Has there been changes to what games you choose to buy and play?
I hear a lot of talk about micro transactions and shot, but I rarely see them in the game i play so I don’t really care about them at all. I played league of legends, but stopped 3 years ago. I never felt the need to buy anything in league, because it doesn’t affect gameplay. Now I mostly play single player games and at max there will be dlc that are almost always totally optional or sometimes there will be cosmetics you can buy that are also totally optional.
I would be very interested of hearing people who really hate micro transactions explain why they hate them so much. If it’s an online game were you paying gives you an advantage, that would be really shitty. But all micro transactions I see are just optional cosmetics that I can ignore.
I think it very much depends on the type of games you play. Some microtransactions or DLCs aren’t just cosmetic.
I don’t remember which game had mounts and extra inventory space as microtransactions, but they exist, and sure, they’re optional, but it still kinda sucks that a player has to either grind for hours for rare RNG loot or just shell out 20$ for something that would make the game run better.
Single-player games aren’t immune to this either. I still remember the fuck up that was Mass Effect 3’s Day 1 DLC. Bioware insisted the character on the DLC was optional but many, including myself, felt that a character who represented a race that has been at the core of the series was absolutely necessary, and that his removal from the base game was a simple act of greed. Especially since he was ready to be played at the onset.
Mtx tends to warp game design around them in one way or another. Oftentimes the shop experience and things you can buy see the most dev attention, to the detriment of actual gameplay. Another side effect is that things you’d normally find satisfaction in unlocking through gameplay are relegated to the store instead.