It's a matter of "does it feel good to spend my money?" If it feels good to spend your money, you're more likely to do it again in the future, whereas if you feel fleeced, you're gonna have doubts the next time you spend your money on something.
Taking the Splatoon example, spending $25 and getting Off the Hook amiibos is satisfying. I paid money and I actually a physical thing that has weight that I can physically put somewhere in my home. Whereas if I paid 5 cents on an in-game crown, I'd probably be like "huh? Did I really just spend 5 cents on that stupid crown?"
It's a psychological thing. Exclusive clothing packs in Splatoon are essentially being sold, just in amiibo form and not in-game. Psychologically though, you're buying a toy for whatever price and getting an in-game costume as an extra, instead of just spending money on a costume
I actually forgot about the Amiibo exclusive clothes in my post :D. There is also an aspect of finiteness of the spending. If you want everything money can buy in Splatoon, you're down to what, maybe $100 for game+expansion+amiibos. There is usually no practical end to things you can buy in mobile games (like Fire Emblem Heroes).
I was looking forward to the FE game, but that's been looking pretty "this isn't much better looking than Radiant Dawn was and that was a Wii game" so I'm currently lukewarm on that at best.
War Groove is finally coming out in March and my hype for that is probably going to fine me under whelmed but still enjoying it after the wait.
Only other game I can think of that's announced and I'm looking forward to is Metroid Prime 4, but I don't think that's coming out this year.
2019 is feeling like a B-title year, as in titles that sell well and are generally really good and wanted by fans, but aren't the mega blockbusters that'll sell the system. Yoshi, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing. Things like that. It's more like a "Hey cool, I'll check it out" instead of an "OMG HYPE!" So I guess kinda like 2018, but with Pokemon instead of Smash
Also, expect more WiiU ports
I'm expecting Metroid Prime 4 and Shin Megami Tensei 5 to be 2020 games
Pokemon Gen 8 is the one I'm really looking forward to.
Fire Emblem isn't my favorite SRPG series (preferred SMT: Devil Survivor, Tactics Ogre and FF Tactics) but I'll take it. It's the only one that seems to be currently alive and getting sequels. Same issue with Shin Megami Tensei 5. I found 4 to be lukewarm at best but I'll take 5 as something to play.
I have enough games to play this year so hopefully next year will have more games that are to my taste. I think Atlus is gearing up their support but Etrian Odyssey Nexus is only about to come out on the 3DS with Persona Q2 possibly this year as well so it might be a while before we get Switch sequels.
Sucks that they have to restart developement, but given that we weren't even given a release year to look at, this doesn't quite sting as much as I'd expect. If anything, this might improve my expectations of the game now that Retro is on board for it.
Oh nice, Octopath hit 1M in sales. I hope we get more of those kinds of games. I've enjoyed Square's smaller titles more than the big budget ones in recent years.
EPT
