Games @lemmy.world Buttflapper @lemmy.world 2mo ago

My mental health has improved after deleting games that have microtransactions in them

After playing World of Warcraft for 15 years, I started becoming increasingly bored and disgruntled with the game. The game being grindy and repetitive is no real surprise, I mean it's an MMO. But the one thing that was really frustrating was paying monthly for a subscription and a huge chunk of cash for an expansion, but still having extra stuff flashed in my face all the time that was simply not possible to earn in-game. Mount skins, cosmetics, miscellaneous stuff that is only available in the Blizzard store. They also began adding loyalty items that require being subscribed every single month, and doing repetitive, extremely boring stuff on top of the other repetitive boring stuff, so basically double dipping on your grind, which really isn't fun.

Aside from that, I also played other games that required a heavy amount of grinding too, and each one of them had similarly frustrating elements. Destiny 2, overwatch, Battlefield, Fortnite, Halo, and the list goes on. Each of them has the same issue: fear of missing out. FOMO basically makes it so that if you don't seize the opportunity to spend real life money, you will never be able to obtain something really cool, because it's only there for a short time, and then it's gone, and you are made to feel guilty and bad about it. It's just kind of depressing playing kind of games and realizing that you are now mentally dependent on financial transactions in order to get the full enjoyment of the game. That to me is a very very awful way to live life, and it really messes with your emotions

So I ditched every game that had any element of an in-game purchase. This is honestly helped my mental health a huge, huge amount. Now, I only play games that either have no microtransactions in them at all, or are completely free and 100% possible to play with no purchase required at all. So games like team fortress, deadlocked, Stardew Valley, and many other indie games that you can purchase and then never have to worry about getting suckered into the microtransaction cycle for

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117 comments

Maybe its the 'tism but I never gave a shit about most microtransactiony things unless they have a "pay-to-win" element. That's why I gave up on GTA online.

But if its just like "exclusive skins", I could give a shit. My default skinned character can still win against a guy in a bear-suit with a golden AK and that's really all I need. I have no particular FOMO of not winning the fashion part of the game.

I do wish games I could turn off their constant begging for my money though.
- My problem with "its just cosmetic" is that it turns the entire main screen into ad space, along with loading screens and wherever else they can jam it in. I don't play game to be advertised to.
  
  Of course I can choose not to buy in, but if it didn't have a psychological effect they wouldn't be doing it.
  
  An argument I heard, and adopted is that it's never "just" cosmetic. Your enjoyment of the game is impacted by how you perceive your avatar. This is why fortnite skins sell so well to new players. It's not just cosmetic to drop $20 on Cuddle Team Leader. It makes a user feel silly and increases enjoyment running around as an obvious pink mascot costume. It prolongs how long you play both by increased enjoyment, and sunk cost fallacy. In any game with cosmetics, purchases drive playtime.
- You used to unlock cool stuff by playing the game.
  
  They removed that whole loop of discovering cool stuff by doing cool things and replaced it with cash grubbing.
  
  Played Terraria recently and this concept you speak of shined in it. Almost forgot how fun discovering new things as you play the actual game was.
  
  Wow still has a lot of achievement/reputation(grind) related cosmetics.
  
  But yeh, it's a shame that when you see a cool/unique looking mout etc that you now assume it's paid by default.
- Permanently Deleted
- My default skinned character can still win against a guy in a bear-suit with a golden AK and that’s really all I need. I have no particular FOMO of not winning the fashion part of the game.
  
  Sure, until Activision starts using its new patented pay to win technology
  
  Twitter user strahfe recently shared a patent by Activision that suggests buying cosmetic items could increase your chances of being placed in games against less-experienced players. The patent reads: “The microtransaction engine may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player”
  
  I'm not heavy into conspiracies, but I'm suspicious enough to not give Activision the benefit of the doubt and bet that they've done this in secret if they have a patent for it. But really... if we're even thinking about these kinds of things, the game is a lost cause.
- It is always such a satisfying feeling to loot the $999 weapon skin off your enemy dead body.
  
