ISO Recycler is garbage

The "General Backlash" was caused by EA trying to sneak RNG-based P2W mechanics into Battlefront, which was totally deserved. But the backlash against "gambling" in video games in general has gone too far. It's a simple matter of self-control and, in the case of children, parental control. We shouldn't need government involvement in cases like this; the ESRB clearly rates video games based on their intended audience, and I don't want to have to present ID in order to buy a game.

And did you not read my entire post? Because I clearly said there are cases where individual cards are so prohibitively expensive you're better off just buying more packs. Actually, buying packs is necessary; unless you're deliberately trading high value cards for a bunch of low value ones you're not going to grow your collection.

People like to wave their hands around and say "for the children!!!!"

In my experience, this is almost always a lie. Unless you KNOW you're dealing with actual young children. It's just more powerful than saying "for everyone!"

RNG is a crappy mechanic that mediocre game systems use to pad out playtime.

That is it. Bad mechanic, slapped on like a bandaid to systems that can't really stand on their own.

Back in PS1, to unlock the BFR, you had to DO THINGS. Kill stuff in the caves, then stand in the light beam that would kill you otherwise. Then you could pilot the GROUND variant, and you had to kill even MORE with that in order to unlock the flight variant.

Or, back in SWG, there was this whole complicated list of nonsense you had to to to unlock Jedi as playable! (With RNG too, maybe? I never even considered starting.)

But in these "next-generation" games, what do we get? "Accumulate 1000 play-points, or pay us $10 to unlock the shiny new gun!"

Boring and stupid monetization. Sure it pays the bills, but so does prostitution.