A couple things I want to respond to: > I wouldn't mind DLC and virtual slots model, if only it delivered better games in the end. I think this is fundamental

A couple things I want to respond to: > I wouldn't mind DLC and virtual slots model, if only it delivered better games in the end. I think this is fundamentally a problem, because the psychological pressures a game applies to get people to pay for microtranactions are intrinsically opposed to fun and satisfying experiences. Games that successfully monetize on microtransactions do so by putting the "fun" just out of reach, and annoy and bore their users into putting money into the slot to get the result they want. > There is no way to explain how 15 years ago developers were able to build incredible open worlds with hours of dialog and tons of possibilities worth 100s of hours of gameplay on a single pay model, except priorities change in the industry. I think the single-pay model might very well have been an accident of history. Before we had home consoles and PC gaming, the business model for video games was based on recurring revenue: in that case in the form of coin-operated games. Before digital distribution, the only way to monetize a game for PC or home console was to sell a game in a box with enough value inside that customers would be willing to pay outright for it. That was the age of the gaming experience as a development priority: the game itself had to be good enough that players would be willing to pay $50 for the next title. But now that digital distribution is the norm, it's again possible for game developers to extract revenue from users on a recurring basis, and since that is wildly more profitable and less risky than relying on one-time-purchases, that's what developers are going to focus on. That's only accelerated by the cost of content creation: in order to build a AAA game these days, it takes an army of artists many years to deliver a product. That's a far cry from something like the original Diablo which was made by a handful of people. With that level of financial investment, studios are much less likely to take risks on new ideas, and are more likely to seek alternative means to monetize that investment.