Yeah that’s kind of the point with dark patterns. That’s not a term I made up either. Warframe isn’t as rife with them as other games but the “forever GAAS” platform is nearly always leveraging patterns like this in some way.

Dark patterns are dark patterns, even if “the community” is more or less happy. Just means that it’s working. Being owned by Tencent actually does give them the freedom to “just be profitable” instead of squeezing each player for more and more revenue YOY, but the game still uses every retention mechanic in the book and leverages fake value by putting the MTX currency on “really good sales! Look how good the limited time deal is!!!” to keep people shelling out.

Tencent is diversified enough that they’ll probably never feel the need to tighten the screws on the Warframe studio directly.

Both chicken and egg situations say the same thing: live service GAAS is unsustainable at best and garbage at worst