Today I finally decided to check out the whole world of ‘social’ iPhone games, in the form of Trade Nations.  I can see the appeal to it; there’s a sense of constantly making progress, and it pulls you back with reasons to return and do something at regular intervals, and it’s not too heavy-handed about hassling friends or microtransactions.  But, I can also already see where it’s going, and there’s not enough real variety to what you’ll be doing.  You’re just collecting resources to make more buildings to collect more resources to make more buildings to collect more resources…  It wouldn’t be the first grindy game, but it’s grinding just for grinding’s sake.  There’s no story to follow, or any actual challenge to the decisions you make that would count as interesting gameplay.

Of course it’s not a game you’re meant to play as a main focus, but I’ll undoubtedly wind up gradually forgetting to check in on it anyway.