Manipulating players into paying unbounded quantities of real money for essentially nothing is an abuse, whether or not that casino has a cover charge. If you can grind something for free or pay one dollar, the entire product exists to harass you into paying that dollar, as often as you will tolerate.
There is no ethical form of this. Games make you value arbitrary nonsense - that is what makes them games. $600 scimitar bundles inside a full-price game are not different from whatever hamburger-priced hat you’re eager to defend; they’re just smaller. The problem is identical. Any successful example is optimized for addiction and frustration. They are deliberately unsatisfying, after a period coaxing you into habits and expectations, so they can dangle the button that costs a dollar to press, and make you feel good again every time you press it. That’s why the product is “free.” That’s why the product exists. All that art and gameplay shit is bait on the hook.
I think nothing inside a full priced video game should cost real money.
There’s plenty of examples of F2P games that have reasonable monetization in the form of mtx.
Manipulating players into paying unbounded quantities of real money for essentially nothing is an abuse, whether or not that casino has a cover charge. If you can grind something for free or pay one dollar, the entire product exists to harass you into paying that dollar, as often as you will tolerate.
There is no ethical form of this. Games make you value arbitrary nonsense - that is what makes them games. $600 scimitar bundles inside a full-price game are not different from whatever hamburger-priced hat you’re eager to defend; they’re just smaller. The problem is identical. Any successful example is optimized for addiction and frustration. They are deliberately unsatisfying, after a period coaxing you into habits and expectations, so they can dangle the button that costs a dollar to press, and make you feel good again every time you press it. That’s why the product is “free.” That’s why the product exists. All that art and gameplay shit is bait on the hook.