A lot of the time when it's revealed a game is doing something anti consumer or adopting an unpopular financial model, a lot of the time there are people who make the "vote with your wallet" argument
Is there any proof that this has ever worked? Even the infamous Xbone reversal was something that happened before the console came out, so it wasn't something they reacted to because of poor sales, that was entirely down to them realising what it was offering wasn't something consumers wanted
With games in particular, a lot of the stuff they are implementing doesn't cost much to add into the game, and even if most players ignore it, the few that don't will make it worthwhile, and keeping this kind of thing in games will cause the majority to get used to them being there anyway
If anything, microtransactions making a publisher less than expected will probably cause them to push for the design of the game to change in order to recoup more from them in future games
If you outright don't buy the game at all, that doesn't send a message either, if a game sells 4.5m and not 5m, and they lose 500k in sales from people "voting with their wallet" they have no idea that was the case, there is no way they will analyse that data and think "shit, we lost 500k in sales because we included a pay to win mechanic"
What do you think, GAF, does voting with your wallet work? Why do people think it does?
Edit for clarity:
Is there any proof that this has ever worked? Even the infamous Xbone reversal was something that happened before the console came out, so it wasn't something they reacted to because of poor sales, that was entirely down to them realising what it was offering wasn't something consumers wanted
With games in particular, a lot of the stuff they are implementing doesn't cost much to add into the game, and even if most players ignore it, the few that don't will make it worthwhile, and keeping this kind of thing in games will cause the majority to get used to them being there anyway
If anything, microtransactions making a publisher less than expected will probably cause them to push for the design of the game to change in order to recoup more from them in future games
If you outright don't buy the game at all, that doesn't send a message either, if a game sells 4.5m and not 5m, and they lose 500k in sales from people "voting with their wallet" they have no idea that was the case, there is no way they will analyse that data and think "shit, we lost 500k in sales because we included a pay to win mechanic"
What do you think, GAF, does voting with your wallet work? Why do people think it does?
Edit for clarity:
Maybe I wasn't clear in the OP, I'm not saying democracy doesn't work, I mean the "vote with your wallet" argument that is made on GAF when someone posts complaining about something anti consumer in a game, isn't a productive argument, because the majority don't care, and it won't change anything
We could all complain about microtransactions in paid games for the next decade, voting with our wallets and all, but every big holiday game for 2025 is going to contain microtransactions, that is the way the industry is going