I'm also not buying that it's a slippery slope and banning, say, cross compiling profiles on customers from different, unrelated platforms would "take down the entirety of marketing and advertising as an industry".

In capitalism, companies will do everything within the legal framework to make more money. That's their job. Ours is to set and adjust those bounds to keep the whole system productive.

http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-a-fan-who-has-spent-30000-on-sta...

He seems like a reasonable person to me. He's not in financial ruin. He doesn't seem to regret his purchase. He's just putting money into his hobby, the same way a different 40 year old would buy an "unproductive" boat or an "unproductive" Rolex.

If you accept that our knowledge of psychology, biochemistry, and neuroscience are improving and likely to continue doing so, and that calibrated external actions are capable of influencing our behavior, and that progress in the former begets progress in the latter, then either:

a) We will reach a point where we will stop making progress in those fields

b) We overturn the majority of our current social psychology knowledge and realize that yes, people actually do have absolute free will

c) We will develop techniques so sophisticated and reliable to influence behavior that it becomes unreasonable to expect an average person to resist them

As I (and the original article seems to) see it, the current free-for-all that is "freemium"/casual gaming basically targets all of capitalism's motivation and resources on arriving at (c) as quickly as possible. And... we're getting pretty damn good at it.

PS: Positech Games makes great stuff, btw! GSB had several free expansions just because Cliff Harris is cool [he == Positech]. He absolutely could have charged for the content if he'd felt like milking more money out of his users.

I'm not so sure. I play a video game, and invariably get bored to tears within 30 seconds or so.

It might have something to do with when I was a student, I had a job that involved play testing video games.

It's also true that my old game Empire was well known to be addictive. I'd play it myself, but would rarely get too far into a game before I'd go back to tweaking the AI, which was where the real fun was.

While yours may be a true experience: statistics. I'm not sure a personal experience poll on an entrepreneurial technology news site is the best place for a representative sample of people with low willpower. And social psych findings have born out that are a lot of easily manipulated levers to reliably influence people's behavior in an intentional way.

To me, it's not about the people with Fort Knox reserves of willpower. Say instead I'm born into the genetic/epigenetic/life lottery with a crappy ticket, what's fair? (And if you don't agree that that's possible, try volunteering at your local homeless shelter a few times)

Is it fair that everyone else gets to leverage my vices to transfer my wealth and the profits of my work to themselves? Or is there something morally not right about that scenario?

I agree it's easy to go overboard with regulation, but just because it's possible to addict babies to cocaine in utero doesn't mean that's the society we should build.

echo "WalterBright" | sed 's/Bright/White/'

Prepare for enlightenment: http://www.classicempire.com

But you probably already know all that from on the extensive profile you built on me.

Thank you. :)

In my case, it has nothing whatsoever to do with willpower. It's that video games bore me.

You are just one of the costs of doing a freemium business. Like the alcohol industry, the game is really targeted towards the psychologically vulnerable who represent most of the revenues.

The game is boring by design. Actually its just barely interesting enough to keep the target audience playing, but not so interesting that it stops them from paying to get their psychological reward. These games are basically crack which you can legally sell to kids.

There is a great south park episode that illustrates this phenomenon. Its very well done. You should watch it.

http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e06-freemium-isnt-f...

Gee, I wonder why...

Err... All current research suggests that you have almost no free will and are little more than a complex set of reactions to external stimulus.

Free will is just a conceptual mistake based on metaphysics.

If you buy $30k worth of golf clubs, you have $30k worth of golf clubs.

If you put $30k into a kickstarter project for some digital assets exclusively in a piece of software that isn't even written yet, you don't own that.

That's not putting $30k into a hobby, but giving $30k to someone without even a contractual obligation for delivery. It's exactly why the SEC won't let non-accredited investing into crowdfunded equity projects, but the reality is that people already think they're buying something without getting equity.

A paternalist government is not compatible with a free society.

Consumer rights and protections are what creates scalable trade by enabling trust in our society.

As for who's going to enforce my $100k agreement, the same people that enforce any other contract, the courts.

There is a line that needs to be drawn somewhere in terms of what can and cannot be allowed in contracts, the question is where to draw it. The other obvious point is whether both parties are acting in good faith, which is why there are laws about fraud on the books (even if they aren't always enforced for some financial industries).

You had just said it's not appropriate for governments to insert itself between two informed, consenting parties, because it is paternalistic and not part of a free society.

Also what does market efficiency have to do with anything? There are always going to be asymmetrical distributions of power because information is asymmetrical.

