Shouting "free!" and somehow getting billions of dollars is a sign of exploitation. They weren't donated. Yes, people make harsher decisions about up-front costs... because rational decision-making requires that up-front honesty. We outlaw many abuses of "predictable irrationality" baked into the human brain. Current laws don't cover being groomed into buying whateverthefuck by a Skinner box disguised as a puzzle game, because legislators were insufficiently imaginative.

But now we've seen that this business model is a problem - we can simply solve it.

Until then, it will continue infecting the entire industry. This started in "free-to-play" mobile trash and is now in full-price, "AAA," flagship-franchise titles. It's in subscription MMOs. It's in single-player games. All excuses have failed and we need to admit the only motive is greed. This is a scam that turns generic decent games into whale-hunting exercises that want $70 up-front and $10 a month and $30 per "season" and $5 for imaginary fucking hat. If they don't get that from every player - fine. They get it from enough. And everyone else has to suffer the constant spam reminders that they could be having so much optimal fun if they just paid the publisher again. Just one more transaction bro. Then you'll be happy.

I don't care if someone else thinks they like being manipulated that way.

Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.