Many people bought it expecting more, because the studio promised a lot more. You can say that's on the people for not checking before buying, but that doesn't invalidate the dishonesty on their part.

Were it an early access game, you would in fact be purchasing expecting updates. Not guaranteed updates, but certainly expecting them. This game was an amazing early access release in all but name.

I'm not saying you should word it as updates you paid for, you just don't word them as if they're an act of generosity. Just call them "updates", not "free updates" like you did right before the reply that put "free updates" in quotes.

> the game now has Y and Z. i did not purchase the game expecting those updates.

Yeah. Back in the day, those would almost always be paid expansions... if not whole-ass sequels.

There's a subset of video game players these days who expect years and years of substantial changes to a game. Why, back in my day you had to pay for anything more than a game-breaking bug fix... and you counted yourself lucky if you even got those!