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I love Path of Exile. It's probably the action rpg that's the most competent at what it aims to do, but sometimes the needs of the business model (play forever) are a bit too obvious. Like when you're halfway through the current season (3.8), and the title screen looks like this.

That's:
(A) two separate adds for cosmetic micro transactions,
(B) a link to a news post teasing the _next_ season's updates to gameplay.
and
(C) A _one month long_ countdown to a live stream of an announcement of the season/expansion after that.

There is no playing the game _now_. There is only the next season, and the next, and the new cosmetics, and you should play it forever, because that is the literal stated design goal.

This talk by the founder and lead developer is literally called "Designing Path of Exile to Be Played Forever":

Now, to be clear, they do a massive job keeping the gameplay itself fresh and interesting with new a progression system every three months (the length of a league/season), and then retiring that to bring in _another one_, as well as new skills and rebalancing of existing skills.

So I'm not saying they're just money grubbing, lazy devs, _absolutely not_! The game is even nominally free* to play for Pete's sake.

What I am saying is that it harms the immersion into the fantasy *role playing* aspect of the game when the start screen is all about selling you cosmetics and focusing your attention on #content that's not even out yet.

*I say "nominally" because the reality of the game's intricate and genuinely fascinating crafting and trading systems is that it is nigh unplayable at the end game level without paying for in-game inventory features that make it actually possible to organise your 100s of items...

... that you need for progression. Without buying these features, you are left with nothing but a small inventory stash made up of plain grids to manually organise and sort through, making gameplay at the endgame level a MASSIVE chore.

Again, considering there is no mandatory recurring payments, and no upfront buy-in, the game is ridiculously generous for the casual player.

I'm just saying capitalism sours this pretty considerably.

Plus, on the level of art and craft, while it's fascinating to see them constantly add new systems and mechanics, I can't help but wonder what the same innovative thinking could have accomplished had it been set free on more than this ONE game you are meant to play forever.

I mean, Destiny 2 actually makes you pay for expansions _and_ is also lousy with micro transactions, but at least it has the dignity of keeping up appearances for it's title screen.

I dunno, am I just an old man yelling at cloud (servers) here? At some level I can appreciate the honesty of PoE as well. It makes no bones about what it is or what it wants you to do.

Whereas Destiny sells itself as a grand space opera adventure, but eventually is just PoE in an fps costume. Shoot, loot, level up, repeat, buy some micro transactions.

Wow, that sure was a thread and a half. I just wanted to point out how jarring all the ads on the title screen were...