Those same Whales, would be spending money on anything and everything no doubt ... whatever game catches their interest, and so not just micro transactions. To them, the value of money is not any kind of deterrent.

So as I queried earlier - Does everyone who engages in micro transactions, actually enjoy doing so? Or do they feel it is necessary to get the most out of a game, that perhaps they have become addicted to? Or is the addiction in the micro transactions themselves?

You could also ask a supplementary question - What do modern gamers, the young, want to get out of a game? For certainly, there are ample games out there now, that should mean avoiding micro transactions isn't that hard.

So in short, I don't think it is just the rich engaging in micro transactions. Nor do I think, everyone is being wise, who does such, as an addiction can sometimes, perhaps often in some cases, drive folk to go above and beyond their financial means (i.e. spending money on games, that they should be spending on other things).

Yes, those. Baldi this Baldi that.

I was already kinda proud of my kids for playing shitty looking games, ie. they see beyond mere graphics... but then they have the audacity to laugh at the graphics of Daggerfall Unity?

I already removed their names from my last will, my GOG game collection will go to a local animal shelter instead. That should teach them not to laugh at my games.

Now i think of it, i've been supported by, what might have been a whale, once

Some mobile thing i decided to create a guild... this entity wanders in and just spends real money to the benefit of the guild!

Without
any
message

I ended up leaving the game depressed, already had a personal thing going on and the last thing i wanted was this!

Stupid Whales!!!!

TL;DR: wealthy whale minority dictates game design and lifecycles now, similar to P2W MMOs back in the day.

Sad to see. Luckily indies will usually pick up the slack left behind with traditional game business models of buy once with a few value-added DLCs.

In alll honesty though ......

Do we really need a world where a game as Far Cry 5 for example is lauded

Man, after the opening sequence what a failure..... An island filled with all of these places where people are beaten up??? suuure

Or Elden Ring receives the highest praise as the ultimate action adventure rpg???

It is time for change chaps

I think you're correct that the market has already divided, in the sense that devs/pubs have to choose what type of game(s) they are making. For instance, they could choose to make something that's entirely offline, something that's partially online, or something that's completely online. How they decide (or not) to add extra content such as with DLC or microtransactions can complicate their choices further.

Ultimately, though, they must choose at least a semblance of a direction: they cannot develop the same game as both a Kingdom Come Deliverance and a Fortnite, nor are the expected audiences the same anyway. Note to any comically profit-seeking devs/pubs reading: we have seen many attempts at online-only microtransaction games utterly flop, failing to gain a player base and thus withering away immediately. Food for thought :)

I also agree there are different types of whales, so "whales" has been something I'm using as a bit of a shorthand in this thread. I would consider myself to be a "GOG whale" in the sense that I have spent considerably over the years to buy DRM-free offline installers here. There are other users I would also consider to be "GOG whales"; some have less games than I do but still a significant amount, and some others have literally thousands more than I do.

I think in GOG's case, it is relevant to their business decisions to consider the existence of such "GOG whales." I have long made the argument that the "modern gamers" GOG seems to go out of their way to try and attract (with things like Galaxy, Galaxy 2.0, Epic Games partnership, MyRewards, etc) are not as reliable as the generally more old-school leaning "GOG whales" who have proven they will make substantial purchases here.

Unrelated to the above,

The link I clicked is an Early Access game that costs $9.99 (so, ten dollars). I do not mean to badmouth the game, I am not at all familiar with it. But I am familiar with Daggerfall. At a glance, I get the impression that Daggerfall has magnitudes more content than this game does, to put it lightly. I can honestly say I don't understand how someone could badmouth Daggerfall in favor of this. Surely that is as close to an objectively wrong opinion as something can be, lol. For crying out loud, Daggerfall is better than Skyrim within its own series, let alone ..."Baldi's Basics".

Speaking of "GOG whales" and microtransactions, are there enough people playing GWENT *and* buying the microtransactions to make it worth still having on this store? In other words, I know from talking to people here and seeing profiles that there are "GOG whales" that buy a large number of games. However, are there "GWENT whales" buying a lot of microtransactions?

As I often like to bring up, there's also the consideration of opportunity cost. I wonder how many GOG users back then actually stopped purchasing games or left entirely, due to disgust at a DRM-free store now having this online-only game. I know several users were boycotting GOG in later years due to what is perceived as a continued slide into a less purely DRM-free direction. Are there "GWENT whales" making up for these factors?

To be fair, it was small kids just commenting on seeing the graphics (dungeon combat) for a short while in Daggerfall Unity, so it wasn't a full analysis on its game content etc. (it would probably go way over their heads at the moment).

Maybe I should install a few Daggerfall Unity mods that apparently make it look flashier, like the "spectacular deaths" mod that apparently changes the way monsters die in Daggerfall Unity, ie. not just suddenly changing to a corpse lying on the ground, but actually dying in front of your eyes, with sounds and all. :)