A friend is desperately looking for help. She believes her son is addicted to
an online game called EverQuest. Sure, I thought, he probably spends too much
time online, but he lives in her house and she should just lay down the law,
set some boundaries yada yada yada...

And then I read this:
http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/skinner.html

This game uses operant conditioning to shape players' actions - Variable
schedules of reinforcement - Multilayered and overlapping goals that keep you
always close to a reward. Turns Maslow's heirchy upside down: personal
achievements and aesthetics can come before basic needs. There's no storyline;
the player is in control. It's massively multiplayer. It's cooperative. Very
social. And very very scary. At least one suicide attributed to virtual
character's death.

We all know how powerful OC can be. This sounds absolutely eeevil to me! Anyone
heard of this before? Any suggestions where my friend might turn for help?

Sorry if this is off topic, but we are talking about training "the human
animal" to click (and click and click, and click click clickclickclick
clickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclick)

Susan Fraser, owned and trained by
SheBop, Shammie, Boog, and GreeGree
Good as gold, but way more precious