A lot of what the SEC and FTC do is require appropriate information disclosure to protect consumers from deception. The SEC requires financial disclosures, auditing, etc. In the FTC's own words: "Federal Trade Commission has a broad mandate to protect consumers from fraud and deception in the marketplace". The idea is to make sure people have the information that they need to make informed decisions. Not to tell them what decisions they are and are not allowed to make once they have that information.

And to the contrary, both the SEC and the FTC dictate what types of transactions take place in respective domains - unless you're arguing that the prevention of MLMs and ponzi schemes infringes on your freedoms.

https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4

People get value from things that aren't tangible. Many of the most valuable things aren't tangible.

For a movie you clearly know what you get into.

Some guys spend $100k to go motor racing for a season in single-make cars. At the end of it, they don't own anything but any trophies they might have picked up.

If people want to spend money on digital goods, putting up walls to stop or make it harder is unlikely to be successful unless you outright ban it with heavy punishment for use.

That hasn't worked so well for other items in a similar category, and digital goods are completely victimless.

The article and others in the thread have given arguments that digital goods are not victimless. Most societies acknowledge that gambling is harmful; digital gambling with fake money or with time spent in-game is presumably harmful as well.

It's also not clear that destroying the entirety of marketing and advertising industries is an obviously bad idea if you take the long view on humanity. (It's also not an obviously good idea. It's worth thinking about.)

The point I'm trying to make is that it is impractical, costly, probably impossible and dangerous to attempt to limit the mechanics the OP is really pissed off about in a way that does not also impinge upon the freedom of the majority in order to protect those with poor impulse control.

I am capable of going to a casino and walking out of there without losing my shirt. I am equally as capable of going to have a few drinks at a bar without becoming an alcoholic, or to have sex with somebody and not turn into a raging sex addict. Should my ability to go to casinos, drink, or sleep with people be regulated too, just because some people's lives are ruined by these things?

You can project this argument into a thousand different things just because people like them. For example, I spend an absolute eternity on the Internet. The vast majority of my life is spent reading, writing code, or doing other coder-type things. Because of this, I have also had to eat the opportunity cost involved; I have missed out on some social gatherings, I have lost friends and also lost any and all experience I would get otherwise. It's safe to say, by some general decree, that I'm addicted to what I do. I'd argue I'm passionate. Should my work and passions be regulated because there is an opportunity cost to me doing so? Should I not be allowed to have the Internet at all because someone else has racked up inordinate amounts of debt at World of Warcraft?

I don't believe it is the fault of the mechanic that these people have poor impulse control, for some reason or another, and I also don't believe it's fair to limit the existence of these types of games because some people are incapable of walking away from them. If we should do anything regulatory down this path, it is building in proper harm reduction systems for these things versus taking a puritanical "ban it" approach to them.

PS: We can fantasize about people being rational, but reality disagrees.

I worry that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That the less you treat people as rational beings responsible for their own decisions, the less rational and responsible they will be. It might already be happening, with victimitis in American politics being one of the most visible outcomes.

The status quo isn't as black and white as you've made it out. Advertisements and marketing have developed along with their regulations throughout modern history. Most countries restrict advertisements for prescription medicines. Many restrict advertising aimed at children directly. In the US, advertising is explicitly excluded from the first amendment.

A free market works only when people act rationally. That's one of the underlying hypotheses. Psychological manipulation and the Zynga Skinner box causes people to act out of alignment with their rational preferences.

huh? this literally sounds like "fuck you, got mine" but spun as a benevolent positive, somehow. You had the education and the know-how to be able to learn to defend yourself from ads, and out of some sense of modesty, you're going to keep it to yourself?

I'm unsure how it is that you draw this as the conclusion. What am I keeping to myself? The OP's argument is about banning specific types of games because some people can't control themselves.

I believe there is a strong difference between asking the government to ban an action versus sharing information on the risks of an action. I've generally nothing against the government issuing required warnings on vices, assuming the information is scientifically accurate (e.g. the warnings on tobacco boxes, etc.)

There's tons of laws to protect people from false advertising, fraud, and such. But if, armed with the facts and all of these protections, someone still spends their money unwisely, that's no longer the government's problem. To use another aphorism: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Laws hadn't caught up with progress in game industry yet. It's high time for it though. I understand the reluctance to regulate things, but when we have a whole industry which explicit purpose is figuring out the best way to abuse bugs in human psychology to part them with their money, I think some reaction is warranted.

