Why do we play Maplestory?

I'm not going to go into the well-wrought "I..." template you followed in your original post and neither am I going to bother reading other replies. I do not think the structure of anything that involves money in the mix is any different, be it virtual, from the monetary and financial structures of real life: Quite simply, the more that money is no object for a person, the more yield they get. It's irrelevant to say "the only reason they're allowed to act this way" because nobody needs to "allow" them to do what they please or avow their actions as an entity -- they themselves get to set the yield output, which is universally accepted within the game's milieu (otherwise, either the game wouldn't be running, or things would change). Here's an example: For those who live in Manhattan, a decent 1-bedroom apartment (a closet) will cost upwards of $3,000 rent a month. Some will pay for this, others will claim they can use the same money towards payments on a house they can own elsewhere. Throwing a fit over rent prices is irrelevant, as the point is that within the milieu of Manhattan, the yield output for your money is set -- making that choice of opting for living in Manhattan vs. owning a house & choosing to spend money on certain virtual goods aren't very different in their ambiguities and abstractions of money.

On a tangential note, I myself have spent over $10,000 on this game over the past years, but I've had no expectations and have been completely conscious of the fact that I have no essential holdings in the game -- the money has dissipated, as expected. I understand the frustration one can experience with investing and not getting expected returns, and I agree that it would be more pleasing to be rewarded more aptly in spending that kind of money, but it's important to accept that you have zero holdings in the end.

You can't really compare the investments in a place to live to a hobby like maplestory, nor do you understand the core complaint if you think it's "CUS ITS A MONEY SINK". It's because your purchases aren't really respected. Hackers can literally dc hack GM's at gm events and barely get a slap on the wrist. You on the other hand, log into many of your legit accounts and you have to fight to unlock it. They even unban the progress they made because they don't think it's worth doing the research to see who was a mistake or not.

You have no insurance and can lose everything over the most petty sh`it and the company will work against you every step of the frekin way. You would think that the hobbies you would invest in, would be ones where the company actually gives two sh`its about you, that give you a voice, and when something happens to your creation have a reliable person to talk to. Nexon doesn't offer any of that, just long lines to copy and pasted answers, that either offer no solution or proof that the people who listen to your problems are just as powerless as you are.