Fanboys Anonymous

Once upon a time, the only money that you would spend on a video game would be when you bought the game itself. Busting a block with Mario's head to collect coins or earning fake monetary credits to spend within a game to purchase new weapons and armor are a far cry from what's actually in your wallet in real life.

Money doesn't grow on trees, it comes out of boxes on Mario's head. Duh.

But this has changed and now, video games have adapted to include true cash in a multitude of different ways.

For instance, Facebook's gaming app database slowly but surely implemented coins which could be used essentially as cheat codes. If you were too impatient to level up the hard way or wait for more free games to be playable, you could break out your credit card and buy the ability to skip past these restrictions. Those imaginary credits that would earn you the extra clothes to customize your character were now things you would have to pay for.

Mobile apps adopted that same philosophy as well. You can pay to play the game and the developers will also earn ad revenue, but there's almost always going to be an option to buy something to go along with the game on top of that.

Candy Crush, a game that can be played on both platforms, follows the same mentality of allowing its players the opportunity to buy upgrades to help with those frustrating levels that seem impossible. It has been dubbed the most addictive online game ever, with some reports saying that people overall spend almost $650 thousand a day on the game. Thankfully, that's not each particular person, but if you break that down amongst its 700 million-something users, everyone is playing their part.

What do you think the next step for how real money is tied into gaming? What does the future have in store for things like PayPal and Bitcoin in regards to online gaming? Tell us your theories and thoughts in the comments below!