> To use another aphorism: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Oh, but modern marketing is all about exploiting horse's cognitive heuristics to make it drink.

The video game industry did not invent slimy salesmen. Learning to say "no" to salesmen has been a basic life skill for all of human history. Millions of people manage to do it every day. It's one of the things that parents drill into their kids heads as they grow up.

We're talking about video games, frivolous entertainment. If you spend all of next month's rent on in-app purchases, you've thoroughly earned the consequences of your actions. And those consequences will serve as a potent lesson.

And the law has already gotten involved with recent developments in the game industry. The FTC and EU have already forced Apple and Google to ensure that children cannot make purchases without parental permission. With that in place, it's now up to the parents to say "no" to their children. Another basic life skill, with consequences for those who ignore it.

Maybe you're okay with that but it's that kind of behavior the OP is against. Not just simple sales tactics to say no to but full on manipulation.

Somehow I suspect that kind of "regulation" is not what OP had in mind.

And, by the way, there's plenty of places where gambling is legal, including parts of the US.

H-D markets themselves as a "lifestyle brand". You don't just buy a motorcycle and you're done. You are aggressively marketed toward for a bunch of different pieces of clothing, spare parts, co-branded partnerships with automobile companies, et cetera, ad nauseum. You are effectively buying into a subculture.

Furthermore, Harley-Davidson has been known to use almost identical sales tactics. IIRC and I can't find it now, but sometime last year a sales guidelines book was leaked that actually did things like put attractive models at gas stations to tell the prospective buyer "nice bike" or the like on their test rides.

This is independent of whether or not you can resell them. Whether or not you're permitted to resell the items won't matter any more if they all vanish due to a company going out of business or leaving the game behind.

As time pass, people learn to use the thing without too much harm, and then it may be OK to lift the ban: completely, or for adults only (like with alcohol - notice that it's still controlled, just not outright forbidden for everybody).

There's no reason we have to think in absolutes ("state control in one case was bad = all state control is bad", or "particular measure of state control was bad at one point, therefore it was bad since the beggining and will be bad forever"). It's possible that a good policy in one circumstances became bad policy later. I think war on drugs is the example of this. And consider the harm strong alcohol did among native Americans when it was introduced. I think prohibition for a few decades would be net positive for them, if they could enforce it.

Slippery slope arguments are tricky, they often lead you to overgeneralize.

As for particulary addictive games (like ogame etc) - I think it would be beneficial if they were regulated similary to gambling. I am open to arguments.

The same argument can apply to people who stay in abusive relationships. I'm not taking a side on whether you're right or wrong in the whole, but there is a danger here that people seem to have some sorts of action linked mechanisms that do not necessarily favour their happiness.

Individual freedom part of me would agree but in reality governments do this all the time and I can't say it's all bad either.

A good example is drug control - while it's currently taken to the extreme there's no doubt in my mind that fully legalizing drugs would lead to a more volatile society - even if drugs were legal they would still cost money, as would other basic necessities - and hard addicts aren't in any position to be productive. At best they will be a burden on their community. At worst they turn to crime. Not to mention the increased number of psychotic breakdowns.

I value a society which is based on individual freedom but I don't like the idea of living in a society where I have to be afraid of a junky robbing me if I step outside of my house or dying in a random guns blazing suicide shooter spree.

>but this shit has been around as long as humanity itself has existed

Interesting and somewhat obvious point that gets overlooked a lot. For example the "mainstream media conspiracy" argument (which is rather accepted considering how implausible the argument is on the grand scale) of dumbing down the population and intentionally shoving superficial crap/shocking stories as a part of some coordinated conspiracy to divert attention from "important issues".

I don't doubt that there is plenty of media manipulation from political and private circles - in the grand scheme of things a far more plausible explanation for the media we have is that they cater to their audience and know which buttons need to be pressed to get viewership. And their profit model is not aligned with quality content either.

Many hard drugs (including cocaine and heroin) were legal in the United States prior to the 1920s.

To the best of my knowledge, there was no massive social breakdown as a result.

The ultimate irony is that a major motivation for the criminalization of cocaine was, for poor rural whites, a fear that drugged up blacks would start raping white women. [1] Needless to say, this did not materialize and there is no reason it will if we lift the ban.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/why-we-too...

And I think the point is more directly made by the effect on the individual themselves. The reason unreasonably addictive drugs should be illegal isn't to save me the safety issues of addicts: it's the respect the addict's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - qualities which are substantially helped by not having your behavior driven by feeding your addiction.

