I used to play Love Nikki, which is a mobile dress-up competition game. It has a lot of very very pretty outfits, and it's one of those games where you pay for loot boxes. The thing about pay-to-win games is that I get frustrated with the 'free' tier, put $10 or $20 in, and then get disgusted because I realize I'd have to put much more than $10 or $20 in to be a serious competitor, and I never pick the game up again. But with Love Nikki, I actually calculated how much I'd have to put in to get the really fancy top-tier outfits. $50,000 was the number I came up with. For one outfit, albeit the "best" outfit in the game.

And the insidious thing about these games, I think, is that there absolutely are some people who will spend $50,000 - whether they're addicted or so rich that $50,000 is pocket change - but the existence of those ridiculously expensive top-tier outfits also works to make it seem "reasonable" by comparison to spend hundreds of dollars a month on the game.

And SO MANY companies are trying to pivot towards these gambling mechanisms because it's not profitable enough to make people buy your game once, it's only profitable enough if you're giving them opportunities to put more money in day after day and month after month. If you're not giving people opportunities to put $50,000 into your game, and figuring out ways to nudge them toward doing so, it's not profitable enough.