At the end of the day, whatever justifications there are to these monetization practices vis a vis "rising costs of development" ultimately fall flat because these aren't practices being used to offset costs, or not anymore at least, they are simply a means to make more money on top of whatever money was going to be made in the first place. Star Wars, Assassins Creed, Fifa, etc. don't need microtransactions to be profitable, they don't need a hyperinflated marketing budget to be profitable, they don't need multiple $80-100+ special editions, because they're already going to make bank on the merits of the brand alone.
I don't see why we can't push for the humane treatment of game developers and more focus on "middleware" or "AA" or "B" games instead of silently encouraging bigger and bigger games that ask more of the player's wallet and the developer's life so they can make X many more millions of dollars.
