Disagree (Destiny)

by squidnh3, Thursday, January 12, 2017, 20:51 (2659 days ago) @ slycrel

My hypothesis (which could certainly be proven wrong) is that Destiny is not equivalently "shady" to gambling because when you are playing Destiny (or participating in microtransactions) it is abundantly clear you will not be getting your investment (time or money) back. You can get something else that is rewarding to specifically you, but you cannot get back what you put in. Gambling works on the premise that you can come out on top if you take one more chance.

This seems to me to be a fundamental difference between the two activities, one that the linked article does not address (and appears to implicitly assume that the type of reward is irrelevant). Additional cursory research didn't shed any further light on that question.