Why bother making a "main product" at all

My guess is legally protecting themselves against potential new laws and regulations, so they have more time to make changes or continue making money if these practices get outlawed.

Why is this exclusive to the mobile market?

It's not; it exists in computer and console gaming too, just to a lesser extent. As to why, my guess here is that mobile has a lower barrier to entry, and they're always accessible where a computer or console might not be. There's probably some sort of "cultural" aspect here too, where it's already prevalent in mobile so people are more accepting of it, but computer/console gamers had their own culture where this didn't exist for many decades and so won't be as accepting.

No rush dude, enjoy your Series X!

I'm new to Lemmy and couldn't find a way to tag you, so apologies for that! But my reply to Skiptrace was also kind of a reply to you :)

Oh man, please hit me up if you'd like to jump into GW2. One of my favourite things in any game is just adventuring across the land, doing quests, uncovering and discussing characters and lore, slowly improving out items together without worrying about "trading efficiently", taking on little challenges like Dungeons or bosses, etc.

I've also gotten into Raiding lately with other first timers. We literally just go in without reading any guides, no roles assigned, and just try to work out how to get past each encounter/boss together.