I really enjoy triple-A games but you're absolutely correct, and I'm shaking my head at the people defending this. Games lock most of their interesting stuff behind paid content or insane grinds, forcing you to do daily/weekly challenges, complete mindless grinds and whatnot. If you don't play regularly you miss out on content, playing 1 hour a day gets you far more progress than putting in 7 hours every Sunday. There's a lot of limited stuff and such you simply can not get to if you don't play tons, and people with a job or a life can't just do that for more than one game, in some cases like Fortnite even a single game can be overwhelming to say the least.
Yes, it's cosmetic - sometimes, because in games like Siege it's even extra classes. But the thing is, the core of the game is there, all the cool unlocks you used to be able to get by simply playing normally are now hidden behind timed grinds. Want them? Spend a lot or play a lot and regularly. In the past you also had some crazy grinds in some games, let's take the Dark Matter skins in Call Of Duty which had you complete ALL CHALLENGES for every single weapon and item. Sure, that was grindy, but you could do it on launch week or 3 years later. It took dozens of hours if not hundreds but it was feasible, the most badass and rare item was a challenge you could work on at your pace.
Now the best skins? Either play a lot in a couple weeks or pay fucktons. It's a horrible change that brings console games closer to the grindy F2P mobile titles. Games like Destiny helped normalize it, now everybody does it basically one way or another. It sucks, simple as that.
