Comment by scratcheee

The way the psychology of gambling has entered the games industry has indeed produced more money, but at the same kind of costs that the gambling industry has always created.

I don't advocate for killing this new gaming industry, just as I don't advocate for killing the more traditional gambling industry, but both need much stricter supervision than most markets because they attack a weak point in human psychology, and taken too far, they harm humanity more than they generate value.

In the end any "distortion" of the market requires a strong justification, but I think the justifications used against the gambling industry have always been pretty compelling, and they appear to apply just as well to modern games industry techniques.

Another way to put it is that the "value to society" of modern games techniques contains a negative externality: damage to the players comparable to that of gambling addictions. You could solve it with the equivalent of a carbon tax, though defining the cost of different tactics feels impossible, so I'd argue that the traditional gambling restrictions are a better fit (illegal in many places, illegal for children, legal limits, requiring various warnings and protections to discourage extreme behaviours, high taxes, etc).

Many families play boardgames with their children at home. Fewer visit blackjack tables. I think theres a fair argument that these broadly match the different financial strategies in the games industry. How much of this behaviour is parental wisdom and how much is limited accessibility thanks to legal restrictions is a hard question to answer, but I have a suspicion that the world would be a worse place with unrestricted gambling. But kids _do_ sit at home opening lootboxes as their parents watch tv, I'm not sure if the effects are much different.