> have an incredibly fine tuned and skillful marketing department bent on psychological manipulation.

This.

This is not specific to games industry. In fact they are rather late bloomers and amateurish. This is consumerism. This is production driven economy (in which goods are produced and post facto demand is manufactured). This is inevitable in any market with unequal ownership of resources (that is any market system were it's possible to profit or "get ahead", i.e. all of them).

All advertising is this. Almost all marketing is this. It only varies in it's sophistication and subtleness.

I can not fathom why people watch commercials, don't ad block, read advertising based periodicals, go to shopping centers, etc. Why people willingly participate in being psychologically manipulated into beliefs, decisions, and actions.