DBD's Monetization Is Still Bad
I already made a post on this before, but as someone who has to restart their account because there's no cross progression— making DBD essentially locked behind a $500 paywall for me— the monetization in this game is still bad, even with the recent shop changes.
It genuinely makes no sense that this game is monetized like a free-to-play game. This game costs $20, and with it you get a couple of survivors, even less killers, and mostly mediocre to bad perks. This means that if a player wants to not play the same handful of killers, they either need to grind for tens of hours to unlock a new one, or buy them. And that's only if the character they want isn't licensed. Many of the meta-defining perks are locked behind a paywall— essentially making the game pay-to-win and forcing newer players to pay up to engage in the rest of the game— which is were the vast majority of new gameplay and interesting or strong perks lie.
The Shrine of Secrets is a joke. It is so utterly useless, and oftentimes less efficient than just buying a character with shards instead of the individual perk. This long outdated system is in dire need of an update.
Shop skins are around $10 each. What? That's half the cost of the base game and more than the DLCs. Some skins are even more expensive and yet offer less options by being linked, not to mention that some of them aren't truly transformative. The killer power appearance never changes for legendary skins. Some cosmetic items are literally the exact same, many are just recolors, most feel lazy. Players don't have the option to freely choose their colors. Compared to games like Warframe that have cheaper cosmetics with more variety and customization options, why should I ever buy the DBD cosmetics?
And on top of all that, there's a battle pass in which the majority of rewards are these super tacky-looking charms. Nothing you haven't seen before lies within the Rift Pass. No unique Mori animations, no Killer power customization, no item customization, no emotes; just the same vapid skin recolors and charms seen in every other low-effort, useless battle pass in a live service game used as an infinite money glitch.
A year ago I said that Overwatch's monetization is better than DBD's, and with the addition of all new heroes being free on release, I'm prepared to die on that hill.