As someone inside the video game industry I assure you this is completely false. The vast majority of consumers enjoy paying for additional content. There is a very vocal minority that rants and raves endless online but make no mistake they are small minority. It's all about hitting the right balance some games get it wrong but having a properly balances economy is a huge part of a game being popular and successful with it's players. Drop the economy out of Fortnight and it would be dead in a matter of days.

You are just seeing it with skew of media and the vocal minority on the internet. The numbers do not lie. People want and expect DLC and micro transactions. The only time a game will not have them is if the studio intentional wants to limit its run. Its like the film industry sometimes you want to a game to fill a hole in you release schedule and you do not want it to cannibalize you next release. That is the only reason not to include post ship content. Your player base is much happier and much more likely to continue to play when they are included. Game with post ship content done well are by far the most popular.

Pinball machines with post ship content would dominate the popularity charts.

P.S. I only mention Fortnight because I have an NDA and can't discuss any game I actually work on.

I'm not in that demographic myself and found it hard to comprehended. Years of consumer data doesn't lie and with experience you learn that it is what people want. That very vocal minority that complain the most online tend to be very hypocritical and more often than not the biggest spenders. You can voice your opinion it's not going to bother me any.

It's the same with anything, people get attached to what they love and it makes them feel good to invest in it. If they offered special editions of this season of GoT with additional content, fans would rejoice and throw money at it. It doesn't make them stupid or just unable to control them self and the, I gotta have it attitude, its just the way human beings work. It's why people spend on mods, they love the machine they want to invest in it and make it unique. Why should the creators not be part of that.

This argument always cracks me up, its a video game not a diabolic mind control device. If you don't want to spend don't. It's like people that don't tip, they always preach that no one should do it, everyone is just being manipulated against their will.

Sterns does not want sales from one pin cannibalizing the next so it could be problematic for them, companies with fewer releases a year could really benefit from post ship content. If you only getting a new pin out the door once or twice a year if you can sell updates between releases it does wonders for profitability.

Every entertainment product is too expensive for many to afford so not sure how that is relevant. Pretty much every product and service expects you to pay more to get more out of the experience. Why are we assuming it is automatically low value content? Your framing your argument to make it seem like people are being suckered into spending more money and getting nothing in return. The reality is a product or service is offered that people think is worth spending their money on and it makes them happy to buy what they enjoy. If they don't enjoy it they very quickly stop spending money on it. The only part people find negative is when other people shit on them about it. If people want to spend on mods all the power to them and if a pinball company wants a piece of that pie on a product they created all the power to them. I would never buy an LE but all the power to the people that do, it feels great for them to have that fancy limited edition.

There are tonne of online functionality that could be added to pinball. I think it is honestly just awareness, I don't think a lot of people in pinball have the knowledge. If they understood what online connectivity and DLC could do for the business they would be all over it. There is a stigma to it in the vocal minority and they will always scream the same tired arguments. The reality is, it makes for a much deeper more enjoyable experience.