I came perilously close to failing several university assignments thanks to an unhealthy obsession with original Civ. And I loved every minute of it.
I still play the newer versions now and then, but the original stands out as a paragon of game design. It was grid based, so unit movement was easy with keystrokes. That along with hot keys for everything meant that you could play a complete game without a mouse. This was particularly useful at keeping the endgame speedy. Something that I think is missing in later versions.
1B hours played. Think about your experience with a couple hundred hours, and then multiply that by a few million similar instances - how much productivity has been lost? Or how much history has been learned, friendships built, and strategy developed? Similarly, how many billions of hours have been spent browsing Facebook, for better or worse?
I think one of the most important ethical questions we can ask ourselves is how can we write great gaming, working, and social networking software that has a net positive effect on the world through the hours that are spent in it.
You have a fair point in regards to responsibility. I'm guessing that I think similiarly to you that these experiences are subjective?
One person's addiction with a 4x strategy game is another's gateway into a lifelong fascination with building complex information systems. One person's compulsive Facebook checking leading to depression is another's connection with family members when they're working overseas.
There is an ethical responsibility in creating technology, but there are many shades of grey in how people use it.
Think of this as many hours spent NOT learning homework doing rote memorization (or literally anything else unproductive), and I think you'll find it more palatable. Game playing, especially of the Civ variety, builds problem solving skills.
I know it isn't exactly the same - to be fair it's quite simplistic in many ways - but the fast-paced maps of Populous 2 (amiga) hit me in a very similar way. With 1,000 possible levels it's almost a form of mental solitaire. With all the clicking you can't exactly zone out completely (this is where Civ's keyboard driven model is quite nice). But since the maps only take around 10 minutes to play on average, there is this addicting sensation to play "just one more" to get to the next level and see what the new puzzle will be. Then you realize an hour has gone by. Then another.
I still play the newer versions now and then, but the original stands out as a paragon of game design. It was grid based, so unit movement was easy with keystrokes. That along with hot keys for everything meant that you could play a complete game without a mouse. This was particularly useful at keeping the endgame speedy. Something that I think is missing in later versions.