This is plain irrational, people are buying this game at a faster pace than ever despite this shit costing 70$, but still charging up to 28$ for one single cosmetic set exclusive to a fucking cash shop, plus a fucking battle-pass. I’ve never been a fan of the series in fact I never played Diablo III so I can’t relate but still, Blizzard got into the brain of their clients with this shit it’s just fucked up. It’s not rational, consumerism at this level can’t just be a trick that is played on their brains by clever marketing teams, it’s deeper than that. People are being broken, their wits have been altered. There is something about impulse control that was removed from their abilities. No ableism intended, people with disorders need respect and care. I think that capitalism is responsible for damaging people mentally, those people are victims and need help.
End of rant.
Society is literally at a point where I’ve gotten straight up evicted from multiple friend groups because they started orbiting highly-predatory freemiums or pay-to-plays that inexplicably had constantly-stocked, sideways-priced cash shops while everything earnable looked like k-mart threads; and I wasn’t about getting hoovered like that. If that’s not ‘cult-like’, I don’t know what is.
I got sucked in to Fire Emblem Heroes. Wish I didn’t. But I quit about a year ago and I think I’m fully done with any game with even slightly sketchy monetization. But especially loot boxes.