The good news is that the latter approach is one that EA is taking with BioWare’s upcoming Anthem game. According to a report from VG247, BioWare confirmed at PAX West that future story-based DLCs for the game will be free and not locked behind a paywall. This means that as long as the DLC is related to the story of the game and advances it, it will be free.
Anthem’s executive producer Mark Darrah was quoted as saying, “For storytelling we don’t want to divide the audience, we want people to be able to experience the same stories so none of that is going to be locked.” This doesn’t mean that there are no plans to monetize the game beyond the initial purchase.
There will be cosmetic items that players can buy using real money if they so choose to, but can also be unlocked by earning it in-game. That being said, the practice of microtransactions have courted controversy in the past, and more recently some, such as Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, have spoken up about it.