Originally Posted by SmokyDave

As I said though, I think we're heading this way regardless of forum chatter. A huge majority of gamers won't give a shit about any of this and there'll be a chunk of 'em that will happily hand over some money. So it becomes a question of whether I take a principled stand and stop playing games, or whether I do my best to avoid games that evidently modify their progression systems to essentially force microtransactions.

this is the most realistic way to look at it.

micro-transactions make money, there's no doubt there. people seem to think that free-to-play is the business model while the truth is that it's just the delivery device. micro-transactions don't work unless you have a huge playerbase and free-to-play is simply the method of achieving that saturation.

when it comes to big-ticket AAA franchises, the large install base is a given. many people this board over are willing to pay for hundreds of dollars in proprietary hardware just to have access to a few select titles and when you have an audience that captive and shareholders to feed, you're going to plough every field.

Originally Posted by Fried Food

Sony is the publisher and Sony cares about it's gamers. They won't force game design changes just to make more money.

they care about your money and everything else is just maths.