A problem with thoughts like this though, should I, the consumer, be able to choose what I want to do and not my app store of choice?
IMO this falls inline with smoking weed or drinking alcohol. If I choose to do something and it doesn't directly hurt others, why can't I?
I know, being drunk can cause accidents and kill people; same for drugs (weed is a bad example here) and destroy families and stuff, but it should still be my choice if I want to do these things myself.
Too much regulation is just as bad as no regulation.
All of this said, the only casino game I personally play is MyVegas which offers real rewards at real MGM properties (and others). I've spent maybe $100 real currency in the app since I started playing years ago and have gotten free nights at their hotels, tickets to shows, etc... so it's not allllll doom and gloom.
> ... should I, the consumer, be able to choose what I want to do and not ...
Society has decided that, for the good of society as a whole, this answer is no. That the good of society is more important than the desires of any given individual.
For example, most countries (an organized society) have laws regulating gambling (and drinking, and smoking, and ...).
> should I, the consumer, be able to choose what I want to do
There is a whole field dedicated to engineering choices of individual humans, it's called "marketing". Oh, and also "recruitment". The choices are entirely yours, sure, and yet they're still malleable and largely predictable. I bet there is even statistics "such% of population is susceptible to this tactics, and such% of population is susceptible to that trick, and there is this negligible % of those who pretty much can't be swayed in a reliable way, but they don't matter (too few of them)".
The thing is, government prohibition is just one of the least effective methods, but it is also the laziest and easiest and most obvious one which is why people come up with it all the time.
People spend a lot of money on online games both on computers and consoles. Is there a magical dollar limit it should be capped at? Now a claim could be made that perhaps they should add a layer or two or warnings for purchasing virtual goods; the amount of money people spend in Guild Wars 2 and SWTOR on purely cosmetic items is sufficient to keep those games in production
10,000 to one person may be the equivalent of 100 to another to 10 for another.
Lotteries are effectively government sponsored loot boxes and the reward chance is probably less.
Not that I advocate for this but: until it becomes a law they probably wont bother banning it. Unless people start protesting about it en-masse for Google to care.
IMO this falls inline with smoking weed or drinking alcohol. If I choose to do something and it doesn't directly hurt others, why can't I?
I know, being drunk can cause accidents and kill people; same for drugs (weed is a bad example here) and destroy families and stuff, but it should still be my choice if I want to do these things myself.
Too much regulation is just as bad as no regulation.
All of this said, the only casino game I personally play is MyVegas which offers real rewards at real MGM properties (and others). I've spent maybe $100 real currency in the app since I started playing years ago and have gotten free nights at their hotels, tickets to shows, etc... so it's not allllll doom and gloom.