"Chances are that, centuries ago, people used to say "further you are from actual gold..." I've never considered that angle, and you may be right, but centurie

"Chances are that, centuries ago, people used to say "further you are from actual gold..." I've never considered that angle, and you may be right, but centuries ago 9 out of 10 or more spent to survive rather than consumerism. We may become used to them, but I'm not sure how comparable the two eras can ever be. I've also seen enough reports on the topic to see that paying via plastic (both debit and credit) leads to higher overall spending. There's countless gamasutra type articles explaining the income benefits of tiers of virtual currencies. Game monetisation seems to have been researched well enough that most freemium have ended up with a combination of soft and hard currrencies, with deliberately unusual prices, and a remarkably similar set of price points for a bucket of gems. They're not all ending up there as customers spend less.