality. They are obviously an extreme case, but isn't that the ultimate goal of these games? Games and websites like Facebook are now marketed with ads and pay schemes to benefit the more people use their services. Obviously they all don't say they want people to get obsessed but at the same time a lot of these services don't do anything to snap them out of it. Companies like Firaxis put an ingame clock, timer, and alarm clock in Civilization IV to help people monitor their time and make sure they don't forget about the real world.
However, looking at a screenshot of this game Prius Online:
It looks pretty ridiculously stupid so maybe people are just idiots (and bad parents).
Moderation, I guess. No one should have to teach you that.
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