User blog comment:Damac1214/Black Ops II Patch Notes + Micro-Transactions on the Way/@comment-3171236-20130312190802/@comment-3171236-20130313200258

At some point, you have to realize the company shares as much blame as the consumer does.

I don't need to fish very far for examples, the 1983 Video Game Crash is a perfect one.

Atari's business model then (as well as the other console makers, and the publishers who made games for them) was to pump out poor-quality games on a once-a-month basis to earn money off of people who didn't care about the game quality, or who simply didn't know better. In 1982, a port of Pac-Man was released for the 2600, that had really shitty quality (to the point where many people returned their cartridges to the store), but sold millions, based solely off brand loyalty.

In 1983, Atari tried to replicate this success with ET. It sold a hell of alot of copies, but most people ended up either throwing it out, or returning it to the store. It was this that caused video gaming to be completely dead for the next two years, destroyed countless publishers and devs, and further crippled the big ones, like Atari.

Only the ones that were either small or known for quality (like Activision) ended up on top. Gaming didn't fully recover until 1985, when the NES was released.

The point is, you can't use the "they're companies, and their job is to make money" argument forever, because they rule the market just as much as the consumers do.