It looks cool, but it IS a pretty weird choice. Especially after so many players brought up the silliness of a Skyrim yeti and a mummy roaming around and convinced the Pimps to change those models.
I'd think that would be TFP's concern, but they don't seem at all concerned. They're going to have their Atomic Shop if it kills 'em. Most unfortunate that established games are being retrofitted with that garbage. Skyrim, FO4. Formerly physical "merch" is turning into virtual "merch" that's going to go "poof" as soon as live service games, especially, go offline, not to mention the 'subscription models" and the fact that we don't own the games we buy anymore. The tech sector at its hubristic zenith. Can't even play games now without constantly keeping a vigil against psychological manipulation of every kind nor being reminded of predatory industry practices. Edward Bernays would be proud. And, of course, all our formerly favorite studios (BGS, Arkane, Bioware, CD Projekt, et al.) are never going to recover their reputations thanks to their owners, entities such as Zenimax and Microsoft, which care only about quarterly profits and exponential "growth" and not the first thing about video games or video game players and developers. Most everyone is going to defend the trend in the gaming industy with "I'm not going to tell anyone else what to do with their money," but of course that's not the point. It's investment firms, with their fingers in everything from education to healthcare to housing to Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid to "prison reform" -- well, everything -- that are driving the trends in triple A and all of us into the poor house. Indies and AAs are just adopting the practices that will make them the most money.
The stock market has only relatively recently taken an interest in the gaming industry. The last decade or so. Investment firms tell our governments they can handle everything more "efficiently" and "cost-effectively" than the public sector and our governments gleefully turn their reponsibilities over to them. Publishers and studios and, even, we may not realize it, but we're all feeding the beast.
"We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective." ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Am I upset about it? No. Do I care what anyone else does with their money? No. That's their business. I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more connecting the dots going on among the public, but we're going to have to be in pretty desperate straights for that to happen as far as I can tell. Seems to me we already are.
