Microtransactions are a bubble just like everything else. It'll burst. First it'll boost up sales, then gaming companies start implementing it. When every or most games have it, people can't afford to play more than a few games, and even those will eventually hit a limit when the consumer decides it's not worth spending any more: the games get boring, not many people pay to be bored. To put it the other way: people have caught up with the devs or with their promises and their pace to provide new things.
Then the big companies need a new strategy to bring in big revenue, this usually happens by having a new target audience that isn't as experienced with their "shenanigans" (the-pay-for-virtual stuff is pretty much selling air, though there is a bit of a effort in making new content but we know it isn't the case here.)
I think this strategy is used elsewhere too and to boost it you have a "smear campaign" against the old audience: usually in ads targeted to younger people (inexperienced) the old people (more experienced) are portrayed as lame, plain, cynical, boring etc. And they kinda are, from the marketer's perspective: they don't bring in any money, they don't buy what you are selling (which is essentially happiness). Older people are too experienced and too wise to believe that happiness/skill/[truly] better personal result or whatever can be bought from someone else, they see you are selling air.
Some ads have even that old boring cynical person getting exited over their product, thus seemingly speaking volumes about their product: "Our Spasmatomizer™ brings out youth out of even dead people"
That's why old people are considered "undesirable", they remind us of death. We wouldn't want to think about that now, would we? We certainly don't want to be associated with that, so we distance ourselves from that: "I'm certainly not one of those! What do I have to buy/do to show this or to get my mind off this inevitable event that takes away everything from me?"
We don't want to be dead, we want to be alive. So we do what people most far way from it (i.e. youth) do: we keep ourselves busy. That's why we play games, but you can play a game only so long, before you develop the level of skill where you mind doesn't need to be occupied by it (mastering a skill is to perform a task perfectly almost without any effort or thinking about it), thus it's free to think something else, but what else is there to think about, when the game was the last effort to avoid boredom?
Acceptance is the key here, and this is why old people seem so defeated in spirit.
So what does this has got to do with anything? Well, we play games to avoid getting bored, but even games get boring after a time, so there must be more content added to it or else the industry dies. And it will eventually, or it will expand to higher/other levels (VR/AR etc) but gaming as we know it now will die. That's what growing is about: leaving the past you behind becoming something new, slowly and gradually.
Anyway the devs/companies have to come up with new stuff, but there's a limit to that also, and they have to worry about their happiness too: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So to pay their bills(so they don't have to worry about not making it i.e. dying), they milk for money with microtransaction stuff. But people will eventually see through it or they simply can't afford to throw money away to gain virtual Pink lancet of Tróloloo //+2 to uselessness. in every game they play.
So the microtransaction thing will die from its own inability to be truly worth anything, the market will eat itself. People play games to gain something, not to lose something (in this instance paying money to gain essentially nothing), when they realize they are losing more than gaining they'll stop doing it. Then the gaming companies need to come up with a new strategy to make it to the next paycheck, a new promise of happiness (diversion from thoughts of death/life's meaninglessness) to make consumers think they are gaining some Happiness-currency (There should be an H with two lines in it for this.)
Gaming companies today aren't making games that they themselves wanted to play and selling those to like minded people. Instead they try make games you want to play, they want to know what makes you depart from your money so they can have it and spend it to something that makes them happy. And you can see this very clearly with certain games whether the goal was simply to make something that makes money, or the goal was to bring in something very special to "life" and share that. Take example Rare's Perfect Dark N64 (guys who played it at the time it was released know exactly what I mean) that was made with love for gaming, not for the sole purpose of making money. They wanted to make that game instead of having to make it just because of bills.
I think that game devs/companies (also writers, movie people, artists etc ) should be selfish in the sense of "I make a game I like, if you don't like it, don't buy it." That way their own desire for more is put into that game, thus creating a product according to their own standards, they wouldn't settle for anything less than the best they themselves have to give.
Just think about it: if you had the power to give yourself happiness, would you settle? Or would you give it all you had to give? MAKE A GAME THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY FFS Do it for yourself, that way you make the best game according to your own standards, that's called occupational pride, have it, for your own fulfillment (and not because I demand it..) everything you do, do it like you did it for yourself. You know when you can do better, so would you cheat yourself? Why?
And to conclude this somehow: realizing that last part about creating games(or anything else) for yourself, is the goal you will eventually reach when living to please others for money or other rewards(status, respect, affection). It's your life, do it the way you do it. You will realize this eventually and inevitably, or someone else will, thus leading to better games and other works of art(art is a manifestation of self-expression, so games can be an art form.) and we will have another renaissance type of time period. Because of games being shitty and making them feels like a chore, it'll will lead to someone saying "Fuck this, I'll do it my way" thus fixing the problem of shitty games. The problem fixes itself.
Boredom and the desire for more is our curse, but it can be also our greatest gift.
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