Destiny went through the same phase as well. Remember how well The Dark Below was received? Granted, Bungie turned it around with The Taken King, and subsequently Rise of Iron, but the seeds of monetization were sown with Destiny.
In Destiny 2 they just double downed on the microtransaction and monetization creep, which has only grown worse since they left Activision. All of those that thought the monetization was an Activision thing were pretty much wrong…when FTP came along it made sense that monetization was necessary, however the creep over the past few years has been abysmal.
I play, but it always seems to be to diminishing returns. It’s not really fun or rewarding any longer; Bungie can’t decide who to cater to (casuals or hard-core gamers). They’ve pretty much abandoned new PvP content (no new crucible maps for two years and counting, no new Gambit maps with only four available for play). I paid for this year’s content and admittedly, I’m just thinking about sitting it out entirely and just be done with the game.
Sony didn’t have both versions readily available in the Playstation Store. While I did eventually purchase the DLC (which is the deluxe version, not a typical DLC), I’ll be damned that Sony didn’t make it easy to find the OG version in the store.
And I put that on Sony, not the game publisher. Regardless, BG3 has been a breath of fresh air to gaming this year. About time a studio put out a full game without divvying it up into expansions and DLCs.