I definitely blew my fair share on video games, but I also believe this is a generational shift. I do not believe charging $$ for "cosmetics" would have been as successful in "my day". But what does it mean?
I keep hearing about the social aspects behind these games (kids who don’t have skins in fortnite are bullied at school, etc.) It sounds like goods that make a child popular are just digital these days as opposed to physical items like Pokémon cards.
I was in high school then. The people who didn't care about aesthetics were always the ones bullied.
Air Jordans, Pokémon cards, brand name clothes like hollister and AE, and then popular phones like the razer were ubiquitous among those that were popular. Kids who didn’t have those things were bullied relentlessly.
However, he wasn't interested in new games at all - instead he spend that money, all of it, on Fortnite cosmetics, which seems absolutely bizarre and alien to me. Growing up with Quake, Half-Life, Deus Ex and other classics we also loved games and didn't think twice about spending money on it, but I'm sure we would have laughed away any attempt to charge for skins and random items. Of course strong modding communities helped as well.
Anyway, this insight really surprised me - I always thought it's a few whales that participate in this nonsense, but apparently it's everyone, including the otherwise sane and reasonable kid from next-door.