Ironically, side note I researched before this comment: we've apparently only recently (mid-70s) returned to the early 1900s/pre-Prohibition levels of ethanol consumption per capita. https://prohibition.osu.edu/brewing/consumption

The purpose of a drug policy is not to reduce consumption rates. Consumption is not intrinsically bad. My use of the dangerous and potent drug known as theobromine (translation: I eat chocolate) is not itself the problem. A higher rate of consumption of pure and unadulterated drugs with active health and rehabilitation initiatives is preferable to lower consumption but with autistically intervening in people's self-ownership through use of the police and penal apparatus, disincentivizing health treatment as a result, bringing about organized crime and making addiction more dangerous because of tainted drugs that are peddled by unreliable black marketeers.

Paternalistic and destructive nonsense through and through.

(You did say illegal, not criminalized. Latter would be more humane in being a fine, but still unacceptable.)

> A higher rate of consumption of pure and unadulterated drugs with active health and rehabilitation initiatives is preferable to lower consumption but with autistically intervening in people's self-ownership through use of the police and penal apparatus

I'd absolutely agree with this, although I'd argue that a higher-rate of consumption is not in and of itself beneficial. If you're telling me that a teenager deciding to try heroine is "individual rights", then that's crap. Addiction differences between various compounds are well known ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_dependence#Risk_fact... ).

Are you saying there's no potential at which a drug should be illegal? A 100% addictive drug? A 50% addictive drug? 25%? 5%?

Imo, there's a point where socially we can absolutely say, "No, that thing is too dangerous to let you have without precautions." I'd be in favor of allowing people to sample those substances if they went through a course to earn the right to do so. You want to try heroin? Fine, but let's as a society make sure this isn't an impulse action and is something you're sure you want to do (and are aware and willing to accept the consequences of).

If you're taking individual rights umbrage at my support of a drug control policy, then look at it this way: if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to? Hint: Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Merck...

Do you really trust them to freely market a compound that has 10%+ addiction capture rate?

I should have said effective drug policy. Focusing on consumption rates is indeed what most people do, and it's completely wrong.

Are you saying there's no potential at which a drug should be illegal?

Hypothetically speaking, no. In practice, all attempts at providing classifications for which drugs to ban and which to keep legal are based on purely subjective and unscientific slippery slopes. With such a variety of narcotics, it's practically inevitable to see such regressions.

My example of theobromine in chocolate is a good one, I think. Nobody thinks anything of it even though strictly speaking it's quite toxic (though obviously negligible in the dosages it's consumed).

As such, if not legalize everything, legalize some of the higher profile psychoactives and stimulants and just decriminalize (levy a fine for) all the rest.

if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to? Hint: Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Merck...

Oh, so you'd rather they go to Los Zetas and Sinaloa Cartel?

Do you really trust them to freely market a compound that has 10%+ addiction capture rate?

We already do so for a variety of psychotropics, analgesics and so forth. The difference is we think of it as "medicine" rather than "drugs" and as such our perceptions are distorted. Yet the cost of vulnerable people getting high off over-the-counter drugs is pretty negligible. It takes no effort for a teen to dose themselves off DXM in cough syrup.

> Hypothetically speaking, no. In practice, all attempts at providing classifications for which drugs to ban and which to keep legal are based on purely subjective and unscientific slippery slopes. With such a variety of narcotics, it's practically inevitable to see such regressions.

What?! There's certainly some misclassifications due to political meddling with the DEA (should be rolled into the FDA, imho), but how is quantitative addictiveness measured in animal models (and in humans!) a "purely subjective and unscientific slippy slope"? Cocaine is more addictive than acetaminophen. Ignoring that fact is just as bad policy as anything you're arguing against. And yes, I agree with the Controlled Substances Act that addictiveness + medical utility is a decent litmus for the social good or lack thereof realized by access to a drug.

>> if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to? Hint: Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Merck...

> Oh, so you'd rather they go to Los Zetas and Sinaloa Cartel?

Honestly, faced with two evils, yes. Mexican and South American cartels don't have the option of running media advertisements or legal protections for their organizations.

If my sources are correct, Novartis has about USD$50b total revenue in 2014. A rough estimate of the total US illegal drug market is ~$100b. If the US has political trouble with existing legal contributions from drug companies, do you really want to see what our system looks like when we deregulate the market and add that money in? (Yes, revenue would decrease due to availability and competition, but use would likely increase due to legality)

>> Do you really trust them to freely market a compound that has 10%+ addiction capture rate?

