Bloodstain said:
You mean 'few clicks' as in 'entering several passwords, confirming your identity and enabling the option to spend money ingame'?
And since the game outright warns you that it is actual real life money being spent there, it doesn't seem that 'shady' to me.
It is almost as shady and underhanded as you can get short of robbing someone. These tactics are used by casinos around the world, with Las Vegas as a perfect example of how it's done. People have no sense of time, they spend chips not cash so there's a disconnect from their wallets. They get free drinks (incentives to continue) and with the addictive nature of the game(s) and the ease with which one can just spend some more money to continue, people spend money as if it didn't matter or exist just to get the buzz of playing and/or winning.
When I made my first purchase with Play.com or Steam, two online retailers that store your card details and make it easy to buys things with very few clicks, I thought, and still do that it's quite evil how easy and quick it is. Click mouse, get stuff, don't see any cash change hands or worry about if I can afford it. People go bankrupt from poorly managing money. There are significantly and observably more (by an order of magnitude) bookies, pawn brokers and betting shops in poor areas than in more affluent ones. This is *not* a coincidence.
Apple are just as bad in this regard. They make more money from the App Store than from every other product and service they offer combined. iTunes and the App Store also work like this. Enter card details, click click buy stuff. No money changes hands. Zynga and facebook games do the same and the founder of Zynga himself went on record saying just what kind of practices he employed at the start.
These business practices are shady and evil and I honestly believe should be illegal. They are designed in every possible way to con, entice, cajole and tempt people to carry on clicking, pushing buttons and seeing sparkling lights at the cost of real money they never see. By getting children to do it it's significantly worse. I hope the judge in this case sees sense and sets a precedent. He won't though. Corporate tax dollars are the single most important thing in the USA.