  Thank you for spending on my behalf and letting me play this game as a f2p and for letting me use your rare skin.
  
  I avoid any games that have p2w mtx but I can tolerate it somewhat if it is a PvE only or 'single player' like in Genshin-like games.
  
  I dislike the practice of having mtx of any kind in pay to play games so I tend to avoid those too.
- Even a bunch of competitive games it hasn't bothered me that much unless it's like a real big difference.
  
  I actually enjoy taking the shitter on people that paid to be "good", then get their asses handed to them to someone who clearly never spent a dime.
I cannot tell you how much better my mental health has been since I stopped playing Apex Legends, Overwatch, and Rocket League. I never had anything against the gameplay of these games but the microtransactions and battle passes were just straight up toxic. After a couple weeks you simply don't give a shit anymore and it's amazing. I see my roommate playing these games until 3 AM every day because he has to do his daily challenges for 4 different games. He'll be so pissed off that he can barely speak as he powers through game after game to get them done so he can go to bed. And in hindsight, that's probably what I used to look like back when I played those games.
- Apex Legends ... the microtransactions and battle passes were just straight up toxic
  
  My friend bought Battlepass for Apex once because it had a pretty decent skin in it. Then, he was straight up *PISSED * when next season they had the most ridiculous, incredible looking skin ever. He felt like he had to purchase it again that season, and was bitter he spent money the previous season for something so mediocre. That kind of thought process is just awful. These games lure you right into it.
  
  Apex battle passes have always given you enough credit to buy the next season's pass. I've been playing since launch, I've completed all battle passes save for maybe 4, and I've spent a total of $10 on the game.
- He'll be so pissed off that he can barely speak as he powers through game after game to get them done so he can go to bed.
  
  If you want to help him get out of that, give him a burn or two every once in a while: "How are your second, third and fourth jobs coming along?" - "With all that work you do, you should ask for a raise!"
  
  Hopefully he'll realize he's not playing, but working, and give up on that. Hopefully.
May I recommend taking it a step further and going for games that have no cycle in them at all? That is, finite games that you can play and actually finish, for good. That's what I've been looking for a lot lately.

Some recommendations:

The Talos Principle (puzzles with a story)

Outer Wilds (best to go in blind, read absolutely nothing about it, not even the steam description)

CrossCode (fast paced fun combat and a cool story and characters. Somewhat grindy but still finite)

Beacon Pines (short and sweet visual novel)

Chants of Sennaar (language translation game, surprisingly fun and satisfying)
- Chants of Sennaar is absolutely one of my favorite games. It's one of the few games I've played where the mechanics of the game and the themes of the game were in perfect harmony.
- Not every game needs a story or campaign you can finish to be enjoyable. Playing random skirmishes in Age of Empires 2 or Supreme Commander can be loads of fun. Civilization 5 has scenarios that I suspect most players don't even know exist (also, you can play Unciv for free). You can pick up and put down much like you'd do to boardgames.
  
  Then there's "infinite" games like Cities Skyline, RimWorld, Dwarf Fortress, Satisfactory. It's ok to want once and done games, but games that you want to replay when they lack any mtx or dark patterns speaks something about your enjoyment
  
  Definitely, not disagreeing with that. I've played plenty of those games too. I just find that "enjoyment per hour" is actually better with shorter, finite games. But I also find myself spending a lot of time playing Civ or Stellaris haha
- What's the SorteKanin description of Outer Wilds?
  
  Well... Without spoiling anything I would say, you are a member of an alien species on another planet. You are also an aspiring astronaut about to take your first journey into space. Let's just say your journey is quite remarkable.
  
  I'm not them but...
  
  Outer Wilds is a gem of a 3D first-person indie game. Other games might have you find required items so you can progress (like Pokemon or Zelda games), but in this game it's all about the knowledge you learn while playing (like Tunic). You explore, learn, and puzzle solve. By looking up anything about the game, or by looking up a solution to a puzzle, you essentially lock yourself out of experiencing that piece of content. It's all about the journey.
  
