[whitegrape]

Entertainment is a tough business to be in in general. There are plenty of good songs out there no one listens to. Mobile games suck for more reasons than the present most profitable business model and I don't think the industry is at risk of being destroyed any more than otherwise with or without a freemium model. I know plenty of people argue that freemium is what allows the mobile game industry to exist in the first place.

Your last sentence is at odds with the claim of mobile games being supported by whales. If the popular games were a costly addiction, then they wouldn't derive their revenue from so few users. In fact most people play them as a distraction or hobby and never pay a cent -- hence the need for whales (or ads). They may be an addiction for the majority of people who play them, but they're not costly.