Quote from: Kimarhi on Jun 10, 2022, 05:46:06 PMSP expansions have almost always been paid content. This even goes back to the old Primal Hunt days.
Yeah, but that's just it; that was the old days. Paid map content for multiplayer games hasn't been a thing since around 2015, because people realised that all it was doing was segregating the player base, and likely publishers and devs realised they weren't making as much money off the later releases because less and less people were sticking around and paying for every new map pack that came out.
That's why we saw pretty much the entire industry switch to a "maps are free, cosmetics are paid" model round about 2016 or so, with "battle passes" becoming the new norm because they encouraged players to keep playing the game for longer periods of time if they wanted new rewards (many of which were free, but even the paid ones required player retention).
And with more and more games switching to longer-term "live service"-type models, player retention is what it's all about these days. Paid single player DLC is still a thing sure, but it's actually a little jarring to see paid multiplayer maps for a game in 2022. Definitely not something I expected at all.