  It's a game you can only really play once, but it is so worth it. It's my favorite video game and I wish I could forget everything about it so I can play it again for the first time.
If everyone was following your path, micro transactions wouldn’t be there anymore.
I was thinking of Stardew Valley and Rimworld while reading your post, sure enough SDW was mentioned at the end :D
- The Java edition of Minecraft is also pretty good for having no microtransactions.
  
  And modpacks....all the modpacks! All of them turn the game into a whole new game.
- Sell me on rimworld! What do you like about it/what do ya like to do
  
  Rimworld is a great Colony Sim if you love the idea of Dwarf Fortress but want a gameplay experience that's much more accessible with a much softer learning curve.
  
  It plays into the chaotic post apocalyptic Mad Max style hellscape fantasy really well, and does not attempt to police your morality. You can love and care for your colonists, meeting their needs and growing to know them as individual people with their own unique stories, or you can play as efficiently or sadistically as you like, throwing ethics out the window and following the Geneva Suggestions wherever you deem prudent.
  
  The base game is good for hundreds of hours of play, and expansions bump that up to thousands of hours of fun, but it also has a very healthy modding community if that's still not enough.
  
  If you're unfamiliar with the Colony Sim genre, the basic idea is that you start with a set of semi-randomized colonists on a randomized map and need to build up a functioning Colony to survive. You the player take the role of a manager or overlord and set tasks for your colonists to complete, which they then take time to carry out while you watch and plan the next set of tasks. You need to gather materials, build shelter, grow or hunt food, defend yourself from wildlife and raiders, and recruit new colonists.
  
  Rimworld in particular has fun building mechanics with an emphasis on building power grids and heat management (air conditioning and heating to keep your colonists comfy and keep food from spoiling). It's a lot like a top-down Oxygen Not Included, but with simpler mechanics and more focus on its (procedurally generated) story.
  
  Cannibalism is a viable option. Do you need more?
  
  Over 2000 hour of play and i never won once but had so much fun losing in some really stupid way and some tragic one too.
  
  With the mod and dlc each new game are mostly unique
  
  The colonists you are given all have character traits and there is a social aspect of the game. Colonists can start relationships, start families, break up, start social fights and end up in infirmarry... Sometimes, family members of your colonists come to your colony as raiders. All these stories forming during gameplay is the real strength of the game for me.
  
  For example, there was this one colonist woman in one of my playthroughs. She was the tough, soldier type. She started one or two relationships in the colony but ended them. Then she tried to go back to them. It started creating some complicated feelings among the colony so I sent her to scavenge a nearby abandoned base.
  
  Before she can leave, a band of raiders popped in. One of the raiders was her teenage son! So I start getting so invested in saving the son and bringing him back to the colony. I'm not that skilled in combat or tactics so I save the game multiple times until a trap injures the boy so his mom can snatch him without fighting. She takes him into one of the intact rooms in the ruin and patches up his wound, shares her food. (She takes him prisoner and you can keep talking to prisoners and convert them into your colonists. )
  
  Here is a scene where raiders running around outside, raiding. And a mother and son, hunkered down in a room, trying to reconnect.
  
  While the boy is recovering in the impromptu prison room, she gets out and shoots the raiders one by one. Rest of the raiders leave the map after losing enough members.
  
  Mother and son talk about family, son talks about some childhood memories. Eventually, he is no longer a prisoner but a newly recruited member of the colony. Woman comes back with her son. Son turns out to be a psychopath but that's ok. At the Rim, we love psychopaths, they do gruesome task of disposing raider corpses, for example, without getting emotional strain.
  
  Mother stopped creating drama in the colony after son joined.
  
  ....
  
