It’s also why they keep dying. All of them operate off a walled garden model while simultaneously demanding “this is probably the only game you can play for a while” levels of time investment and using unlockables as the carrot.

So is it surprising that players don’t want to jump ship and leave all their skins and “look at me I’m special” shiny equipment behind for something that’s not much different than what they got already?

It’s the same thing as when every Tom, Dick, and Harry were sure they’d be the next WoW. Execs never learn.