A lot of people are talking about the game's $40 being a reason for the game dying and they're right but for a very big reason they ever bring up: lack of player run servers.
Back in the Golden Age of PC Gaming, you could sell a game like Unreal Tournament or Quake III Arena with an upfront cost without any issue. This is because players had the ability to spin up their own servers at any point and play with other people; you didn't have to worry about 'the continued cost of hosting servers' because the players were able to do it. Nowadays? Your completely at the mercy of the developer/publisher. If Blizzard one day decides to shut down the servers to Overwatch 2 because it's not making enough money, any money you put into it might have well been set on fire. Blizzard might have been able to get away for charging people to play the original Overwatch, but Blizzard still had some level of prestige that people were willing to swallow that pill. Nowadays, developers have to choice one of the following: they can make their game F2P and rely on having to constantly crank out an unending treadmill of MTX or they can charge upfront while giving the playerbase the ability to host servers. If the gaming industry has a problem with it, well, tough. They made this bed, now they can get fucked in it.
Yes, I heard Ross' cadence in my head as I typed this and so did you.