The reason he added that article is because gambling is seen to be addicting and people can gain a dependence on it. The case that he presented shows a person that was playing Lineage II which is a game that NCSoft produced long ago and the plaintiff had a mental dependence to the game. Lineage II had a subscription fee and when AIon was released by NCSoft his count was banned, and the plaintiff thinks these two events were linked. When he was banned he was still dependent on the game and had prepaid time still for lineage II. He sued on the means of being dependent and not getting his money back that he had already charged to his card ( approximately 65 dollars). the case was dismissed because of lack of evidence and lack of jurisdiction.
This case is interesting in terms of how games can create a dependence and cause issues for people. I don’t think any case can be created in terms of the one listed in the court case above or for Guild Wars 2 itself, Guild Wars is not a subscription based game so you are not required to pay a reoccurring fee to have enjoyment. The model that Guild Wars 2 has tho can present an ethic issue because if you do have access to a credit card you can purchase in game gold resulting in continues gambling. This is different than the person above mentioned with the McDonald’s Monopoly game or the soda giveaways. With those games you are buying the food and are not required to buy for the game, Guild Wars 2 is the same and you do not have to purchase gems/ gold. the thing that is different is the fact that if you purchase gold in Guild Wars 2 you are only getting that product, if you use it to gamble in the mystic forge and see a good profit gain, you might be more likely to purchase the again. Yes with the food giveaways you are more likely to purchase but you are getting that food product, which in turn is different than just purchasing the monopoly pieces, and also makes the mystic forge more closely associated with gambling than other things implemented in games.
The Model that Guild Wars 2 has is also really bad for those that are susceptible to addiction. The brain highly enjoys flashing colors lights, instant gratification, and high risk high reward situations. This is why slot machines and video machines in casinos are popular. The Mystic forge essentially has all these things. Is it a legal issue no, are their some ethic dilemmas, but really a lot of games have similar things like this that keep you playing the game, the only difference that ArenaNet has with this is you can use real money in game to supply these risks. The one thing they have that makes it less of an ethics issue is the fact that their is no profit that can be gained from selling the items outside of Guild Wars 2, unless the person is selling the items on a third party website for real currency, which is against the user agreement and would result in being banned.