Was anyone actually having fun -- in any meaningful sense of the word -- or were they just indulging compulsion. I think for a lot of (even very predatory) games, there's a blend between the two, but here's it seems to be nakedly the latter.
I take the view that if someone says they're having fun you should probably believe them. I've known people who talked about games like addicts, that they'd spend hours "playing" and the best they'd ever get out of it was feeling numb, but those were always "deeper" or at least bigger games (mostly LoL and WoW), not Cow Clicker or any of the similar games that emerged later.
It usually starts with it being "fun", because you so release endorphins from playing/winning. The stage where they're only feeling numb is extremely late when they're already hopelessly addicted.
Not all fun things are equal however, otherwise you'd have to classify taking drugs and directly supplementing "fun" hormones as the best entertainment in existence.
