@punksterdaddy: I was contributing to the conversation, not coming to his aid or fighting some battle for him (apparently you see it as such).
For what it's worth, I don't care for MTs on full-priced games any more than you do. But they are indeed optional. True, they shorten an artificially lengthened grindfest in the hopes of making more money, but my point still stands that the price of games hasn't gone up by much. All things being equal, if SMB2 was $50 when it came out, then it should be $116 today, yet games never go beyond $60. They only go beyond that with DLC, season passes, and MTs.
Face it, MTs are here to stay. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet (which it sounds like you're doing). Writing walls of text isn't going to change anything. As for the children, that's up to the parents to explain. If a kid gets an allowance (or part-time job) and wants to spend it on loot boxes, who am I to tell him/her that he/she can't?
Have you ever bought a car? Surely you are aware that you can buy virtually the same car with different MTs (or options, as they call it). Are those options necessary? Nope. Will they alter your enjoyment of said car? Possibly. But that's for you to decide. Should all cars be cloth interior so no one is allowed to have leather to make sure that everyone pays the same price? Or maybe all cars should be fully loaded and the prices set sky-high so only the super rich can afford them?
@punksterdaddy: I'd just like to point out that the dev team for Super Mario Bros 2 (a $49.99 game) while the dev team for GTA 5 was over 1000 (a $59.99 game). Yes, there's an economy of scale happening here, but games are more costly to make than they used to be. I don't think @Dogmatic923 was talking about the tech it's developed on, but the people it takes to develop it.
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