Comment by jerf
3 years ago
"Minecraft did essentially zero marketing and is monetized only in the sense that you need an account to log in"
No, Minecraft has been monetized for a while: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/catalog
That said, I've found it on the inoffensive side. It's got a plug on the title screen but my kids zip past it easily enough. Most of what you can buy involves a reasonable amount of work, they're not selling slight retexturings for $25. They've given away enough free stuff (of substance!) that I don't even feel bad that the free stuff is to remind you the market exists. No lootboxes.
Minecraft was sold for $2B before it had any of that.
Minecraft also supports 3rd party content, skins, gameplay mechanics, etc. There's a lot of things mods can do that official marketplace content can't.