AAA studios are doubling down on micro transactions, “performative” social justice, AI slop, and live service slop. - AC Shadows

I think that one factor driving either microtransactions, freemium, free-to-play stuff that does data-mining, or "incomplete" games with expansions is resistance to a higher initial price. I mean, if a studio isn't making their return on the initial price, they're going to look for alternate routes. AAA games cost more than ever to make these days. If people say

and I've seen plenty of people on here do so

"I absolutely will not buy a game with an up-front price of more than $N"....but then they're okay playing freemium stuff or games with microtransactions, I mean...that's what game studios are going to do.

I'm generally okay with an expansion model, because I like the idea of giving the studio the option to expand really popular games, and it de-risks things for both the player (you just buy the base game and get expansions if you want) and the publisher (you don't put down a ton of money to create massive amounts of stuff for a flop). Plus, some of my favorite games (including indie and open-source games, like Caves of Qud) have very long development cycles, and selling expansions is one way for larger developers to do a long development cycle...though honestly, I do agree that I miss the "just pay and get a complete game" approach, for a lot of games.