Hi Dude,
Sorry to apostrophe you in such a trivial way but it seems appropriate in regard to the content of my message.
I do not know if the Freemium word is your find or not but I read it the first time in your column and I find it a real good one. Tipically the kind of words that makes me love even more the english foreign language. (I am french)
Long time reader of Wired, the RSS feed lead me to your den from time to time and it is always a cosy place with lots of humor (beer in dwarf equivalence) and words musicality (battle songs).
Would it be too much praise to say I agree with every word of it ? From wonderful "incipit" (lead-in sentence) to the complete understanding of the not-so-not-boring paradigm of this kind of game was a very nice developer of the negative I had in my mind about them to the would-be drilldown the Mad Men reference (which reminded me of some creative writing form I had never the will to put to the real test)
But the real factor that put me in the concurrent writer position was the leveling-up factor ! I am afflicted by the same virus !!!!
Fortunately for me, I resist the meta-game issue by decreting that if the game is more enjoyable thru real money I will not spend a minute on it... Except if I would to be writing an article on it ;-)
Which leads me to my Subject line : I hate you at level 5 for doing what I had dreamed of doing for a long time and dreamed again from time to time. ;-)
Friendly and kind regards from France.
William