Yup but maybe not so different as basically any hobby.  Investing time/money is the sacrifice for pleasure

At that point its a addiction.
You shouldn't be buying games or currency in games, to the point where your starving yourself to do so.

And it grew by like ~3% in one year, in that poling.
Meaning it could be a growing issue.

Maybe time for a switch?

Peer pressure is also to blame.

My oldest is pretty resistant to this mtx crap, however my youngest plays on Roblox with his friends and it's regularly begging to buy points with his own money. Problem is you can also buy legitimate games in Roblox next to spending the virtual money on crap. And of course fixed point amount top ups with bonuses, the way 360 started with virtual money.

First virtual money needs to be outlawed, no more hiding behind nonsense conversions and bonus points. Next separate game purchases from MTX, parental toggles needed to block out MTX.

Not surprising. Japanese people are prone to gambling and alcohol addiction. Drug addiction is much more rare due to heavy regulation but gambling and alcohol gets more leeway due to the power of the big companies. Pachinko is still robbing people blind of money, and Gacha games aren't too different from it.

A lot of these F2P games are designed so that they're not really fun unless you make IAPs. 

My dad bought a mechanical pachinko machine when he was stationed in Japan. I still have it. Wonder if I could turn the pachinko balls in for one of those "prizes" that they give out at Japanese pachinko parlors. 

My real concern is gen alpha since instead of playing artful experiences as children a lot will probably mostly play crap designed to suck money out of you growing up so for many in that generation that could end up being what video games are. More governments requiring that games with gambling mechanics must be rated 18 would be a nice way to help tackle this but that sort of thing is moving slowly. Also I've never spent a single penny on a free to play game and I fully intend to keep it that way forever. If a game gives you an advantage if you spend money then it's shite regardless of how good the rest of it is especially if it eventually becomes a tedious grind if you don't do that.

And the trouble covering living expenses part reminds me of how a lot of complaints about getting by despite living standards being much higher compared to 50 years ago would suddenly go away if some people stopped spending so much money on things like monthly subscriptions. In particular many people need to learn to cook and stop ordering food to be delivered several times a week.

With the cost of living, I feel guilty buying games myself regardless of MTX. I can still afford games without causing issues in other areas but the guilt is getting stronger and stronger and it won't be long before games have to be sidelined or I will have trouble with bills if things keep going the way they are going and get worse.

I could not get this from the article, but I assume most of this are from mobile games???