We already do so for a variety of psychotropics, analgesics and so forth [...] Yet the cost of vulnerable people getting high off over-the-counter drugs is pretty negligible. It takes no effort for a teen to dose themselves off DXM in cough syrup.

DXM hasn't been found to be physically addictive.

You have no problem with wide-scale organized crime networks who engage in brutal acts of terror controlling the drug enterprise, nope. It's the evil capitalist producers exploiting the stupid proles with their advertising. Horrifying. No, the cartels don't have options of using legal protections because the illegal ones are much more effective in terms of securing obedience, and destructive.

If your only criterion of a drug's adverse effects is addictive potency, then your criteria are critically flawed and next to worthless. Something not inducing a physical dependence doesn't mean psychological addiction does not exist, though of course I oppose bans on either grounds. Addictive potential is but one factor of many.

I'm becoming convinced your opposition to legalization is not at all based on a cost-benefit analysis of the public welfare, but rather on a kneejerk fear of capitalism and voluntary association. Your use of the word "deregulate" as somehow being a scary detriment seems to corroborate this.

It's quite disgusting that you denigrate and despise voluntary association between consenting individuals so much that you'd prefer cartels slaughtering and burning villages just so mean scary capitalists with their evil advertising rays of doom don't influence the opinions of the public, whom you clearly regard as morons incapable of critical thought. It is then unsurprising you advocate what you do if that's where you come from.

Though I think it's clear you believe in copious use of intervention against individuals and have a hatred or fear of capitalism and free association in order to make such a batshit argument as arguing for cartel violence and regional destabilization because the prospect of corporate profits terrifies you so much.

EDIT: Scanning your post history, you make a reference to "the final solution to the capitalist bourgeoise swine". You might have been facetious at that time, but I believe it reflects a general attitude you hold that is spiteful. I hope you at least do not believe in discredited economic doctrines such as tendency for the rate of profit to fall, or labor theory of value.

EDIT #2: You also believe that free market players are purely profit-maximizing "with behavior only moderated by applicable government regulations". This is plain false, even by a left-leaning Post-Keynesian analysis. You also again do not understand public choice theory in the slightest and how endogenous regulations emerge by transaction costs and private property (e.g. Coase theorem).

You hold a lot of fallacies.

You can also buy a knife and stab yourself. You can choose to do harm to yourself in numerous different ways. Some of those ways include manipulating your own mind.

You can also engage in other self-destructive behaviors that won't directly kill you, but will likely ruin your life to some degree. For instance, spending sixteen hours a day on Internet forums to the exclusion of all else. Or eating 6000 calories a day. Or never exercising. Or spending money you don't have on things you don't need. Choosing to exercise willpower in several of those situations involves combating intentional psychological manipulation to convince you otherwise.

Your life could probably be better organized, more productive, longer, and possibly even more fun for you if someone else made your decisions for you. Want to let them? Do you think everyone should be forced to?

> , there's a point where socially we can absolutely say, "No, that thing is too dangerous to let you have without precautions."

"And if you don't agree with that, then we'll throw you in jail". Doesn't sound as good when you complete the thought, does it?

If you harm others, or even risk harm to others, then absolutely. For instance, other people didn't agree to sharing a road with someone with impaired senses and reaction times.

If you want to go teach a course on how to develop and exercise willpower, and how it's one of the single biggest controllable factors that helps determine your success in life, by all means do so. I'm not being sarcastic; that would genuinely be wildly useful and a major improvement to society.

> if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to?

Anyone capable of growing or synthesizing them. They're generics by definition. (Not that businesses wouldn't come up with "designer" versions, too.)

Do you see major drug companies flocking to states that have legalized pot?

> You can also buy a knife and stab yourself. You can choose to do harm to yourself in numerous different ways. Some of those ways include manipulating your own mind. You can also engage in other self-destructive behaviors that won't directly kill you, but will likely ruin your life to some degree.

The difference if we're using metaphors is that knives aren't addictive in the same way that some drugs are. I have no problem with people altering their mind using whatever substance they choose -- if it's below a certain addictiveness threshold. With threshold arguable as to what point is socially dangerous enough to merit special treatment.

>> Imo, there's a point where socially we can absolutely say, "No, that thing is too dangerous to let you have without precautions."

> "And if you don't agree with that, then we'll throw you in jail". Doesn't sound as good when you complete the thought, does it?

