“Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.”

-Soren Johnson, the lead designer of Civilization IV

The whole game is about making money. Without this, there are no goals. However, if players start subverting the designed mechanics for an advantage, it makes others feel like they’re missing out and they do the same.

Grind is not all negative. For example RuneScape is entirely a game about the grind. Sure, you could just give every player a “max” button, but then what’s your goal/accomplishment while playing? There isn’t one.

I agree that a grind that doesn’t have a purpose sucks. The open world Ubisoft games, for example, have you just grind pointless things that waste your time, for no reason but to extend playtime. That’s bad grind. I haven’t played this, because it doesn’t run on Linux yet, but it seems to be mostly good grind.

I’m skeptical about locking some things behind exp, not just money, though. It gives players with more hours to spend a larger advantage.