  If you read people's stories in the steam comments (there are a lot of war crime simulator stories, too, be warned) you may get why it's so addictive.
i don't know when or how it happened but once i realised FOMO was being used against players regularly and aggressively i just- stopped caring. Oh a limited time special one week offer especially for me now and never again? Too bad i just launched the game and have no intention of buying your "newbie pack". Oh my event limited time items? Dang, those look expensive, anyway i'm happy with my normal looking armour and normal looking tools/guns cheers

& i only ever buy cheap cosmetics. If your game is bad and grindy when i play it without throwing money at the screen then your game is bad and grindy & i will tell all my friends about that experience
- Yeah, that’s the attitude I take with this shit now.
  
  I play a stupid colour matching game on my iPad that’s almost scientifically designed to try and rinse money out of users’ pockets, but I’ve got to a place where I see the offers and last chances and know that even if I did pay for a few boosts or power ups, it’s not going to bring me enlightenment.
  
  That’s not to shit on OP’s point, mind. Microtransactions really are a menace, preying on those who are least able to ignore them, who are often least able to afford them. But it’s a world we’ve kinda made by not wanting to pay for games.
  
  That said, how much is WoW these days? Paying a monthly fee AND getting bombarded with ways to spend more money is straight-up cunty.
- This is pretty much me. I don't play games just to unlock stuff so if the game isn't fun for me then I'll just walk away and find something else
I'm glad I've had a few epiphanies over my gaming time that have resulted in no desire to spend any money on P2W or content skipping.

First one was in the first Turok game on N64. I was playing normally but at some point looked up the cheat codes for things like unlock all weapons, unlimited ammo, and unlocking all levels. There was one weapon that you needed to collect hidden pieces of from each level, and then you only got 3 shots with it that would pretty much AoE clear an area. There was another gun that you'd only find 2 shots of ammo for at a time that was similar. I had fun for a bit running around and shooting those guns at will, but after that it was hard to get motivated to play the game without the cheats because I knew the big weapons were basically just temporary consumables, which meant I'd probably never use them while trying to ration them for moments they'd be most useful. Using those cheat codes ruined the game for me.

The second epiphany was after raiding for a while in WoW and thinking about the loot motivation. It was a circular motivation: you get better loot so that you can raid more to get even better loot. If the loot was the main motivation, then it was pointless because the loot didn't serve any purpose outside of the game. So it only made sense to do raiding because I enjoyed the process, not because of the rewards. And this applied to most reward mechanisms in games. Taking that logic just a bit further made me realize that P2W is actually paying money to avoid playing a game and short circuit right to getting the rewards, which was kinda pointless when the rewards were meant to improve the experience of playing the game. Either a) you don't want to play the game at all, or b) you don't get as much satisfaction from using the better loot or whatever because you skipped the part where you had to do it without those rewards.

And then the last one is finding PvP less satisfying when the game mechanics give significant advantages based on either time spent grinding or paying money to avoid grinding. Did I just win because of my skills or because I've acquired better gear? Did I just lose because the other player outplayed me or because they got better gear? And I didn't even want to give any satisfaction to those who just paid money to win and don't worry about what it does or doesn't say about their skills. It's similar to the line of thought when you know cheating is possible... Did I get beat by someone skilled enough to aim better or someone using an aim bot?
- This should be the new gaming copy pasta. I applaud your rational introspection, and solid writing.
- Comparing P2W to cheating is spot on, especially as these are much more heavily advertised and used in PvP games. What really annoys me is when these players, or similars that never go after equivalent players, feel all superior despite showing zero skill
  
  On WoW, I remember playing a few times on instant 255 private servers, back in 2007-2010. It felt so damn pointless to me, especially as the raids still needed you to make a raid group. I enjoyed a portion of the grind, even as a mostly solo player.
My mental health improved after dropping games with time gating and or daily quests
- I was just talking about farmville the other day, howbmassive it was. Feel like it was an early example of this
  
