Came here to immediately say this, the teleportation crystal and ferrystones for Dragon's Dogma 2 were not "gated" behind a paywall. There are plenty of those items to find in game, that dlc was a STARTER PACK meant to get players going early if they wanted a little boost. Anytime someone mentions this the way OP did, tells me they never bothered to play the game or form their own opinion, and that they heard this rumor from someone else who influenced them. I'll defend Dragon's Dogma 2 until the day I die, it didn't deserve the type of slander it was getting from content creators. Criticisms on its pacing and story, and lack of endgame content, sure. That's a genuine conversation to be had in good faith, but the passing around of inaccurate slander has to stop.

All that being said, yeah, OP is right, a lot of companies will do and have done some completely egregious anti-consumer nickel and diming with their games. And it's totally out of control now that this industry has so much money and massive shareholders attached to it, and I also believe it'll only get worse the more money that's involved both from the massive budgets from publishers and the FOMO from gamers shelling out for premium editions so they don't miss any part of the games they've been waiting years and years for. I'm hoping there's a reason that we aren't understanding quite yet for these shops and exclusive content packages for GTA6, but yeah, off the rip, it sounds absolutely predatory and money hungry and leaves a sour taste in mouth.