Some say they intentionally didn’t release the character costume cash shop until after the release of the game as to not taint the reviews of the game. They always say the money go towards upkeep and future development but still charge for season passes and characters that are locked behind that.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say it was some groundbreaking scandal because almost all live service games have microtransactions now, unfortunately. It’s like man yelling at cloud to be mad about them now because they exist probably forever. The T8 shop were not super expensive items either. I come from the Blizzard/Activision side of gaming and skins in those games can be as much as the base game itself.