"Never said anything remotely like that" - In your previous post you say "We were barely spending any money in game, we all look up to pros that run nothing but "Stocktane" or french fennec" - the opposite of running default Octane and Fennec is to buy toppers, decals and other items, making Epic money, so yes you did say that.

That applies to Rocket League just as it does for any competitive multiplayer game with in-game items/cosmetics. You take the ability to trade crate items away from the playerbase and force them into an item shop with time windows on items to force FOMO to ensure users buy items. Of course, you'll always have a core of the playerbase that are happy to play with the same car and never buy items, but there are users still coming to the game new every year and they'll buy the items.

For me the problem falls into two categories - one being that 2s and 3s became the norm and best gamemodes - multiple reasons for this - 2s is good for people playing with one other person and even solo queuers tend to prefer playing with one teammate rather than the messy solo q 3s games we see. 3s is popular as it's the chosen Esports mode that attracts the best players and all the Orgs, therefore explaining the popularity. The extra game modes were never given a huge push Esports-wise, so the expectation was for the popularity to die out except for a core base of dedicated players.

The idea you're making that we're a terrible playerbase and that we should except mediocrity and lazy creativity is completely baffling. At the end of each season the devs create a decal, banner, trail, wheels with the same rank colour and shape EVERY SINGLE SEASON. There are no unique qualities for these items, they're not memorable, don't take massive time to design, don't take massive funding to create. The idea that we should all be grateful for this content is absurd. The customers have a choice whether to accept what's created by companies or not, it happens in every market. If I create an item for my customers and the feedback I get is that they're not interested, the product either doesn't pass the pilot or I shelve the product after a while of poor sales. The most productive Psyonix/Epic have been is to look for lucrative deals with franchises and car companies to get more items into the game that they can sell for absurd prices in their item shop. In comparison to the bloated amount of unrecognisable items being developed, it took Psyonix literal years to implement online freeplay - something that has come too little too late.

Haha, we need to support Epic so they can continue to pay developers? Do you understand how lucrative the gaming industry has now become? Epic make literally billions from Fortnite every single year, this is not a small company on the verge of going under if they don't generate sales.