Capitalism isn't to blame for this. The Individuals who buy it are.
I bought DIV, I got value out of it. I won't be buying micro transactions, and unless D4 sees one hell of an overhaul to it's end game and encounter design - I won't be going back ever. Comparing it to other games I have purchased in the last couple of years, I would say DIV is the game I have gotten the LEAST value out of, which is surprising considering historically Blizzard games tended to be the top tier in terms of dollar per hour of enjoyable play time I got out of said games.
Onto Capitalism. Capitalism needs two things to function:
A Basic Standard of Living Provided by some entity - historically the Church served this purpose. But currently there is nothing that actually serves this purpose - Welfare is a poverty trap, minimum wages require multiple full time jobs in many places, and where housing is affordable - jobs are lacking in many cases.
Supply + Demand Market Considerations - if you make a product people don't buy: You will fail. If you over charge, a cometitor can move in and steal your lunch money. The reason we have IP laws (Patent, and Copyright) is duplicating hard work done, is far easier than doing your own work - so, we protect the human labour component (which is why I do think AI generated art should NOT be copyrightable, but the AI models and the work that goes into selecting assets to train the model with, fine tuning the weighting, and creating filters to attain desirable outcomes - that is reasonable to copyright).
The failure of NeoLiberalism, and the Industrial age in general is we took the responsibility the Church and the Tithe that was paid to it away from the church, replaced it with work houses with piss poor conditions, and allowed a blaming of unforutnate individuals who couldn't find work - and blamed them for being lazy, instead of treating them with respect and dignity as every human should be treated.
By the way: This is why, I support the idea of a Universal Basic Income. Scrap Welfare, Scrap old age, Scrap food stamps. Universal basic income - and give people the power to find meaningful work. Give people the foundation to take a risk in starting up a small business to improve their lot in life where work is slim pickings, or all the employers are asshole middle managers that are instructed to pay piss poor wages. Capitalism actually would be liable to work FAR BETTER. And besides - you would likely see crime rates in plenty of places basically drop off a cliff as people would not need to turn to crime to ensure they can make rent, keep a roof over their head, or just pay for food.
Capitalism is not the problem. NeoLiberal Ideology is. A Failure to put in working policies to help actual people is a problem - and the "left wing" and "socialist" parties of the last several decades have all failed to bring meaningful positive change to the working class. But that should surprise no one given the track record of left wing authoritarian regimes.
If people stopped paying ridiculous prices for cosmetic shit like this maybe we could see reasonable prices like $1 recolours of things. There's absolutely no reason changing the colour of something should cost $30 other than the fact that people fucking pay for it, and it means other more sensible dollar-conscious players get priced out of the fun little things like that.
Oh well, the market clearly accepts paid cosmetics. It sucks for people who don't spend money on it like me but at the end of the day people will blow cash on it and that's why it keeps getting up charged.
If it didn't cost anything they wouldn't do it at all. You already paid for it, they have your money. They do the extra stuff to try and squeeze out more money.
Who cares, the game is boring as fuck. Told myself I was never gonna get this garbage after they butchered Diablo 3 so bad. Saw it on sale for 50$ during the holidays, gave in and bought it. Fuck do I regret it. It's just slow, repetitive and uninteresting. Quit after I got to level 50, shit was mind numbing.
For me it was when they banned Blitzchung from a Hearthstone tournament and took away his prize money for supporting Hong Kong freedom. I haven't regretted it since they don't make good games anymore like they did when I was growing up.
You never know how other people value their money. Some people buy a $3500 AR headset. Some people buy a truck that costs more than they make in a year. Some people pay 30USD to make the portals a different color.
I have NEVER bough a cosmetic item in a game, I truly do not understand people who do. But, people love that shit so who am I to say it shouldn’t be available to them?
It still cracks me up when I see quotes of reddit users in a random thread (taken as a newsworthy story, lol). It makes me wonder how far it can go with obscene usernames. Imagine having a good breakdown of a problem posted by someone called AnalNosferatu69 that you just can't quote.
Have your own reddit account with an inoffensive name, copy the comment, paste it as a reply to another instance of the same question, quote your own reddit account in the article. Foolproof!