  My 80-year-old mother is stil hooked on Hay Day (2012 Farmville clone). She doesn't alarm-clock overnight events any more, but that could be because she can't sleep through the night now. Got a team of other old ladies around the world for contests, and it's right on the edge of where I think it's great that she's got something to keep her engaged versus might need an addiction intervention.
I started playing only arcade games for some months now and I'm so happy, this games are just gameplay and nothing more!
Whenever I feel FOMO, I just remind myself of all the other FOMO items I bought in past games and how much I don't care about them anymore.
It's refreshing seeing your list since people often blame gachas nowadays, but MMOs were the issue originally, it's just that other genres took a lesson from MMOs so now we have way more grinding options and it gets tiresome.
- I really appreciate that because someone was over here trying to convince me to play a gacha game claiming that it's not that bad. Some people just don't get it
  
  Gacha games are like magicians. You know they are total bullshit and there is no “magic”, yet some people still look at it and think there is something else going on.
  
  Total waste of money, I don’t understand how people get sucked into those things.
When I did this quitting thing from MMOs and FOMO inducing gachas that you describe, I suddenly

got a non-dead-end job

got a girlfriend

got a promotion

travelled around Europe

girlfriend died

travelled around Europe some more

got another girlfriend

ended up in Canada

got married

got kids

stuck in dead-end job again without promotion for the past five years

I still think it was worth it to quit though. My mind just gets stimuli from the seemingly simplest things, like looking at a beautiful tree on the roadside, brutalist architecture, interesting conversations that I focus on instead of my mind wandering onto the next mount or raid boss I will have to tackle.

And when it comes to gaming, if I want to satisfy my itch for twitch and a bit of adrenaline, roguelites scratch it the best, without the long term commitment to playing them for days or even hours.

But what works best to keep sanity is exercise, and with riding a road bike at least twice a day I can combine elevated heart rate with zoning out and Zen for stress relief really well. It's simply meditative.

I think of the twelve years I've spent playing MMOs fondly, lots of memories were made. But I would never do it again. And it has nothing to do with self-control, and willpower to not start it again, although quitting cold turkey definitely required both. But it had everything to do with the realization that it's a trap that's a poor substitute for real life, even if real life has dealt you shitty cards.

I can spot the hazy, reality-disconnected look of addicts from a mile away. The self-deluding statements when the topic somehow gets brought up. And I can do nothing but feel a bit sad for them, and hope that somewhere, someone manages to gently nudge them on a path that helps them escape from this trap.
- Wtf, is this some (copy) pasta?
  
  If it isn't it should be our Lemmy pasta with sauce IMO!
I don't think its so much the microtransactions as it is games with a highly competitive spirit. PvP games in particular. I don't find myself having any negative feelings after playing a game like Zenless Zone Zero or Goddess of Victory NIKKE, but after about two matches of Dead by Daylight, a game with a notoriously toxic playerbase, I definitely feel worse than before I play, particularly if the matches do not go well for me.

Im the kind of player that doesn't spend money unless I feel like something provides me value. Ive played ZZZ since release and haven't spent a single cent, and NIKKE since its release and only spent $25 total. I have enough self-control to handle those games and can spot bad value in games like gacha games pretty fast. So for me it isn't really about microtransactions, its definitely about competition with other players, and interactions with them. Playing a game of DBD, winning, and then having everyone (usually TTV streamers) call you names in chat or on their stream and report/mercilessly harrass you ( for winning in a video game, mind you) is a completly different level of toxic that I doubt many would be able to properly handle long term.

Its why I pretty much never recommend DBD to people.
- I don't find myself having any negative feelings after playing a game like Zenless Zone Zero
  
  I agree with the rest of what you said but this part is crazy. Gacha games are so heavily monetized it's wild. I played zenless as well up until a few weeks ago, that game is such a trash can. I used every single currency that I had earned in the entire game and couldn't get The character I wanted. Some people spend as much as $2,000 on the game just trying to get a single character. That kind of gambling is even worse than what I'm talking about
  
  Well the issue is that some people confuse a want for a need.
  
