One of my issues with the remake is that it goes for a more traditional third person shooter feel by making Leon more maneuverable. This kills what made RE4 so special and what made it stand out from the crowd. A game that started industry trends is now following them all for the sake of accessibility.
The argument against tank controls has always been "they've aged poorly", but this doesn't stop to consider the benefits of tank controls. For example, reloading was handled far better in RE4 than in RE4R. In RE4, deciding when to reload was a risky choice because you would be left completely vulnerable since Leon couldn't move. It made reloading far more tense and rewarding to pull off. Then you get to the remake, and reloading is a totally superfluous mechanic because you can freely move out of danger while doing so. There's no threat assessment, no stopping to consider your positioning, nothing. It only exists because guns reload in real life.
This is why it's such a shame that they dumbed down the controls for the remake. It makes the game stand-out less, on top of just making certain mechanics a time waster. They were probably too scared to commit to tank controls thanks to the whole "tank controls are a product of their time" mentality, which isn't being fair at all IMO.
I am absolutely confident that MTX etc. would be less prevalent if games prices had kept up with inflation but the market is incredibly price sensitive, possibly to its detriment.
The cost of production will always go up with inflation - wages in the US have outpaced inflation for decades () - but games cost considerably less than 10, 20 or 30 years ago when adjusted for inflation, while being much bigger (and I would argue higher quality). The average $50 PS2 game was a 10-15h single player game that would cost $80-90 today when adjusted for inflation.
Ultimately, under these circumstantes if you want your profit margins to remain stable, you need to either increase the sales volume or you need to find alternatives business models and that's what we're seeing.
Seeing companies make "record profits" is meaningless because profits tend to always go up due to inflation. $10 mil profits in 1910 is better than $50 mil profits in 2010, yet the latter would be a "record profit". The point are the profit margins and those inevitable shrink if production cost goes up, sales volume stagnates and your product prices decrease by the rate of inflation every year.
Game prices need to keep up with inflation. :)
