My experience lines up with yours, as a looong time Halo veteran who is a bit bummed with the state of Infinite, I'm happy to not pay a cent, despite spending thousands on Halo over the years. I've also spent a decent amount of the previous year playing Valorant, and I almost feel bad that I've paid nothing for it, but the the problem is that apparently the economists Riot employs have figured the sweet spot for selling in game items is $20+ (with many items in the 30-40 range), which is just too much for a single item for me.
The irony is that if gun skins were all $5-10, I'd probably have already spent over $100 on them. Oh well, time to queue up again and contribute nothing back.
Queueing up IS contributing something back - it's a multiplayer game, so every person playing is helping keep queue times low. It also gives Riot a MAU and DAU which they probably track internally to determine how successful a game is (and thus how much to invest in more content for that game).
I completely agree! I feel that way about Hearthstone Battlegrounds cosmetics. I've been playing a lot and thought I might buy a skin pack or two to vary the experience up a bit, but all of the packs were more than $20 a piece! I was totally down for like $5-15, but once you hit $20, it's a like a switch flips in my brain to not worth it...
Slightly disingenuous to say I spent thousands on Halo specifically, but I used to run LANs/tournaments, so at one point or another I've owned multiple copies of every installation in the series, bought multiple of the same consoles for the sole purpose of those events, combined with controllers, etc.
The irony is that if gun skins were all $5-10, I'd probably have already spent over $100 on them. Oh well, time to queue up again and contribute nothing back.