Goes further back than that. In the late 90s early 2000s basically all 3 of the MMOs on the market were subscription models (Ultima, Everquest, and Warcraft are the ones that spring to my mind). Essentially a pay per time scheme where if you were playing the game you paid for it monthly.

This guy is just so far down the modern game industry rabbit hole he forgot that it wasn’t as profitable as the soul sucking microtransaction/whaling hellscape that’s become the norm.