I’ve been playing video games for over 20 years (man, that sounds bad). It used to be a fairly straight forward transaction: you played the video game, beat it, and then moved on. But lately I’ve noticed a disturbing trend.
Video games now have decided to keep you playing for as long as possible. They achieve this by applying a reward system. The more you play, the more rewards you obtain. When you consider that many video games are played on mobile devices these days, and employ the use of “micro transactions” (they call it micro so you don’t pay attention to how much money you end up spending over time) and you can see the problem this can present. Video games have always played on humanity’s addictive nature, but things have turned more sinister.
A deleted scene from the movie Indie Game does an excellent job of describing the phenomena as Abusive Video Game Manipulation. I have to admit that I’ve fallen victim to these tactics. (I play the game you see up there. I know, I know).
Check it out and stay woke.
AquaticBarefoot 
South Park recently did a great take on this in their Freemium Isn’t Free episode. And I agree with you that it is a distributing trend.
I heard about the episode, although I don’t watch the show. Apparently they had a bit of fun at the expense of the whole “fremium” mobile gaming industry.
I’m glad more light is being shed on this, because these practices are leading people to become addicted.