The McDonald’s coffee story is kinda interesting to bring up here, as it may not make the point you think you are making. It’s important to remember that, at the time, it was standard policy for McDonald’s to be serving hot coffee at ~190 °F. Far hotter than people would serve themselves, and dangerously hot to be handling in general. If I spill my coffee on me at work, I don’t end up with third-degree burns - just a stained shirt.
Not only, in that decade prior McDonald’s had received ~700 reports of people being burned this way.
The lawsuit determined that McDonalds was knowingly serving to people a dangerous product that had the capacity to cause significant, material harm and gave no warning to its inherent danger.
So, to circle back to the comparison here, are video companies creating products they know are addictive to the degree that material harm is caused and no reasonable person would have the wherewithal to foresee those addictive properties unless they were prominently displayed on packaging material prior to their purchase? I don’t think it’s quite like the McDonald’s coffee suit in terms of the intensity of [alleged]harm, but maybe in terms of how [allegedly] widespread it is? There’s more than sufficient academic material that sheds light on the addictive properties of some aspects of implementation of lootboxes and modern gaming rewards.
That being said, it’s foolish the leave this problem to be solved only from the industry or regulation. Shouldn’t it be enough for companies that include lootboxes or whatever somewhat addictive reward system just put a disclaimer or something? Parents shouldn’t be expected to keep up-to-date on reward mechanisms that encourage replay and enable additional monetization, but it should be more apparent if such mechanisms are used so parents can stop and say “Probably don’t want little Timmy playing this game…I remember what happened with the PokeMon cards” etc. etc.
McDonald’s Sources:
https://www.enjuris.com/blog/resources/mcdonalds-hot-coffee-lawsuit/
https://www.rd.com/article/hot-coffee-lawsuit/
https://www.morrisdewett.com/personal-injury-blog/2022/march/mcdonald-s-hot-coffee-case-the-real-story-why-it/
https://www.thedailymeal.com/1393392/infamous-mcdonalds-coffee-story-explained/
EU Commission Report:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/652727/IPOL_STU(2020)652727_EN.pdf
I’m not so convinced human history, especially with regard to collective societies, supports that idea as general statement - animal farm isn’t a bible of truth that says “wealth redistribution always works this way” it’s more a warning of authoritarian governments don’t implement checks/balances and try to divide the population and garner support among the elite fee
This way our economy is organized is NOT how it has always been through history. It’s foolish to believe it has to be this way and every single person would absolutely just keep charging more for everything given the chance. Too many orgs are out there protecting community (see nonprofits in Canada buying up city land for the express purpose stewardship and preventing price gouging or food banks with negotiating power to bulk buy groceries cheaper) to support that idea. What do i know tho right?