Another thing is that microtransactions are the most prevalent in multiplayer games that only run as long as its servers are running. Why should I keep pumping money into a temporary thing?
This is one of the reasons why I hate multiplayer. It's money spent on a temporary flick. Money you'll never get back.
Yeah, about that... its really something that went from a reasonably credible way to deal with consumers to what it is now - a complete and utter mess. A big part of it becoming a mess is the temporary nature of releases. Since there are so many more games with online service models now, and despite the player count growth worldwide, its very difficult to keep people stuck to a single game for a long time. Even Warframe has changed significantly because of that; it was some years ago that lots of online service based games (the ones that truly are built on it, like WoW, like Warframe) started incorporating 'reintroduction bonuses' and other player assistance to get players back into the game easily: what's changed, what have they missed, and hey we reset the tiers again so you don't need to start from the very beginning, just step in at the latest expansion.
Games have a shorter life online, and with that, the pressure is on for online service models. So they work with seasons to somehow enforce you to direct your attention to the game every time. Big game patches must draw players back in, too. Lots of players are 'expansion hopping' between games now. But even then - there's a limit to the dedication spent on every game.
It is only now that we have so many games that do similar things that this is really a big problem, but the only logical end result is that games must evolve along with that lack of attention and time. And with that, online games have changed on so many small things. Lots of them are 'pick up and jump in', look at Helldivers 2, now. The MTX part of them is really mostly there for those who truly dedicate a lot of time now.
But every $ spent on gaming is money you'll never get back, really. I think its important to equate the loss of $ to what you think is important in gaming; if that is fun with friends in multiplayer, and you spend hundreds of hours doing so, its not really a bad thing to support a dev with 10-20 bucks from time to time. And that makes the line very blurry to me. Is it good, is it bad? I can't really decide. I just know its not for me - anymore! I spent my share in online games and experienced what happens to you in every way, the addiction of P2W, the subscription drive (gotta play, my time's running), and the constant nudges to keep going and buying and playing that you get everywhere. Its addictive AF but its really not the best gaming - but that realization came later
Once I opened a lootbox in Allods Online and it contained a legendary drop that allowed infinite respecs (respeccing otherwise costs IRL money, not much, but still) on a character. These drops get posted in the server chat: within seconds my chat screen was full of offers, literally, offers for several hundred dollars worth of ingame currencies. Some offered near 1k. The peer pressure to keep opening boxes, as you can imagine... is immense... Its just straight up gambling, except you can never go to the bank to cash in. The house always wins.
What I do think is essential to the gaming market is far more stringent regulation, game service models are still sold as products in appearance, and just like the virtual currencies, those are methods we've already simply banned from the retail sales world. You have to sell what's marketed.
