I've been gaming since the early 90's and I don't blame them.

Edit: Also, there are so many games that don't try and screw you over. Why leave my hobby just because AAA's are filled with financial predators? Especially a Konami AAA, a company who is notorious for poor work environments and not giving a single fuck about the talented and artistic people or groundbreaking IPs they currently have a death grip on. Even if they didn't do this I'd be hard pressed to buy this cheap as fuck Metal Gear Solid 5 mod. Fuck Konami, it can't be said enough.

I've sort of been thinking this for a while. Even Diablo is rumored to become an mmoarpg in the next iteration. It sort of is now for PC if you count the always on factor.
Guys, I've been whining about this for like 10 years now. I remember periodically being told I was overreacting, and most gamers blatantly ignoring me.

It's like paying a whore for sex and then a women's rights group comes along and says you shouldn't pay the whore, but she's a nympho and enjoys sex, so you pay her, only in this case, gamers are the nympho, and they're paying the john for sex.

I know it doesn't make sense, but gaming by its nature is a very "throw your money in a trashcan and burn it" hobby and has been ever since the first wave of DLC's was bought hungrily about 10 years ago. I don't blame the publishers anymore. It's not their fault that gamers are hungry to be wallet sexed. Some gamers wear like a badge of pride how much money they spend on microtransactions. It's embarrassing.

I know I'll probably sound like a totaly crazy old guy yelling at clouds, but I blame, at least in part, the fact that it's all virtual. Virtual money paid for virtual goods. When you have good old fashioned cash in your wallet and you spend it you can see and feel the money disappear, you're much more concious of your spending. Same goes for buying real, physical things. You buy a real, physical board game, you put that big box on the shelf you feel you bought something. When you buy a virtual lootbox it nothing. It's not even air. Some part of most people's brain isn't really registering those transactions with their actual weight. So it's super easy to buy the next one and the next one.

-

I agree, though I can't see how gaming can be anything but virtual these days. It's also more logical when it comes to logistics cause games are nothnig but code, why store the code on a piece of plastic when you can download it to your HD?

GOG is the perfect middle ground, you still own the product you buy and you can keep store your games on pieces of plastic if you wish.

The ultimate thing would be to have game stores that sell credit for GOG.com that you can buy for psysical money. I don't like the "digitalization" of money at all, if I could buy games with real money I would be much happier.

Obviously gaming can't go back entirely to the pre-online, pre-digital stores days, not even DRM-free games. I was thinking more that people need to learn to remember they are spending real money even when they don't take it out of their real-life wallet. Especially young people. My friends kid brother recently spent a shitload of money on World of Tanks, basically because why not?

The other thing is that people need to learn to sometimes deny themselves the newest shiny toy. Because the way this goes now is people grumble and curse but in the end they go "well, it sucks but it's not like I can not play the newest MGS". Deny myself a game? How could any man make such a sacrifice?!

Not quoting because I don't want you guys getting unnecessarily pinged, but I agree a lot of the problem is that people's pleasure centers aren't registering when they're buying their $5 loot box or $10 character slot.

For Free2Play yes this makes sense having some minor monetizing. But Konami and EA... uggg....

Extra Save Slots
Weapon Storage and loadouts

I thought there was more, but oh well...

Let's not lump all these things together. DLC is basically the new word for expansions in a lot of cases, and some of my favorite content the last handful of years has been DLC (Dishonored's Brigmore Witches for example).

I never thought of it that way.

Great point.

You do have your moments Velvet. :D

I personally think CD Projekt did it more the proper way, calling the small stuff DLC and the bigger stuff expansions. However I think in general the gaming community and companies call all add-ons DLC now, so it is what it is. There's certainly a difference between horse armor and adding a whole new island of quests.

I've said it before here, but I still remember when Blizzard introduced cosmetic stuff like titles late in TBC purchasable only with in-game currency, and the early buyers were heckled mercilessly.

It couldn't have been more than 6-12 months later Blizz rolled out pets and yada yada in WOTLK purchasable with real $$ and suddenly it felt like everyone else I knew was all-in on that - in the midst of a danged recession to boot.

As someone who doesn't really care enough to purchase either, I just couldn't fathom (and still can't, really) how the bottom fell out so fast.

Yes you are right there are companies which do DLC like it's supposed (expansions to the game) but the majority however is just skins and characters which, like I mentioned earlier, don't outweigh all the shitty DLC's out there. That's why I said it all started with DLC the mess we are in today. I'm not harping on companies like CD Project Red. It's just the way I see it it all started with DLC and they keep taking it further and further as long as there are enough people shelling out money for things which used to be part of the game (not counting expansions and even there there are companies which cut things ffrom games to sell as expansions like EA and the Mass Effect games for example).

You have a right to see it as you want I'm not here to convince you otherwise :) For me personally DLC was the first drop in the bucket which is about to burst seeing where we are today with all those major publishers,

Cuckolded MGS fans

Except their not fans of the franchise for voting this tripe up into the positives.