I am a strong believer that upgrades in games can fuck off in a lot of cases. Or item drops, or DLC, or unlocks. Some games are built around this sort of thing, battlefield for example. While I enjoy battlefield, why is there not a buy system in the game to let me get my loadout instead of playing for 3 months to get anything at all?
I love Quake. Quake did items correctly. Things are where they should be and its a race to be in the better position. Other games, TF2 for example, have an interesting dynamic in items where even if 1 scout has a different shotty from another, its a shotgun. Maybe the demoman has a sword and is a melee character and that changes that dynamic but the game is still balanced around this. Your play style is based on what you do, not where the game puts arbitrary bullshit.
With battlefield, CoD, even RTS games, look! You spent 40 dollars on something that no one else can fight against! You're basically jesus! In other words, you bought the progression. Pay to win.
Now I'm looking at CSGO, current TF2, games with skins. Blue to Red. Incentive to play is to get the "More Valuable" skins, not being better than other people. This is seen as a very old world way of wanting to play games (being better than everyone) and instead of having interesting gameplay in a game now we put arbitrary value on things. Hell the only reason to play league, unless you're actually into league, is to get all the champions. Maybe not that way to you reading, but when I started playing league of legends thats the only reason I had to play.
To put it simply, I am annoyed that devs cannot be bothered to make a game anymore. They can't. They aren't making something interesting; they aren't making a new starcraft or AoE2, they aren't reinventing the wheel we've exhausted the wheel and turned to seeing how many times we can mold a brick to throw at each other. No no no, now we code ad campaigns for Coca-Cola or whatever. Or we try to sell items in a game that sparks a gambling economy. Where did the skill go? I don't play CSGO for the skins I play it because my 1.6 CD died. Hell the reason I even got a steam account WAS that my CD died and I was just going to buy it, then I bought TF2 instead before it went free because I wanted a change for a bit. To be honest, CSGO is kind of shit. No... No actually its really shit. Its not the quirky quake 3 mod anymore now its call of dooder: look at the duct tape on my gun edition. The skill play is still there, but its over run with bots and hackers that the only joy to get out of it is "Well at least I haz a dragon lore LOLZ". Now TF2 is getting a very real comp scene, less grass roots and more baked in which is GOOD for the game, but its getting that arbitrary bullshit plugged in that NONE of the players want. Now, to be clear, TF2 had items yes, but there wasn't a tier of blue to red bullshit. Thats from CSGO so valve can make more money (as they hadn't actually paid attention, nor are they still, to TF2 and its still very huge community). Where the dynamic ends and the bullshit begins is where CS is getting the problems it has I'm scared TF2 will have those issues as it climbs up the ranks in popularity outside of steam, though I have more faith in its community.
I am scared that all the stuff I remember as a kid and the reason that I got into PC gaming, the general fear of a server of "Oh fuck its that guy he's way at the top of this leader board in skill" is going to be gone. eSports is something I REALLY enjoy because it sorta holds that "oh fuck" feeling I remember from Quake 3 but its... well a sport. Its less public now, but its there I guess. Only problem is that now everyone is compared to the Koreans in a game and no one is paying attention to the fact that this guy in my CS game is BHopping around legit and knows enough about the game to be 2nd frag.
I'm sad that I'm losing what used to be the gaming community as I knew it. Change is good, but theres a lot of shit in it that no one needs and a very loud niche group is excited about.