To be clear, though, "Devs" who post online are mostly PR and Advertising people. It's hard to have a job and post on Twitter all the time. Also most companies strongly discourage outside communication using the company's name (just in case someone says something crazy).

I feel like that's throwing away the fact that if you pay for something, you are entitled to a quality product/service, not a low standard product/service and being lambasted by someone standing at the sidelines going "don't like it, don't buy it".

We've also seen that used for years and yet the mobile games industry dwarfs both consoles and PC, and those folks are still buying into it.

We've seen this happening for years and years, where studios/CEO's make bad decisions that lead to consumer outbursts and the like.

Full on dev harassment is bad, that goes without saying, but at the same time, studios shouldn't be making bad choices and making sub-par products and charging you twice/thrice for it either. 

If a game is bad 2-3 times per IP, then of course you should stop buying into it, but at the same time, devs/studios should stop repeating the same mistakes and not making bad products?. 

It's a two way street with this industry, not a one way one like it is with the Art industry (even though I have a different stance with that industry in that you pay and describe what you pay for). 

Aye, I 100% agree. But the best way to protest - or support - their products is with your wallet. 

I find that overly complex, because reality is simple.  Developers need to make money...  if people stop buying any game with lootboxes and developers bleed negative profits for a year, want to know what will happen?  Developers will drop lootboxes. 

Fact is if people buy it, developers will sell it.  So I stand by my "don't like it, don't buy it."  

And it isn't hard to figure out if something has lootboxes or if a game is good/bad..  there are literally 100 review sites out there to review prior to purchase.

What always astonishes me is how serious gaming is taken. You'd think, with the stuff that happens, that gaming was as life-and-death as well... life and death.

If only it were actually that simple. We would still be in the middle of a lootbox hell right now if it weren't for governments around the world investigating lootboxes for gambling. Even though most countries won't recognize them as such, having lootboxes in your game became a detriment to game companies. Although some companies will refuse drop them entirely (EA) as one example.

But, the past 10 years have taught me that if 2 out 10 people buy lootboxes/microtransactions, most gaming companies will design their games based on the 2 that did buy, rather than the other 8 that didn't. So, regardless if you "don't like it, don't buy it" it's not going to matter in the end, and we're the ones that get the short end of the stick for it. Sucks, but that's the reality of the gaming industry as is. 

Gaming industry is a reflection of gamers.   Online isn't free...  why?  Because gamers will pay for it.  It is that simple.  A company cannot sell a product people don't buy.

Really? Because I don't recall gamers ever asking for microtransactions, lootboxes, or in more recent times, NFT's. But, they've been made for gamers anyway, regardless of the backlash because, like I said before, those 2 out of 10 bought into their BS.

Gaming companies in modern times have mastered creating a problem that never existed, and selling us the solution. It's all about seeing what they can get away with. Which, as it has turned out, has been quite a bit. NFT's is seeming to be the one that's breaking that mold, but, these companies will try again and try again and try again until it's normalized. 

Alright, let us simplify this.  If a company spends more money than they make....  what happens?    

Correct.  They go out of business.  A company cannot exist unless they have consumers BUYING their products.  

People bought MTX..  People bought lootboxes....  Companies made money from those products.  If they weren't making money, they wouldn't keep selling them.

The bolded part of your post is exactly what I am saying....  people bought them.  If people didn't buy them, companies wouldn't sell them.

1)

But you do realise current market is vastly different compared to what it was before the videogame market crash of the 80's?. Way back then, people got sick of being flooded with knockoff games, or the same game over and over again (other factors contributed but you get the picture), which in turn had people buying less and less until shit hit the fan.

Today's market is different, because the market has you, me and all the folks on this forum, most of which are core gamers, and then you have the mobile gamers, the uber casuals and a mixture of core and casual whales. Our segment is already dwarfed and small, and some of which I imagine are very aware of the bad practices that happen within the industry, but I can tell you with certainty that the whales either do not notice or do not care, and because that is the bigger group, the bad practices continue. 

You can stand by that point, it's yours to own, I'm not trying to take away from it, my main point was calling customers "entitled", because I've seen that thrown around a lot these days like a free coupon, and half the time it's tossed around without any regards to how the customers are even treated or regarded as (y'know, whales, the word that higher ups like to call the common gamer these days).

2) Most casuals don't go out of their way to review and often at times get wrapped up in the hype or simply from word of mouth like you and I can be. You'd be surprised as to how many people out there do not always sift through reviews to look for faults, pros & cons.