Goblin Squad Member
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I'd never allow kids or advice against the above from such games as candy crush / puzzle & dragons from what I've seen of them. There was an article in gamasutra by someone who studies gambling/games on candy crush and explaining the operant conditioning and "pain fun" (restricted gratification) only just recently. It's no coinncidence that addictive activities such as gambling/alcohol/narcotics (perhaps even risk-taking or speed-sensations, odds-guessing etc) affect some personalities more than others and are higher on the scale of addictiveness and hence need more restraint when used. If games are using any of these (eg even pattern connections (match-3) for that eurika feeling) then the reward mechanisms of our brains are being played with in some way and it's worth understanding doubly-so for kids, particularly when they melt-down into tantrums which could easily have been avoided! Perhaps the best thing to teach kids is that reward feeling for completing a piece of work that was complex and required skill and you finally complete it and hand it in - you feel "elevated" or as if your brain is expanding (like Neo in the matrix is good scene when he stops the bullets!).
The one silver-lining is hopefully exposure to such "sales tricks" toughen up people to recognize them and not make the same over-spending mistake again on virtual pixie-dust, if they are able to self-reflect and modify their priorities and if kids probably with a little help from informed adults.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It may be of note that in my science fiction novel (I've received the first two hundred pages back from my final editor), business intelligence is relied on by corporations in the future to identify aptitude among gamers.
Rather than leaving society to dither around worrying about the way players devote so much time to their games, why don't we use these games to identify leadership, problem solving, and social wizardry?
Then use that information to effectively target our education investments?
Fear limits our ability to use our cultural potential, in particular because of privacy concerns. Yet the ability to use our systems of entertainment as a productive resource would be an intelligent application of our capabilities. Perhaps there is a way, but most certainly the data we could potentially gather should be archived as a national treasure until it can be used. Imagine an NSA-level organization working to solve problems.
Player EULAs should incorporate permissions for potentially using the data using the techniques of both business intelligence and psychology, specifically to identify wizards. They and/or their parents should have access to that information. I believe such a system would easily replace SAT and other diagnostic tests, were the method to become socially accepted.
It might be that online games could be crucial tools to solve our educational challenges.
