Imagine being in two rooms, one room has an item in it that you need to progress, and you are in the other. Instead of being able to walk into the other room, someone puts up a wooden barrier and gives you an axe, and tells you to start chopping. It will take you two days to make it through that barrier or you could just pay $4.99 to have that item you want and need to progress further in the game. Yes, you are given the choice, of chopping away for 2 days, or having it right there and then.
This is happening more and more in our games this gen where the balance of the game is affected. No it's not a paywall, but it seems like semi-impermeable paywall designed to exhaust the player in the hopes that he gives up.
And as a general principle, microtransactions do not belong in full retail priced games, the cosmetic ones I can tolerate as long as they are not in my face about it, the ones that affect the gameplay, I will generally stay away from because I have seen too many examples of the free2play model infecting console/ pc quality games
Again, just another way that publishers are trying having another bite at the apple after that initial $60 purchase.
You bring up some good points about MMOs. I have played a few, I'm not a big fan of them because I'm not a big fan of grinding and being online with a bunch of other people. Sometimes I go online, but generally I just like sitting down with myself and the controller and play a video game particularly those games with massive open worlds and large solo campaigns in games such as maybe a zelda, witcher 3, dark souls.
I'm not saying the game that requires online is going to be a bad game, I view it from a consumer rights point of view which is adopting the model of ownership over what I have purchased or at the very least being able to play it when I want, how I want, or for as long as I want. Perhaps, if I were into competitive shooters, I would have a different point of view, but even if you are, you should be aware the game has a time limit based on reasons I have already mentioned. If you are the type of person who only buys a few games a year and that one you plan on playing for 100s of hours over a 6 month period, then it might be worth your $60 dollars, however if you are someone who treasures the games that you buy, revisiting them every so often, even coming back to them years later, you may be of a different mind set.
And I agree with the majority of the posts in this thread, I've noticed the trend that gaming has gone with every single aspect of it being monetized, and No I don't like it.
