The only money you should ever pay for a game is an up-front one time purchase price. Yes, they deserve money for a well-made game. BUT - Unless you want to get drastically ripped off, do not EVER pay microtransactions for a game.
Here’s why people don’t get it and how they can finally realize they’re being MASSIVELY ripped off.
We’ll use a false scenario of turning diablo III into a mobile type micro-transaction game.
Imagine (to make d3 a mobile game cash cow ripoff) if they made it take 10 times as long to level up once you get to max level and start grinding paragon levels and getting items. It now takes 10 times as long as you’re used to in order to level and finding better items.
They make this free.
It won’t matter that it’s free because it would be almost garbage given it takes 10 months to do what you used to do in 1 month, 10 years to do what you used to do in 1 year. (But of course seasons reset so you don’t really ‘have’ 10 years).
If you want the experience you could have had if it was a one-time fee game you purchase up front, you now instead start giving them money almost daily, for each character since the transaction is also only good for one character, and it’s many, many times more $$ than you’d ever pay for a 1 time purchase fee for a game that’s far better.
If you pay them a total of $100 for one month for one character via many micro-transactions, you can have what would have been the normal diablo III experience, but only for one month and only for one character. You just paid $100 for diablo 3 to be able to play it for one month on one character. It used to be $60 for all the characters, for countless years. Now it’s drastically more expensive for one month, one character - it’s actually a complete rip off.
If I stop right there, you can already tell it’s a complete rip-off and why you should not bother with any micro-transaction game.
But it’s far worse than that.
There are many more ways that people are outright robbed into spending many, many times more for a game than they’d ever spend (casinos know all about this way of ripping people off)
(1) They can make the leveling from 1 to max many times faster to ‘hook’ people, give them a sense of “I’ve invested some time” and THEN you hit the brick wall of 10 times as long to level and find items.
(2) The $$ you spend is only on ONE character. So to play others you’ll need to invest the same amount of money to get them the same benefits.
(3) They take advantage of people just like Casinos rip people off: Addictions of all kinds. People don’t have to stop at $100 a month. Companies know tons of people will now pay many times that much, even in the thousands, per month, to do better and/or ‘win’, get top on the ladders, top on PvP and so on. So imagine they’d let you grind paragon and times 100x faster if you’re now shelling out $1000 a month (for one character, just for that month).
(4) Since there are seasons and resets, people are again going to be lured into spending $$ to finish up things before a season ends so they don’t ‘lose their progress’, especially if they’ve paid $$ already.
(5) Much of the “spend $$ and you get xyz” are not given immediately, but you must log in EVERY SINGLE DAY to get all the way to the end of those rewards THAT YOU ALREADY PAID FOR. If you miss a day, you lose out on the last rewards YOU PAID FOR, and now they know people will say "meh - I’ll just pay again and keep going to get those rewards.
There’s so much more than this as to why such games are an absolute rip off. Just like casinos are a problem due to various very real addictions and they get rich off of it and do not care. Mobile games that rely on micro-transactions can be far worse.
The “But I’m having fun” exposed.
So yes “well I’m having fun” is really a useless claim, as it’s really "I’m having fun (paying the same price for 2 [or more] copies of the game per month, per character, just to be able to play it like I would a normal game that you pay ONCE and then have the same speed of leveling and item finding, but also for ALL my characters, for years until the game dies).
So you’re basically saying “I’m having fun getting massively ripped off, I just haven’t thought it through enough to realize it.”
Meanwhile a year later people who would have spent $50 on diablo 3: to get the exact same experience on a MOBILE micro-transaction version of diablo 3, would instead have spent $1200 on diablo 3 just to play one character for one year for the same game. And you hardly notice since you’re giving payments almost daily. Give them $0.99 a day (wow that’s so CHEAP!!) that’s $365 for the “privilege” of playing 1 character the way it was meant to be played for one year.
Wake up, people. This is beyond a business move to outright ripping people off while the one getting ripped off loves it because they think the business is doing them a favor and giving them an ‘advantage’.