At first, we got the games, and that's all.
Next, came the internet.

We got our games, after they were finished and went gold. And in ocasion of a bug, and/or the developer being kind enough, a patch was distributed.

Life was good.

A few years ago, things started to change. Developers/Publishers started to release unfinished games to keep release dates, and spent months finishing the games and releasing patchs. Dirty play, specially when a game was NOT finished at all. UFO: AfterMath and Master of Orion 3, the death of true great franchises caused by need of a fast flux of cash is a big example. I believe Atari may do it again with Neverwinter Nights 2, but I hope not.

Now, developers finish their games. But they won't sell you like that. You buy just half of it, and the rest is sold like bread slices for even more money. Welcome to the world of microtransactions. Ok, things are bad now.

But if the evolution continues, in the future the industry will release unfinished games and to get it working, you'll have to go trought the microtransactions way. Maybe that's the reason consoles now have hard disks? Money talks, as always...

It leads to the great question. How much a full game will cost in the future? $60-$70... plus $2 for each "content update"... let's say $80-$100... well, that's was exagerated, but that's the point of this post.