Yeah, I think it’s partly because in the past 1) technology was advancing so rapidly that many games aged rapidly and it made more sense to just release sequels, and 2) because most games were offline or still sold primarily at physical stores and the infrastructure for digitally delivering large amounts of data was still developing for a significant share of the market, regular updates and content releases were far less practical.

Now those things are limiting factors to a much smaller extent, so there’s room for new development and payment models.

Personally I love to fall in love with a game and then see it expand, and I don’t mind paying for additional content (obviously within reason) if it gives me a few hundred more hours of enjoyment. It’s super cool if developers can make it genuinely free to play, but I don’t know of any other media where you can reasonably expect to enjoy thousands of hours of it without paying a dime.

Also I just don’t understand longing for the good ol’ days when the good ol’ days directly gave rise to what we have now.