Rewatched Jim's Avengers video again and there something I've thought about, For years, long before ERA was thing there was critique of Lootboxes and microtransactions (more so the latter nowadays) that their needed in order to support big updates and and new characters and the like and would you prefer to go back to expansions (or in Fighting games, having to buy the game again). I remember how people furiously defended Overwatch with this defence.
The thing is, yes? In the case of Fighting games, it feels like it was actually cheaper buy the game again compared the sheer cost and amount of DLC some of them have now and in the case of Street Fighter V, just cheaper to wait before the release and updated version with most of that free, same with GOTY editions of Warner Bros games or with games like Control which you can end up being screwed over if you bought the more expensive initial version. Also if going back to expansions meant the games were less grindy, less menu ridden and had in-game cosmetic rewards more often, then yes, I would near universally prefer that.
That also goes into the discussion of do all these games need to be constantly updated or live service based, the recent Avengers game seems to be an example where it would have been better as a game if it was a 10-20 hour single player game with classic expansion/DLC based updates then a live service one. But I'm meaning even further then that, do some games need to continue beyond the base games, should games be allowed to have natural end points like many movies and novels? Of course the issue is that Companies like Activision and Ubisoft don't want that... Or Hollywood in general to be honest, better to be open ended that also leads to why the loss of the smaller mid tier level games was a big one for allowing games like that.
