I worked for companies that relied on microtransactions and if no one has written a book about this yet:
Gameplay is not the primary concern and its soul crushing.
Peacocking, concurrency, conversion and whales become terms designers who wanted to make fun games had to learn.
Mario Kart 64 was $60 in 1996. How upset do people get when games are higher than $60 today?
A movie ticket in 1996 averaged at $4.
Cable TV was under $30. An average dinner and a movie was under $60.
Obviously it's not dead but, my response is meant to be comical...