As time goes on, that severely limits more and more big titles that all the kids want to play. It's also about not getting them hooked onto gambling-type mechanics that are designed to force the player to spend a lot more on the game in order to feel as though they can actually progress and compete.
There's just so much more to this than "if you don't like them then don't buy them"
While I'd agree with the sentiment, getting hooked on gambling is more a question of when than it is of whether a person will or won't become a gambler. A person is generally either predisposed to becoming addicted to gambling or they aren't. If they are, then it's just a question of when that addiction will kick in and to what extent. If they aren't then they'll never become addicted.
You can easily see this in children with all sorts of children's gambling activities. Marbles (perhaps not relevant in modern day but was big when I was growing up), for example is all about betting and gambling marbles. Children that are predisposed to gambling will spend a significant amount of their time playing the game and trying to get other children to play the game. Children that aren't predisposed to gambling will quickly lose interest if wagering of marbles is involved. There will be some subset of children that are interested in the skill aspects of playing marbles who will avoid children who are interested in the gambling aspects of marbles.
You can see this play out with collectable card games as well.
IMO, regulations that seek to protect people from themselves at best can only delay addiction to gambling if the person is already predisposed to gambling type activities, or alternatively it'll steer them to alternative expressions of that urge. IE - gambling their life on risky physical activities where one wrong move results in death or physical disablement.
At worst, it just means more underground outlets for it and associated organizations focused on peddling those types of things.
I guess in the end, the most practical potential result of any legislation would be to maybe protect the parent's bank account.
It's interesting to see that the only times governments get involved in something like this is when large amounts of cash is involved. You don't see governments getting involved in children playing marbles or card games or board games or pachinko (as long as cash isn't involved) or any other game of chance which has the potential to get children addicted to gambling, for instance.
So, the intention obviously isn't to protect children from gambling, but more about preventing children from spending a lot of cash on gambling.
Regards,
SB