Yes, it still sounds pretty good compared to the alternative. Obviously, I'd prefer not to use incarceration as a penalty, as I think we (the US) have shown that as currently practiced it's a terribly ineffective way to promote social good.

But generally? If you feel that there are certain things that should be agreed and enforced via laws (I do), then there are going to be consequences to breaking those laws. And those consequences are going to be unpleasant.

I don't like incarceration or support it as a policy, but banned addictive substances -> illegal suppliers. I don't know of a magic bullet to solve that without a threat. :\

>> if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to?

> Anyone capable of growing or synthesizing them. They're generics by definition. (Not that businesses wouldn't come up with "designer" versions, too.)

> Do you see major drug companies flocking to states that have legalized pot?

Really? :p Just like freely-growable tobacco profits don't accumulate with large corporations?

And no, I don't see major drug companies flocking to states that have legalized a substance that is still criminalized at the national level.

There is also a cognitive bias with ads, where people on attribute negative ad experiences to advertising, never the good ones (except in super bowls or other outliers).

What would be wrong with that?

Anyways, I agree that there is no use asking the State to stop the marketters. It is not efficient. The State can only constrain people using laws, which are not suitable for limiting these kinds of evil behaviors.

So we need to call for morality. We need to make it so that anyone who has managed to sell something useless to someone weak should feel ashame to the level of seriously pondering suicide.

That's the only way it can work: I won't do this evil, not because it is forbidden, but because I am worth something, I have self-esteem. Evil here ranges from peeing in the neighbour's roses to participating in genocides, and this obviously includes stealing money from the weaks with unfair weapons of persuasions.

There's also a bit of a double standard about how advertising is perceived. Banner ads, editorials and similar are frowned upon. Yet it's quite likely you'll interpret someone promoting a work in the comments section of a site you frequent as a friendly recommendation, never mind it's still signaling availability of something in a manner identical to many less invasive ads.

The difference is intent. People directly advertising in comments get downvoted, promoting something relevant as a friendly favour are upvoted, and people doing the former while pretending to do the latter are considered sleazy bastards and subject to being pruned from community if it is to stay healthy.

It really is simple. It's about trust.

> necessary for the vast majority of the citizenry to even know what is out there to purchase

and

> I block ads everywhere

So you are stumbling around unable to buy things you need, totally uninformed about what products and services are available? Poor kid. Want me to bring you a sandwich? If only you had access to some sort of information network that contained the collective opinions of a large and growing portion of humanity.

If we gradually banned advertising, nothing particularly bad would happen. Advertising is an arms race; most of it is done only because competitors do it too. We'd still find things to buy, and we might do it more easily if we weren't distracted by paid messages. As a bonus, we'd have half a trillion dollars of people's time and brainpower to spend on something that mattered.

Out of genuine curiosity, do you feel the same about state intervention in other situations, away from gaming, that involve a more knowledgeable or deliberate party taking advantage of a less knowledgeable or deliberate one?

For example, what about full-on gambling where the potential exists to win big but players will probably lose, and having already lost, aggressive tactics are then used to get them to try again? Does it matter whether the person gambling understands the situation they are being steered into?

Is it OK for bars or clubs to offer a happy hour early in the evening to get patrons going, then turn up the heat and make it hard to find water so those patrons keep ordering more drinks and getting more and more drunk throughout the evening?

What about phishing attacks? If someone is ignorant of the possibilities for impersonating e-mail from someone else they know, should we turn a blind eye to those who would send such e-mails to trick someone who thinks they're helping a friend in need into parting with their money?

What about confidence tricksters who do similar things on the doorstep of old people who may not be familiar with what sort of credentials a genuine representative of their water or electricity supplier would carry today?

Or payday loan companies, who will offer what looks like a lifeline to those who have fallen on hard times, yet charge astronomical rates of interest that can rapidly lead into a vicious and sometimes devastating cycle of debt and despair?

How about law firms in jurisdictions where everyone normally pays their own legal costs after a court case, who send threatening letters alleging infringements of copyright and offer to settle for just less than it's likely to cost to go to court to challenge the allegations?

What about outright grooming of children or other vulnerable people for the purposes of sexual exploitation?

For these and many other similar reasons, I think it is appropriate for the state to regulate industries where one party may flagrantly take advantage of another. No-one can possibly be an expert on all areas of society, and laws exist to protect us all from those who would otherwise unfairly take advantage of those weaknesses. Of course there are sometimes grey areas, but the principle that governments should never step in to protect the vulnerable from exploitation seems a very bad one to me.

