After the backlash. Good on them for listening to their audience in the end, but it was a predictably stupid move.

I think this YouTube comment really explains the backlash very well.

The problem with this isn’t just that they’re paywalling their stuff. It’s the “why” that REALLY made this sting. They are guys that came from Buzzfeed. An online entity that was destroyed by over hiring, inefficient spending, and mismanagement. They have over 20 employees, in a MASSIVE office space, in one of the most expensive cities on earth, all to make shows that are literally two guys in a room goofing off the VAST majority of the time. They mismanaged their business, and instead of sucking it up, admitting they didn’t learn their lesson from Buzzfeed and downsizing, they decided to paywall all their content after having a patreon, adsense, a merch store, live events, and literal 5 minute ad reads on every video. Rather than accept the obvious conclusion, which is that they need to completely rethink their business model; they keep asking the audience to enable them.

One doesn’t lose close to 100k subs out of the thin air.

So Matrix protocol?

It’s the same type of microtransactions that they had in Resident Evil 4 Remake, so it’s probably not so much a test as a limit they found where backlash is small enough that it still makes sense. But there are 2 big differences with Dragon’s Dogma 2.

1. They fucked up the PC port.
2. They increased the base game price.

Anyone that tries to justify microtransactions in a paid game is a moron. They were literally introduced in free to play games to finance the game development. In paid game, it’s just pure greed.