I think the idea is something like this:

1. Apps are generally made by wealthy, well-off people.

2. For many apps, the goal is to create an experience that satiates the addictive urges of people with poor impulse control. These people often turn out to be less well-off, possibly because they have poor impulse control.

3. Because money is going from the less-well-off to the well-off, wealth is being redistributed.

Is there evidence that people who compulsively play games like this are less well-off? My understanding of the profit model of these games is that they hope to extract large quantities of money from a small population of obsessives ("whales"), bolstered by a small amount of money from the otherwise vast majority of non-obsessive players.

There's not a whole lot of research on these people, but I don't know of any evidence that they tend to be poor, while there is definitely anecdotal evidence some of them are extremely well-off ($200k+ salaries [1]).

[1]: http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/1/3587102/high-rolling-whales...

If you're into anecdotes... http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195806/chasing_the_wha...

I do wonder about the thinking of people who make games like this. I mean when the business model is about getting your customers literally addicted and there's no benefit besides "it's fun" (questionably), I don't see how it's particularly different from designing slot machines. I did find a blog that discusses that perspective in more detail: https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/tag/slot-machine-addic...

The gamasutra article starts with a disturbing description of someone addicted to TF2.

Team Fortress 2 is often described as IAP done right - purely cosmetic items that confer no gameplay advantage. So it's useful to see that even that can exploit vulnerable people.

Should game makes pit protective measures in place? Or at least have a process that allows players to self-report their vulnerability?