It's called normalisation or boiling frog technique.
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-Our generation had the cheat codes which were free.
-The next generation will have to pay for it as it becomes standard in all games.
-The next one after that will probably buy the cheat codes in bulk and the power boost works on a timer like a subscription service. Your power goes back to normal if you don't keep paying to keep it. EG blizzard shut down legacy pirate WoW servers just so they can re-charge you for the experience of playing vanilla WoW again by launching paid edition. LOL
So what they do is a gradual introduction of it and observe the reactions. If we react violently they pause (but don't get rid of the anti-consumer practice) If our reaction is that we don't notice it or don't care they can move it up a level in intensity.
But the long term plan is probably to keep it there to make it 'normal for all companies to have it' so that when you complain about it the generation after you says 'so what? that's always been there! what are you whining about?' ... because they are too young to have known any better times before they were born.
This is the boiling frog technique of slowly turning up the temperature so the frog doesn't immediately jump out of the water. Gradually turning up the temperature a little bit each time allows them to slowly get their foot in the door in the hopes you don't notice what they are doing,.
How do you defeat the boiling frog technbique? You got to first expose all the anti-consumer shit to friends and family and warn them about it. This creates a critical mass. You then boycott buying the stupid games that put it in there. This then drops the share value of the companies that like to rip you off. And then you reward any companies that avoid being anti-consumer in order to demonstrate to the other companies which ones you WANT to suceed. (eg CDPR which is still making the single player games and giving good value for money compared to other companies)
When bethesda got criticised for horse armour, they explained a lot of people were still buying it despite all the criticisms and this showed that companies will do what profits them to stay alive in the industry. What you have to do is boycott the stuff by withholding the money. And only buy the good stuff so that the bad stuff fails commercially.
If you WERE the company and you wanted to make the most money it is what you would do. So this isn't so much about morals, but more about you as victim of the scam maintaining some self control. After all, can you blame a business for doing what makes it the most money? No that is its purpose and the workers have mouths to feed and bills to pay.
What you as the consumer must do is encourage them to make money while not creating junk products so that they maintain high quality and value WHILE profiting. That's your best interest as a buyer. (because you want them to live long enough to be able to service you i nfuture with things if you like them right?) But since they are sneaky, it takes cynics to point out the bad design decisions not children. Kids don't pay for their games. Their parents do.
If kids don't care about value why should the business that sells the junk if it works to make them money? The fool who bought the junk isn't really being ripped off or scammed because the fool is too dumb to know if anything better existed before to even be able to complain that they don't want that junk. (to them junk is normal level of quality, while junk is junk to people who seen better deals in the past)
So this is why they will go with a boiling frog strategy. (ie hope people are too dumb to notice, and sneak this stuff in by not mentioning when they are fiddling with the numbers like market manipulators do to rob people of their wealth) Just exploit ignorance so that eventually people get sick of talking about the topic and give up. When the hardcore gamers are no longer needed because they only make up a tiny slice of the profits, the greedy companies can then keep quality and value low while prices for the product or service high without anyone complaining that it's bad service since the masses of new consumer zombies are USED to that level of quality for years and don't see it as low quality anymore. After all, if everything you experienced was low quality since your birth, and your environment is full of bad deals, an ok deal must seem like a bargain. What greedy companies want is a marekt full of low quality but high priced product to maximise profits while being able to take shortcuts without anyone noticing the water down quality. To do that requires diluting the content a little bit each time a new game comes out so people don't notice. By the time they do, it's become 'normal', so complaininig about it is considered being whiny and entitled to the masses around you who don't notice anything getting worse, because of a nomalcy bias. (kids and their parents who spoiled them with so much money that they don't care how expensive the game is in total or how bad a deal is) In fact instead of attacking the greedy corporation they may even defend them (if they are shareholder) or just out of fanboyish passion which comes from emotional bond to the faceless corporation. Think of it like Stockholm syndrome or battered wife syndrome by the victim of wallet rape who feels sympathy for the abuser. (ie pretty much any destiny fan when you explain to them that Warframe is superior
)
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." -Shigeru Miyamoto