Obviously me, and many, many others

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Thursday, February 28, 2013, 23:19 (4073 days ago) @ Cody Miller

You can still acquire all of the content by IN GAME MEANS in single player.

This means that by buying the content, you are paying to not play the game. The only reason to pay not to play a game is if playing it is more unpleasant than paying not to. That means, portions of the game have been intentionally designed to be unpleasant.

You are buying a game designed to be bad.

On this point, we agree.

I'm not a big fan of this model and I generally avoid games that use it. A game that costs you more to play the more you play it, (the more I play, the more I'll want the extra items that are on sale) but that simultaneously allows you to pay for the privilege of not playing, has not created its structure of incentives correctly-- not for the player, and not for the designer.

It's not even really a question of whether the transactions are mandatory, de facto or de jure, or if they confer a gameplay advantage, it's that a franchise designed around that dynamic probably can't help but decrease in quality over time because ot the trend you identify-- parts of the game have to be bad enough that you'll pay to avoid them. It's sort of like the game is an abusive spouse. EA knows something about abuse from spouses.