If we're willing to regulate gambling (which we are, because we do regulate it), then I don't think we can simply wave our hands at mobile games and say "bah, consumer choice. They play the games, don't they?"

For what it's worth, the "Free to Play" sector that dominates a lot of market share isn't just the gambling-lite, pay-to-win mobile sector anymore. We're talking about major titles like Fortnite, League of Legends, DOTA2, Rocket League, Hearthstone, and Valorant, which have millions of concurrent players, dominate streaming services, and often have high-production e-sports events. Even the latest title in the Call of Duty franchise offers a Free to Play Battleground mode.

The issues with gambling are nothing to do with the arcana of business structures and everything to do with gambling itself.

Gambling ruined games like porn ruined movies -- it didn't. It's just a different partially similar thing.

However gambling did ruin many areas of entertainment. E.g. Live music suffered immensely in my home country as pubs preferred to fill the stages with pokies as they made more money from gambling addicts then they did from having a live band around.

Same deal with games, many previously good IPs are now stuffed with gambling mechanics as the producers controlling it push for it.

Some people enjoy gambling, I guess? That doesn't necessarily mean that they're being exploited or that they're "ruining" games.

I too dislike gambling elements in computer games. I simply choose not to buy such games. If there was a shortage of good games without gambling mechanics, I could see your point. But clearly there's not.