  Wanting characters is great but the problem comes from being disappointed that you didn't get what you want as fast as you thought you should. The true method of playing a gacha game is like running a marathon, its not a race and you take it slow. Play in your free time, down time, whatever. I don't play those games as my main game, just as a side game. Sometimes I miss a day for the login or a special event or even a character that I really wanted but at the end of the day, its just a video game and I am not going to die without that thing or character I wanted. If I get it, its simply a bonus to the joy I get from playing the game already. I don't play a game long if I don't have fun with it at least more than when I don't.
  
  Some people don't have self control, and I am not saying that the games are not monetized in a predatory way. But I view it no different from actual gachapon: capsule toys. You know, like a gumball machine, but the little plastic ball that has a random small toy or stickers inside. You pay, turn the knob, and you always win something, you just don't know what. To me, I dont consider that the same as gambling like with a slot machine. That's just my opinion, and I sure I am in the minority with that, and with my overall attitude towards gacha games in general.
Welcome to capitalism. Big gaming companies do not care about games anymore, they care about how to maximise profits. Their games are manipulative and developed together with psychologists solely to get your hard earned money at any opportunity. They got so good at it, that they are able to release pieces of software which are looking like games but actually are milking machines and no games at all.

You just have to take a step back and you will be able to easily differentiate between products of corporate greed and games.

Games once were supposed to be entertaining and even art. And there are still some, mostly indies.
- We'll take cash, we'll take checks,
  
  We'll take credit cards, we'll take jewelry,
  
  We'll take your momma's dentures if they got gold in them!
Just ditch the idea that you need any of those things. You don't. From a personal gaming perspective, these have been great for me because I get to play all of these games for free because other people are paying for it for me.

I understand the joy comes from playing the game itself, not the loot.

This is a life lesson as well. You don't need any of the flashy shit. Trying to avoid it is a losing battle, better to just understand it.
- I feel that playing a game that has micro transactions and not participating in them still contributes to the problem. In fact, it seems to me that these micro transaction heavy games NEED people that don't buy the cosmetics. It creates a greater sense of superiority in the people that do buy them by creating a hard line between the "plebs" (f2p players) and themselves. Regardless of how it makes you personally feel, lots of others will succumb to the social pressure of wanting to feel superior to f2p "bots"/"noobs"/"plebs". It's the same reason that people buy shit that they don't need in real life, the difference being that you don't get to choose whether or not you participate in an economic system
  
  Im not a big fan of pay to win, but I see no problem with micro transactions for cosmetic stuff. If people are dumb and want to spend their money on that, more power to them, especially if I benefit from it.
- I play a lot of deadlock right now and i think it's fantastic. But even if it's like in early alpha, i already miss the base designs, because i assume it's gonna turn into a tf2/call of duty nightmare, once the looboxes are in.
- yeah I never understood the point and unlocking loot boxes that are just having some skin in them. I've never once done it. i bought a skin once for fortnite cuz it's a free game and okay I guess. that was my $1 donation to the publishers
I dropped them all like 8 years ago. Not even the microtransaction parts for me since I never played any pay to win games and not big on caring about skins or hats. It was that any game time I had, felt like I had to play league of Legends, or I'd fall behind.

So I dropped it and have happily gone back to pretty much exclusively single player games. It's nice.
- Yeah, same for me. I like Apex. It is an Insanely fun game. But I'm the kind of guy who plays something for a bit and then something else before I may or may not come back. Apex being live service makes it that I don't want to come back because many of the things I know about the game are no longer true. So I'm not installing it again
  
  Yep. You take a month off from league of legends and all of a sudden 50 things have changed/rebalanced and there's 2 new heroes to figure out.
  
  So nice going back to gaming on my own terms. I'm replaying ffvii right now with 7th heaven mods. Been over 25 years since I played it last, and it's still awesome, mostly.
No shit. Micro transactions have completely turned me off from gaming, starting with TF2.
- "Valve is the savior of gaming" as they invented micro transactions and neglect as many IPs as EA and Ubisoft do, but its okay since they have so many fun sales to tie to your account.
  