Also, I dispute your characterisation of the entire marketing and advertising industry as if everyone does these things. Of course all ads are hoping to engage someone in the target market and pique their interest, but IMHO that is a far cry from the kind of active and disproportionate exploitation we're talking about with some of these games companies.

You honestly believe we need a law against this? God forbid a restaurant owner offer any promotion whatsoever.

I do honestly feel that there should be a law against that in the society which I live in, since I find such actions taken by the restaurant owner to be manipulative and purposefully deceptive (excuse me for not coming up with better terms, I am not a native English speaker), knowing that many people -- not all of them, but many -- thus end up drinking far more than they would personally intend to.

I see no reason to promote such dishonesty, deception and misleading actions towards customers within a society, especially when the vulnerable ones are not vulnerable to it by choice, but by nature. It's the exact same thing which goes on with say gambling addicts or alcoholics. And no, I am not arguing for giving up the notion of personal responsibility, but I am arguing that these actions exploit vulnerabilities in people, which I see as no different from a ethical point of view than say committing a fraud against someone you know who has a psychological or neurological condition making them vulnerable for excess goodwill (or, someone suffering from e.g. dementia).

But you are.

When you get to micromanaging such trivialities, there's no limit what a planner's mentality will settle on next. A ban on restaurants that offer salty free lunches with every purchase of beer because they're relying on the customer to make up for it by ordering drinks.

It is absolutely not fraud. A happy hour was advertised, and the contract was heeded.

The property owner may deliberately arrange the environment so as to maximize an expected consumer end. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Supermarkets are architected to encourage higher shopping. Clothing retailers will arrange their luxurious brands to have a higher aesthetic appeal inside their stores.

Taking your logic of needing to regulate any "misleading action" to its conclusion will only entail the abolition of the market economy. There's no way around this. Anything and everything can be shoehorned under such flimsy logic.

(Moreover, expecting that consumers are morons who cannot regulate their own behavior will generally lead to policymakers drafting proposals that assume as such and end up fulfilling the prophecy on their own, since the resulting bureaucracy will be internalized by consumers in their expectations.)

No, I am not. You're seeing binary where there is none. My point is not to abolish the notion of personal responsibility, but to acknowledge that there is more to human behavior and decision making than cold, rational free will.

> When you get to micromanaging such trivialities, there's no limit what a planner's mentality will settle on next.

This is a slippery slope argument.

> It is absolutely not fraud.

And I never claimed it was a fraud, why would you interpret it that way? Or do you feel I communicated my point regarding fraud poorly?

> The property owner may deliberately arrange the environment so as to maximize an expected consumer end.

This is where we disagree at. I do not believe that the property owner may do whatever they wish within their property. I believe there should be laws limiting what and how the property owner may arrange their property -- to defend the customers from themselves, just as there are laws limiting for example gambling, or selling of alcohol and other drugs.

> Taking your logic of needing to regulate any "misleading action" to its conclusion will only entail the abolition of the market economy.

Sure, if you take it to the extreme, and in that case then perhaps and if so, I am personally fine with that. I have no personal stake -- or ideology -- in free market economy. It is a mere implementation detail, not an end in itself.

> (Moreover, expecting that consumers are morons who cannot regulate their own behavior will generally lead to policymakers drafting proposals that assume as such and end up fulfilling the prophecy on their own, since the resulting bureaucracy will be internalized by consumers in their expectations.)

It is about acknowledging that among consumers there are individuals who are vulnerable to various lures (in lack of a better term, but consider alcohol as an example), and that I do personally view exploiting such vulnerabilities as unethical and hence I propose regulation. And I am speaking as someone with social problems due to not having enough control over my own actions regarding certain matters. Thus, I greatly fail to externalize this matter to "them" who "can't control themselves".

Then you don't really support property rights. I mean, certainly, property owners must be within the bounds of the common and civil law framework of their jurisdiction. Limiting how property is internally arranged is a wholly different matter, it's a direct veto on how someone schedules their production structure for no reason but the failings of people who they have no stake in. By protecting customers from "themselves" and thus also protecting owners from customers, you are curtailing rights of both to engage in voluntary contract.

It is a mere implementation detail, not an end in itself.

Not free market economy. Market economy in general. It's not at all an "implementation detail," it arises quite organically out of interpersonal exchange.

hence I propose regulation

You know what I loathe?

Let's take everything you've said at face value.

