To be fair, to me this does not seem that bad an idea. Live service games share a lot of DNA with arcades. That’s easiest to see in mobile, where people play many short matches rather than long campaigns.

…frankly that also includes predatory monetization. People forget that games used to be so hard way back when so that they would gobble up kids’ quarters.

For better or worse, live service Crazy Taxi seems to me like a faithful conversion of the original idea to the current day gaming landscape.