  Valve is cool some of the time, TF2 is my most played game, but the moment GabeN keels over, is the moment a lot of people are going to notice that "owning" all your games on a digital storefront was a bad idea, like when Playstation and Microsoft remove games people bought with their hard earned money.
If you want to scratch a similar itch, and have not already, try Guild Wars 2.

It does have microtransactions, but only because they have no subscription fee and they are mostly cosmetic with a few rare exceptions.

It also has no FOMO except cosmetics from certain festivals, which you can also buy in the next year.

It is still the best MMO on the market IMHO, because it values your time and money compared to other games in the genre.
- You know I'm a true RS fan when I say stuff like "Jagex is a shit company run by morons."
Team Fortress, I'm assuming you mean TF2, was one of the very first games to have microtransactions. They aren't required for play but they're definitely there.
0 A.D is an free open source age of strategy kind of game. Add it to your collection.
- Just randomly browsing Lemmy and I get a whole ass game to check out for free.
- Are you able to elaborate a little bit on age of strategy?
  
  I had huge age of empire nostalgia vibes,
  
  My friend had the same feeling but age of mythology instead.
  
  Neither of us played the “other” game but we both agreed the sound design in 0ad was almost identical to our different memories.
  
  They are top down strategy games so i sort of gave it this umbrella term. “Age of … “ strategy games
I left mmos due to my wife spending to much on "free" games for awhile. I miss them in some ways but also am sorta glad. They were easy to over indulge in and I have a lot of responsibilities. single player, buy once and done, games along with streaming shows or movies is so much easier to take or leave. No limited events or dailies or anything.
i just started playing on Ascension wow private server.

their take on classless is so nice.
I’m able to keep these games around because I’m pretty good at ignoring FOMO and microtransactions. I don’t need everything. One fun skin that I like when I’ve already enjoyed the game more than I’ve paid? I’ll consider it. But I don’t need everything from events - sometimes they’re just a good reason to play it together with friends at that time, like when the carnival is in town.

Still, there’s enough games out there that no one really needs to consider those types of baited experiences, especially if you know you’re susceptible.
I've stopped playing f2p smartphone games entirely cos of this microtransactions nonsense too.
Yeah I agree with you here. A lot of Trackmania players are annoyed by Trackmania's $20 a year subscription and have called to make it F2P with cosmetic microtransactions, but I'm pretty happy that hasn't happened. There isn't even any DLC. It is really nice to see not have to see ads to pay more money for stuff.
You should try Old School Runescape if you want an MMORPG without any microtransactions or FOMO/daily grind mechanics.

The cool part with OSRS is that every new feature or update has to pass the player polls, meaning they are unable to add stuff no one asked for. This includes microtransactions, partnerships, battlepasses, etc.
- I actually have played around 900 hours of it on Steam alone. I'm not going to support them anymore though because of their bullshit price increases. They are owned by an investment company now That is milking them for every cent. World of Warcraft has never once increased the prices of their game at all. I'm not going to support a game that is like that
  
  I mean... They have grown. The studio is bigger, they don't have other revenue sources like Blizzard does really (also Activision Blizzard is owned by Microsoft, if you're worried about a games company being owned by someone else that just wants profit...), and shit costs more now than it did 10 or 20 years ago. I wish it didn't but inflation is a thing, and that thing affects the food and housing bills of the employees at companies.
  
  For what it's worth, OSRS has made some absolutely amazing improvements in the last couple years. Almost every single update has hit perfectly with nothing but minor errors or complaints. New expansions and regions, new quests, new raid, weapon and damage rebalances, new bosses, new community events and special game modes, new updates to their clients both mobile and desktop, and most importantly a significantly better bot-busting system over the last few months.
  
  This shit isn't cheap. That's a LOT of parallel systems and work, and OSRS continues to have 0 micro transactions outside of membership. True, RS3 and its cesspool of mtx helps fund OSRS, but I don't know how far that goes since the player count there is stagnant.
  