You provide a case for perceived suboptimal behavior of markets, but then by proposing regulation you completely ignore the prospect of suboptimal government action! That is absolutely disingenuous. Your proposal exists outside of reality and assumes a hypothetical benevolent exogenous regulator that doesn't actually exist (as opposed to real states which are complex institutions).

You'd do yourself good by reading up on some public choice theory.

I don't know when the knee jerk of 'regulate it' came in, despite decades of evidence of failure and unintended consequences from that same instinct.

Or we simply disagree what rights and liabilities the property owner should have in the context, which I define as business property. I see no problem with this as there are many countries with extensive liabilities and regulations when it comes to property and business practices one is allowed to conduct.

> By protecting customers from "themselves" and thus also protecting owners from customers, you are curtailing rights of both to engage in voluntary contract.

Oh I indeed am, or I at least am not opposing regulation in this matter from any ideological perspective. I don't see such regulation as inherently bad, as it seems that you see.

> It's not at all an "implementation detail," it arises quite organically out of interpersonal exchange.

Many things arise "quite organically" from individual actors acting for their own benefit, but in many cases it can be argued for that there are places and times where regulation (governmental or otherwise) does indeed improve the society and the lives of the people within it.

> You know what I loathe?

I suppose I don't despite having some suspicions, but please, don't assume I care either.

> You provide a case for perceived suboptimal behavior of markets, but then by proposing regulation you completely ignore the prospect of suboptimal government action!

How couldn't you say this exact same about any form of regulation within markets? And if so, to me it seems that you oppose regulation out of a principle -- and really, how you come off as suggests the same.

> You'd do yourself good by reading up on some public choice theory.

Oh, always, though I am almost certain our differing views lie somewhere else completely. I suppose you have recommendations though?

(To answer your statement, if there is a stalemate such that both government failure and market failure are inevitable, I would prefer the latter, for the simple reason that it entails less layers of indirection and that it doesn't impose any upper bound on heterogeneous consumer preferences.)

That said, I do have some reading recommendations.

James M. Buchanan was an eminent economist and political theoretician. I'd recommend his classic The Calculus of Consent co-written with Gordon Tullock, supplemented with his own The Limits of Liberty and Costs and Choice.

William A. Niskanen wrote Bureaucracy and Representative Government presenting a budget-maximizing theory of government akin to a utility-maximizing theory of an economic actor. Both have limitations, but it's worth reading.

Don Lavoie wrote great primers such as Rivalry and Central Planning and National Economic Planning: What Is Left? which equally apply to a mixed economy.

R.H. Coase formulated the Coase theorem in his paper "The Problem of Social Cost," demonstrating how private property rights plus low transaction costs lead to endogenous self-regulatory actions.

Oliver E. Williamson wrote a technical work on transaction cost economics entitled The Mechanisms of Governance. Another technical writer was Lester G. Telser, particularly his work on the "core theory" related to cooperation, coordination and collusion.

Essays and papers by Armen A. Alchian, Harold Demsetz and Yale Brozen are also worth examining.

For a bare introduction, see Government Failure: A Primer in Public Choice, or a recent paper using behavioral theory to analyze public policy [1].

[1] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/...

What follows from that principle, and where any lines or grey areas are drawn, obviously depends on the specifics of the situation. I'm not generally in favour of having lots of overly specific laws. I think in most cases, responsible adults will agree on whether any particular action has clearly crossed the intended ethical and legal line anyway. Where there is more room for reasonable disagreement, that's what courts are for.

The mean amount of money spent and time played per week per user would be a good place to start. If any user is spending more than $40 USD/week on a game or more than 20 hours/week playing a game, it's a problem.

A small handful of surprisingly successful people spend a significant amount on games, record themselves playing them for 40+ hours a week, and make money getting others to watch. Problem?

So, we'll ban all professional sports events because some people pay more than that to go to every game for their team? Or pay more than that to be able to watch lots of sports on TV? I know a fair number of perfectly normal people that pay thousands of dollars for season tickets.

I'd rather see the government help people that have a problem, rather than put limits on people that don't.

So if people are interested in Ponzi schemes or magical remedies, the state should not interfere, right?

"Magical remedies". I assume you mean alternative medicine. Does this mean you're going to ban various herbs, or what?

A product should be legal, if it really does what is it advertised to do. How is this validated? That is up to the lawmakers, as long as someone handles it, unlike now.

Game makers aim to addict you, but they don't lie and they do give you exactly what they say they will.

As the quote goes, "Any sufficiently advanced business model is indistinguishable from a scam." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227941)