They use points for the same reason they use tickets at fairs for buying food, and to a lesser extent, why they use tokens at arcades.
1. You get the situation like you described where you're encouraged to buy one or two more games to use your remaining points... otherwise you'll have "wasted" money.
2. By using points instead of cash it doesn't feel like you're spending cash... You're just using points, and you don't associate the value with the amount of money the item costs as much... so you spend money like water.
3. It's cheaper for them because they get charged a bit for each transaction, and by forcing you to make larger transactions you make fewer transactions. Otherwise instead of buying 5000 points and buying five games and having one transaction, you'd have five transactions going on, unless they set up a shopping cart system, but even if you did most transactions would be for single games.
1. You get the situation like you described where you're encouraged to buy one or two more games to use your remaining points... otherwise you'll have "wasted" money.
2. By using points instead of cash it doesn't feel like you're spending cash... You're just using points, and you don't associate the value with the amount of money the item costs as much... so you spend money like water.
3. It's cheaper for them because they get charged a bit for each transaction, and by forcing you to make larger transactions you make fewer transactions. Otherwise instead of buying 5000 points and buying five games and having one transaction, you'd have five transactions going on, unless they set up a shopping cart system, but even if you did most transactions would be for single games.