Why do casual players seem entitled to cosmetic items added in game?

[AllenThyl]

I mean, you can ignore the actual, salient points about the amounts of time involved in doing these things in a video game vs the time a lot of people actually have to do them along with their real life responsibilities all you want, but it doesn't make those isses with the MMO genre any less real.

And you don't understand that the whole point of a game is playing the game. And that for this kind of game, a reward structure that is significantly based on people actually playing the game (and playing it well) is a major factor of the appeal in the first place. There are a lot of games that just let you buy the best gear / cosmetics with real life money, directly in the shop. They are all part of the "zombie graveyard of MMOs". Because they go fundamentally against what makes video games as a medium enjoyable for most people.

Nobody's "destroying vidja games." Everyone's doing the best they can to enjoy their hobby.

You don't follow any industry news, do you?

"The culture"? Holy hell.

Look, man - I'm old. I've played about a billion video games. And until now I figured that playing video games for about 50 years (give or take) would have been enough to be a part of "the culture."

What I've discovered, however, is that what I've needed to do this whole time is to earn this specific haircut in this specific video game by beating my metaphorical head against a wall-slash-boss' fist 300 times, with each beat followed by someone telling me I suck, followed by getting kicked, followed by waiting an hour for the next attempt.

With all due respect, I'd rather not be part of that. I have better things to do with my time. Here's $10 for a haircut for my cat girl so I can bypass that. Please.

Culture isn't a "being" thing, it is what is lived by people. The willingness of people to swipe their card for a "cute hairstyle for my catgirl" is the reason these kinds of things are put for sale in the first place. That's why cool mounts of even ingame bosses are put on the shop, instead of being rewards for the bosses themselves. And why there is no need for the developers to bother with good and regular releases, when the weekly fantasia addicts are pouring in enough money for no additional work on the developer's side. The end result is a worse product, in this case, this particular video game.

Further, you are not getting kicked out by faceless beings. There are human beings on the other end controlling these characters, and if you get such a krass display of hostility when doing harder content, then it's likely because you are actively prog lying, i.e. you broke the implicit social contract. You are being rude to everyone else, it's little surprise that you then find yourself on the receiving end of (ToS breaking) antagonism. For someone who emphasizes how old they are, you sure aren't wise.