Video games (more prominently in mobile games) prey upon individuals who suffer from addiction through the use of loot boxes and microtransactions that are designed to focus onto these people and exploit them through a hook habit hobby where they hook the player and have them download the game and then incentivise the player to spend money therefore making the player feel more invested and making it their main hobby. The key to this strategy is making the player feel like spending money isn’t a bad thing in the game and to incentivise social spending where people who spend are announced to over players in a positive way to make other players want to spend more. All of this preys upon people who have shopping or gambling addictions by trying to coax them into spending until they give in and begin the destructive cycle that leads to more and more payments and microtransactions for the game to either gain an advantage or to roll for a chance of a good item
References:
PocketGamer.biz (2016) Let’s go whaling: A guide to monetisation through in-app purchases. Accessible through https://www.pocketgamer.biz/comment-and-opinion/63871/monetisation-lets-go-whaling/, accessed on 24/10/2020 Jim Sterling (2019) The Addictive Cost Of Predatory Videogame Monetization (The Jimquisition). Accessible through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-DGTBZU14 accessed