The post about digital games reminds me of a lot of remasters. Most remasters are low-effort updates to games, probably costing a tiny fraction of the original development costs, yet they're used as a justification for increasing the price of often ancient games, or at the very least keeping prices high. It's even worse when the old, cheaper version gets taken down when the remaster is released. Another aspect to this is that it often fractionates the community, which is an issue mostly on PC if there are mods, but it could have other downsides as well.
In the same vein, collections, often remaster collections, can also be a scam, for exactly the same reason: The old, cheaper version often gets removed from sale, and you have to buy the more expensive collection instead.
Did I yet mention how lackluster backwards compatability is the driver behind my previous complaints? If old games were available via backwards compatibility, it would probably greatly reduce the viability of remasters/collections.
Online multiplayer costing money is 100% a scam. Free online multiplayer is clearly possible (just look at how things work on PC, and I imagine it's largely the same on mobile as well), yet it costs money on consoles. It happens only because people are willing to pay for something they absolutely should have no reason to pay for. I absolutely loathe Microsoft for introducing paid online multiplayer, because it doesn't seem like an unreasonable thought that it could be free on consoles as well if not for Microsoft. Add microtransactions on top, especially if it's a paid game anyway, and you have a game where every aspect is monetized to some degree.
As for pre-orders as mentioned in the previous posts, I don't really see the point. The point for me was never ensuring you get a copy, it was getting a copy as soon as possible. Pre-orders of digital games do that just fine, especially since preloading is a thing. It's also very clear you don't know what exactly you're getting into, so essentially you know exactly what kind of a deal you're making when you're pre-ordering. If someone wants to fund a game by paying extra for some pre-release bonuses or something so there's less pressure to make more money elsewhere, personally I'm just fine with that.
