Premium-content Memes

Remember when you just bought a game and... owned it? Wild concept, I know. Now you're basically renting everything with a side of microtransactions, season passes, and battle passes. The "future of gaming" turned out to be paying $70 upfront for the privilege of paying more later. It's like buying a car but the steering wheel is DLC and the radio requires a monthly subscription. Game devs went from "here's a complete product" to "here's 60% of a product, the rest is in our premium store." Even single-player games now have online requirements and microtransactions. The gaming industry looked at subscription models and said "yes, but make it worse."