If it’s a social prestige thing then you’re likely to want the latest fashion though. So… the time pressure is still there, because the value of yesterday’s fashion quickly falls.
If we assume you are correct, then the makers of these games shouldn't care if we ban exclusive distribution periods, since the results should be exactly the same.
I’m not arguing it doesn’t work. I’m arguing it’s not predatory.
Devil’s advocate, which seems likely to me, is that having a small catalog that is frequently updated is a lot easier to make a sale on for its simplicity and expectation of finding something novel every time you look.
100 options is overwhelming. 5 is easier for the consumer. And if 95% of people who would ever buy your new skin will do so within a week of its release, it makes sense to just ship a new catalog next week and never bother with the old one again.
