People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

Microtransaction games are based around exploiting an inherent flaw in human reasoning; predatory behaviors that exploit our weaknesses as humans should be regulated against.

edit: to back this up: The wordpress blog linked below references 19 clinical studies and explains in detail much better than I care to write up.

https://platinumparagon.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/the-psychol...

>People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

When people start killing each other, or letting their lives fall apart around them, just so they can spend more money on another cute girl in Fate GO, then I'll let you make that analogy.

> When people start killing each other, or letting their lives fall apart around them, just so they can spend more money on another cute girl in Fate GO, then I'll let you make that analogy.

Gambling, video game, and internet addictions are real and do ruin lives.

While I don't want to dive into hyperbole territory and don't blame video games for this instance of violence, just this week someone punched and killed their 1 year old child because they lost at a video game[1].

Brains are weird and are easily highjacked by dopamine hits, whether they're obtained from drugs or external stimuli.

[1] https://people.com/crime/dad-allegedly-kills-baby-son-punch-...

Anecdotal but I've personally known people that have sunk thousands into microtransactions for a single game. Claiming that they arent harmful or predatory in any way whatsoever just seems to be an intentionally obtuse claim to me.

I also know people who have sunk thousands on gacha games.

But that does not make it harmful or predatory. People are allowed to spend money on whatever they want, just because you don't agree with their choices doesn't mean you should make it illegal.

>People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

In China these days, parents pretty much do treat smartphone games "as bad as drugs" for kids.

Rooting phones to prevent game installation and removing/breaking/locking payment APIs is one of most popular services in phone repair shops.

The line between gambling and microtransactions is often very hazy. They tend to exploit the same vulnerability in our brains that leads to gambling addiction. And the target is often children.

> With gambling people may be driven to gamble to get out of debt.

This is not really the problem with gambling.

Is there any proof children are the ones being affected? The biggest source of money in these games has always been whales. And honestly if a kid used there parents credit card to hit $500+, that sounds like a parenting problem (you probably should have put a stop to it earlier). I don't see a problem with a parent giving there kid $60 to spend on Fortnite skins.

>This is not really the problem with gambling.

Yea it is? People lose money gambling, people bet more money to try and make back what they lost. But you'll always eventually lose money gambling in the long run. It's the most common fallacy that gets brought up in gambling.

With gambling you can get banned from casino or betting shops.