I could not name a single microtransactions game that offers a similarly deep or atmospheric or satisfying experience as, say, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy X or a round of multiplayer Mario Kart. Can you..?

Virtually all free to play and free online games I know are exploiting human psychological vulnerabilities in some way or another to keep you playing. Those games leave me completely unsatisfied.

> I could not name a single microtransactions game

Ms. Pacman, Arcade Tetris, Street Fighter II Turbo.

The "microtransactions" games of the 80s and 90s were the ORIGINAL video games, the arcade scene. I miss the atmosphere and the ability to physically meet friends, but ultimately, they were microtransaction games nonetheless.

I've sunk more time into honing my skills in Ms. Pacman than most modern RPGs. Multiplayer Competitive Tetris is probably my #2 game (through the game Puyo Puyo Tetris). Arcade-style 3-minute games are far easier to get into, AND easy to stop playing (!!). They are games that respect my time, yet provide a deep, and rewarding skill curve.

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TMNT Arcade, X-men arcade, Final Fight, Simpsons, Time Crisis, Missle Command, Millipede, etc. etc. There were a bunch of other arcade games that took up a lot of my time and are also excellent. I'll give Ms. Pacman the title for probably most influential arcade game though.

I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with the microtransactions model per se. There's a LOT of bad microtransaction games out there, but that's because they're skinner-boxes optimized for addictive gameplay.

The older arcade games were tests of skill, and more than just a skinner box / slot machine loot box crate. You're not spending money at the arcade for the chance of a rare card or rare drop. If someone made an arcade-game skinner box, it'd be quickly forgotten (Ms. Pacman arcades would have been sitting next to it, and no one would seriously play a skinner-box game if Ms. Pacman were so close).

> but ultimately, they were microtransaction games nonetheless.

I would argue that "casual game with microtransactions" is a particular design philosophy, and arcade games don't actually share this philosophy. Sure, both games have you constantly paying small amounts, but consider:

In an arcade game, if you get really good, one quarter can let you play for hours. Arcade games effectively charge bad players more for their time, with time-cost trending toward zero as skill increases. So there's effectively a finite amount of money any given player will ever have to spend on the game (unless they hit a skill ceiling, get stuck not making any progress, but continue to find the game fun nevertheless—which is rare); and skill at many types of games are "portable", such that money you spend learning one arcade game is money you don't then have to spend learning another similar game.

In a modern casual F2P game, skill at the game's mechanics is entirely orthogonal to the thing you're paying for. Sometimes this means that the thing you're paying for doesn't affect the mechanics, e.g. skins. But other times this means that both good and bad players can "pay to win", and that there's no point at which you're so good that it would no longer make sense to give the game money.

Imagine a competitive arcade game with a point-based leaderboard on its attract screen (e.g. most racing games, games like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man, etc.) But imagine that, instead of needing to pay to play and quarters equalling continues, instead, anyone can play for free, but quarters increase your score by 1000 points (with no indication that this was done.) Even the top players would need to take advantage of this to show up on the leaderboard, because if they didn't, they wouldn't rank, since all the other top players had.

All of these may have classics status but are actually very shallow experiences too. As you say they were rewarding skilled players and were not simply offering lottery tickets with dopamine-engineered random patterns to children, but they are still not comparable at all to the ones mentioned. Arcade games were also often notoriously hard and required a lot of invested money to reach the leaderboard. The fact that less dark and more social, but similar money making schemes existed in the 80s in the form of arcades doesn't make them better.

Of course these shallow experiences are reproduced on mobile nowadays. Match-3 games were a staple of all gaming generations and even reached some depth (Puzzle Quest) before they completely moved to mobile in the form of exploitative skinnerware.

> Arcade games were also often notoriously hard and required a lot of invested money to reach the leaderboard.

I don't recall ever getting to the leaderboard on Ms. Pacman in my youth. I get it today, but that's mostly because kids these days suck at the game and the leaderboards are empty.

Case in point: the most OG game was probably Whack-a-mole, in existence in some form since the early 1900s. There's no leaderboard: you play the game because its fun. Sometimes there are prizes, but more often than not, its just an arcade booth sitting by itself with a few quarters and a hammer.

Arcade games of the 80s were similar: Ms. Pacman, Missile Command, etc. etc. were just short burst games to take up time while your parents shopped elsewhere in the mall.

By the 90s, arcade games began to have longer, more cohesive stories. You could theoretically get to the end of "Simpsons" or "TMNT", but more often than not... people put a quarter or two for the first level, died, and moved on with their life. Its there just for fun and pure enjoyment.

You seem to assume that everyone shares your preference for "depth" and distaste for "shallow".

That is just not how it is and that is also my point.

Wither 3 would require me to take holidays or ignore familly duties for weeks. Aaand it is not the kind of game I ever liked anyway (even if I had that time).

I understand that other people like it, but these games are not for me.

It is very similar with other games you mentioned. Not for me at all (maybe Mario kart would be exception for occasional play).

> Wither 3 would require me to take holidays or ignore familly duties for weeks.

This argument comes up often, but I as soemone who also has limited time I can't understand it. Nobody forces you to finish huge games like The Witcher 3 in weeks, months or even years. It just means that the price of such a game buys you a lot and long-lasting entertainment (assuming you like the content). Just take your time, use the free evening that may come up every few weeks and enjoy the game much longer than most people.

Admittedly, 10 minute play sessions won't work in this case, but if you never have more time than that available, I'd say there are other things to consider, but it's not my place to judge.

It is not fun in one evening per few weeks. You won't remember beginning by the time you proceed into like 10% of the game. I really doubt there is anyone who could enjoy the game like that. Three years later when you reached ending, you likely don't care about story anymore. Sounds like chore when played that way - something you do out of duty not out of enjoyment. Plus as I said, I would not liked that game even if I had time.

Second, it is time where you can't be interrupted, so you can't do it while kids don't sleep yet (or you basically expect partner to handle it for you). It is huge chunk of regular time when you also ignore partner and are not learning something for the job are not exercising etc. That is not available three times per week in two hours long minimum chunks.

There are more then one reason why this is not for me and hated mobile games with microtransactions are something I actually enjoy. There is nothing wrong with that. There is no reason to force myself into playing games that are just annoying to me.

> I could not name a single microtransactions game that offers a similarly deep or atmospheric or satisfying experience as, say, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy X or a round of multiplayer Mario Kart. Can you..?

I'm not sure what you consider a "microtransaction game" but LoL and dota 2 are both completely free and have huge hardcore followings. I believe CS: GO is also free to play now.

They're significantly more involved than Mario Kart at the very least.

LoL has the esports aspect and Riot is careful about pay-to-win therefore, and keeps it interesting for competitions. It is indeed probably one of the least exploitative companies in that field. Its competition aspect is extremely addictive and easy to fall for though, and may ultimately leave you unsatisfied from thousands of repetitive gaming hours if you don't become engaged in real life esports / hobbyist communities in parallel. Not sure whether it is engineered to hook players so much though (Fortnite probably is).

With "Mario Kart multiplayer" I mean the experience of 4-player couch multiplayer, not online multiplayer.

I'd say Warframe made a good attempt on the satisfying experience at least.

shattered pixel dungeon is one such example imo.

But Shattered Pixel Dungeons has no microtransactions, it is a roguelike. Btw, this genre makes use of the same psychological vulnerabilities to random rewards, they just use them to make a real (admittedly often well-designed) game and not for exploiting my bank account.