This has been happening for years. Shadow of war (2017) had orcs in loot boxes, every assassin’s creed since, and including, black flag (2013) has had microtransactions in some form, odyssey (the last one I’ve personally played) had a rotating cash shop in every city. I know it’s another Ubisoft game but farcry 5 had cosmetic microtransactions in a game that is permanently in first person. You could only see your outfit on the change outfit screen. This comment isn’t meant to come across as antagonistic but I do find it strange to be warning about a slippery slope when we’ve all been riding the toboggan for years.
One time I was just trying to do my money laundering restocking in GTA:O (iirc it was money laundering, it was whatever business you got when the game went free on epic games) and a guy on the flying motorbike killed me for no reason and it wasted a ton of time, eventually I killed him back and he spawned in the desert in front of me so I spawn killed him until he apologized.
I’m not saying what I did was right, I did it in the heat of the moment. But man, that game is really good at making you mad at people.