Yes. When HD advertises to you, you buy a bike and you're done. And you have an actual, existent bike. And you could sell it later should you feel like you made a mistake. With whales, they spend and spend and spend - way more than a Harley costs them. And what do they end up with? Sweet FA.

I don't think that is his point; that's not what Harley does, at all.

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.

You make a good point, identity based marketing is, I think, fundamentally manipulative, whether the purchased product is physical or not. The "problem" is that it's just so damn effective. There's a void for identity sources (which one might claim was caused on purpose) and so anything that fits will be used to fill it. Then it's just a matter of effective propagation.

One difference I see is that H-D subculture is not ephemeral. If H-D decided to wrap up their business and disappear tomorrow, the bikes will still be there. The clothes will still be there. The brand, the culture created around it over the years, will still exist. Contrast with the "value" whales purchase for their games that could cease to exist the moment the game company decides to shut down their servers.

What about anything else where you are paying for the experience? While not a perfect analogy, Walt Disney World comes to mind: it's a place you take your family, and you are subject to potentially spending tens of thousands of dollars there, in the parks and the hotels, on food and attractions. Amusement parks, like casinos, are labyrinthine and optimized to take your money, and food/drinks are usually extremely overpriced for the quality. Leaving souvenirs aside, is this, too, something you are against?

I disagree with the way you compare memories and bonding moments with your family/friends to a game you are usually meant to spend alone and are unable to remember what you did in it last week.

Does that mean the fundamental problem is the inability to resell in-game purchases?

That, and if the game closes up for whatever reason (no longer making money, whatever), all of your investment into it can quickly vanish into literally nothing.

If you crash your uninsured Harley it's no different.

That's your own fault. The difference I see is that H-D stuff's value isn't entirely dependent on the company itself; they don't control it past the point of sale. They can't change their mind and unmake your bike, or your biker jacket, or your local H-D club.

That goes back to my statement above about the problem being an inability to resell.

It's not quite the same though. With digital things, the very existence of it depends on a third party who might close up shop whenever without warning. If Harley Davidson goes bust someday, all the bikes they made don't just vanish into thin air.

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.

Can't buy Game Closure Insurance (yet)

Probably just because the stuff has no value in the first place. Add in a secondary market and insurance should be obtainable. (Not that many would or should obtain it.)