  Now your opinion and choice to not support a company is always valid, that is up to you. But I don't think it really is a "bullshit" price increase. I'm OK with OSRS costing $2 more per month if it means that this current cadence of content of QOL updates marches on. Jagex has been absolutely nailing it and I'm very happy with them, and that's worth money to me.
  
  You can't really say Blizzard has not raised prices when they have added microtrans and mental health costs to the game.
So that's great, but halo IMO is the least FOMO inducing mp game on the market with battle passes. You can actually "equip" the season pass you want to level and work on it, the best thing is they never go away so there's literally not a single bit of FOMO, only the illusion. Regardless, I see your point for the other games and I commend you for making the change.
Thing that cured me of my destiny 2 fomo was to get the transmog system to make my character look like a year 1 day 1 player (the broken armor you get when Ghaul takes your light) and then that's my "look" I'm the guy who looks like they've never change their armor. Then I picked one ship and one emblem I liked (Xûr's rock ship, and Strange Coin emblem) and that's it. no more MTX.
I finally kicked my Destiny 2 habit by installing Linux, and while I absolutely miss the gameplay and my team, I haven’t really looked back. I’m involved and interested in so many other things now. I still see the odd post that gives ma a pang of FOMO, but the thought of booting into my windows install makes me want to peel my skin off with tweezers.

Not an MMORPG by any means, but I’ve been really enjoying a “Minecraft like” called Vintage Story that is giving me the same feeling. The commodification of Minecraft has finally frustrated me enough and I’m jumping ship.
Except for like 3 helm pieces which they released like 15 years ago and have since made available through others means, there's literally nothing beyond a few mounts and pets. So your whole "mounts, cosmetics, miscellaneous" thing is very misleading. Other than that, I agree with you and I'm glad you've managed to get away. Kudos.

Edit: seems I missed a few of sets that they released in the last 4 years. 5 of them to be precise. And a pair of wings and a helm piece. Some of which were given for free to subscribers before being put on the store.
- Why are you blatantly lying like this? you get paid by Blizzard? There are tons of cosmetics you can not get in the game unless you pay big money for them. They are releasing a new cosmetic set basically every month now that you have to buy from the shop and are available to any character, class, armor type which is pretty game breaking in my opinion. One of the restrictions in game in World of Warcraft is that you cannot transmog or apply a cosmetics to anything that is not your matching race or class. You can get around that by paying real life money, which is stupid. In addition to that, there's a lot of trading card items that go for hundreds or thousands of dollars on eBay, as well as BlizzCon codes that people continuously sell or you can get them yourself by paying several hundred dollars for a ticket each time it comes up. Of course all of these facts don't coincide with your agenda that you clearly have. If you are okay with all this, then that is fine by me, I personally don't like it and don't want to support it. That's my freedom and I don't know why it bothers you
  
  I checked the site before posting just to make sure because I didn't wanna post BS, but it seems I missed a couple of things. I apologize, they also released 6 cosmetic sets in the last 4 years, an extra helm and a pair of wings. Some of which they simply gave for free to subscribers before putting on the store.
  
  That's still less than you're making it sound. Definitely not one every month. Again, not defending them or disagreeing with you, I just don't like it when people make things sound worse than they are to get people to agree with them.
  
  Also, that transmig restriction bit is also a lie. There's quite a few cosmetics that are armor class agnostic. I know because I have them and I've never spent a dime in the store. Here is a list of most of them.
Recommendation: Survivor.io on mobile is freaking fun. Not really any ads either, unless you choose to watch them for more coin.
- Not really any ads either, unless you choose to watch them for more coin.
  
  Not really any ads
  
  What. So are there or aren't there
  
  unless you choose to watch them
  
  Why? Is there some sort of incentive?
  
  for more coin.
  
  So not only are there ads but you're manipulated into watching them. That checks out for a mobile game.
  
  I had the same confusion reading that recommendation. Seems to check all the red flags based on that sentence.
  
  Ads are not required to play the game. If you want to watch them, the incentive is coin. There is no battle pass or anything. It's genuinely a fun game.

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