It's optional for the most part, so I really don't care!

I agree with most of the stuff you said but consumers didn't demand microtransactions, the devs introduced it themselves. So basically what used to be free before, now costs money. And even if only a small amount of people buy them, devs will still keep including them in games cause its an extra source of revenue which they didn't have before. If no one buys them, it doesn't really hurt them financially either.

And today its just microtransactions. But if more and more gamers just accept it, then who knows what other methods devs will use to make money in the future. Support it now and in the future we might end up seeing microtransactions giving unfair advantages to gamers that buy them. 

For those reasons, I don't think I can ever support them 

Oh yeah. Those budgets. Well - nobody forces them to increase their budgets that big - other than being able to attract more gamers with some "expensive tricks". 

Some as hollywood blockbuster movies. Most of them are action titles and those need to "add more and more" to satisfy.

Developers who bet on gameplay first hand are free to suit the graphical representation within budget. 

Of course you'll still need more people compared to the 8- or 16-bit era. But it's something like 10 times. 

Those AAA need 40-100 times more people and its short of a miracle they can handle them and still get something playable out of it. What a luck god gave us patches...

CoD had microtransactions in Blops 2 and Ghosts. Probably AW as well, idk I haven't played it in weeks.

I agree that they don't belong in paid games, but it's the next evolution of shenanigans. People will always wanna pay for shortcuts. But so long as it doesn't affect the core experience and you can still unlock the stuff normally, it's not a big deal to me.

First time i've seen anyone refer to textures, sound, music, modelling, animation, ai, engine development, optimization and marketing as "expensive tricks" though.

Game development and movies are entirely different, dont make the error of trying to draw comparisons.

They are free to "make do" within their budget, gameplay is entirely down to the individual, some people see mario kart as amazing, others see it as boring and dull, thats the same for all games, the assumption that because a developer isnt focusing on insane graphics, somehow meaning theyre "focusing on gameplay first", is a poor one, even games that dont focus on graphics can be awful, conversely, games that do focus on graphics can gave awesome gameplay too.

Studios i worked in during the early 90s were at most, 20-30, and these were major studios across Japan, which at the time was the powerhouse for games, studios of today have that many people employed in a single branch of a single department alone, it doesnt mean you NEED thousands, and some great games can indeed be made by a small group, but small groups are far more likely to be indie studios, releasing indie-priced games, not large studios releasing full retail, disk based games, demanding full price.

The studios of the 8 and 16 bit era that are still around, have all expanded massively, the tiny studios of today are the indies and kickstarters.

have you sat through a AAA games credits recently? the latest blockbuster titles can number in the tens of thousands of people involved in the production, not just hundreds.

its a progression thing, back in the days of 360/ps3, oh how the playstation fans harped on about how wrong it was that xbox gamers had to pay for online play, but this generation suddenly its perfectly fine, not only that, but "a good thing", too.

Same thing will happen for microtransactions when the last bastions of microtransaction free genres/franchises add them too.

Its hard for people to bitch about something when something they like does it too. (see xbl reference above)