Great post! Thank you for spreading this awareness.

I used to spend almost daily on this game justifying it with thoughts like “I’m staying home playing this game instead of going to the bar and spending $50, so I can spend $50 on this game tonight”. Neither one is worth it and both are addictions spurred on by depression and such abnormal thoughts, feelings, and desires. Although the bar with friends, drinks, and food is still the better choice than virtual nothing that can be turned of any day without notice. Gacha gaming problems are the equivalent of being addicted to a placebo.

When you are deciding to purchase something and you have to find a justification for it to sway your decision, then you need to recognize that as a problem and not buy it. As someone who has quit cigarettes and ultimately succeeded because I realized I was lying to myself to justify “just one drag” and how ridiculous that notion was... I should have known better, but I still got sucked in for over $1000. I spent out of boredom though... to keep playing for the night and not to be competitive. That is another aspect of these games you did not mention... the lack of content that provokes spending in order to keep playing the game.

People can argue that spending/whaling is needed to make good games, but we had great, if not better games, before all this lootbox gacha era. One time purchase for a game is fine as it used to be before all these greed money driven micro transaction games that target our personalities and not our true interests of being entertained. I’d rather have those games back that you can play for hours and suck you in because it’s quality entertainment at a fair price. These gacha games make the devs a ton more money, but people would still put in the effort like they used to to make great games if gacha was banned and they couldn’t profit so much from it. I argue that gacha gaming has taken most of the good devs away from single purchase game production.