In a development Bungie could have done without, the Destiny 2 developer has already pulled a contentious $15 starter pack offered in Season of the Wish, which just went live yesterday. The pack provided a pitiful assortment of goods and was marketed towards new players, a combination of things the community vociferously and swiftly pushed back on.
The starter pack's description proudly proclaimed that players could "experience the power of build-defining Exotic weapons by instantly unlocking three of Destiny 2's finest: Traveler's Chosen, Ruinous Effigy, and Sleeper Simulant". That's in addition to an Exotic ship, Sparrow, and Ghost Shell, along with 125,000 Glimmer, 50 Enhancement Cores, five Enhancement Prisms, and one coveted Ascendant Shard.
This offering might seem innocuous enough to a new player, price tag aside, but as Paul Tassi of Forbes puts it: "You sort of have to be a Destiny 2 player to understand what an outrageously bad deal this is." He uses the example of The Forsaken Pack, another of Bungie's offerings, which includes two dozen Exotics, a dungeon, and a raid. It originally retailed for $20 and is currently on sale for $5. It's not a great look, from what we understand.
Guardians fought back by leaving negative Steam reviews. Organising, they used their collective power to populate the DLC page with the user tags "Capitalism", "Crime", and "Psychological Horror", which is admittedly pretty funny.
Redditor Grizz3d, in response to Bungie's post pulling the pack, put the community response quite succinctly: "I just don't understand how that Starter Pack was greenlit. Like, what part of fleecing money off new players wasn't going to end with insane pushback from the community? It's just a staggering disconnect between Bungie and the players. It's good you got rid of the pack, it's just disheartening that anyone at Bungie thought it was a good idea in the first place."
This follows the release of the costly Witcher 3 crossover armour sets, which we think look decidedly awesome but again bear an outrageous price tag. With the next expansion delayed and the studio itself already hit with layoffs, Sony's independent live service outpost's position is looking increasingly precarious.
What's going on over at Bungie HQ? Are you surprised to see Bungie embroiled in another Destiny 2-related snafu? Leave your review in the comments section below.
[source twitter.com, via store.steampowered.com]
Comments 42
Wonder how Sony's Live Service Centre of Excellence, led by Bungie, is doing?
This is largely inevitable with these type of games. I played Destiny 1 for 6 months, and the first reset was enough to show me what an incredibly bad deal these types of games are. And things just get worse and worse as time goes on and players leave for the next shiny fad.
At this point the name Macrotransaction is more apt.
Bungie are absolutely awful. I tried D2 after Lightfall and got quite into it, but the more I learned about the game the more I realised how little they sometimes seem to care about their community, and how awful some of the monetisation schemes are and how many hoops I needed to jump through to experience the story.. Bones of a fabulous shooter with nonsense all over it.
I bought a dozen of those starter packs so I could get an advantage. Now I'm lighter for a couple of hundred of bucks and can't get past the first mob. Maybe I need to buy more starter packs?
'This follows the release of the costly Witcher 3 crossover armour sets, which we think look decidedly awesome but again bear an outrageous price tag.'
Honest question, then why did you say you were beginning to understand why Bungie charges an 'outrageous price tag' for DLC armour?
To think that Destiny 2 was at best when Bungie was under Activision is really crazy. Everybody thought that it was Activision that was forcing Bungie to make bad decisions but it really seems like biggest enemy of Bungie is Bungie.
You gotta love that with how much people have been ***** on Bungie for their greedy P2W practices and for laying off their employees, they decide to release this. If this isnt a tone deaf move I dont know what is.
@riceNpea It's funny because its from the same person that wrote the Witcher 3 article.
@Godot25 absolutely wild that you're bang on the money there.
We often see these sort of really poor "suckers" bundles in games like this. Reminds me of Honkai Star Rail's pre-order edition which offered really poor rewards in a F2P game.
I miss the the pre online days of gaming when u actually unlocked useful items
The people who greenlit this probably greenlit the sacking too
@themightyant What HSR preorder edition was there?
@z0d15g0d There was a pre-order bundle for £9.49 which gave very few actually useful items. (2 wishes a tiny handful of credits, upgrade items and consumables etc.)
@Terra_Custodes On the flip side things like Street Fighter 2 re-launched about 5-10 different editions which were always full price. By comparison paying for a character pass is far less egregious and leads to a larger install base than before.
Games used to launch and that was it, until next years release, whereas now there is ongoing development on the same game for years. It isn't quite as black and white as you have suggested above.
@Terra_Custodes Yea being a fighting game fan I remember the full roster glory days. Tekken 8 seems like the only one willing to uphold that tradition which is why it's the only one I shall purchase out of the big 3. Gamers need to vote with their wallets. If they stop buying this crap the studios will stop peddling but then again they hire staff who know how to abuse and influence gambling addiction. It's pretty disgusting when you think about it. No wonder there's more negativity in the gaming sphere.
@Terra_Custodes I know fighting games r ridiculous now didn't tekken 7 get like 4 season passes and street fighter 5 got like 6 years of drip feed content smh
@themightyant That sounds pretty useless especially since all the items you mentioned can be gotten in a 2 hr free session. to charge 10 bucks for that is unforgivable.
@Terra_Custodes You're probably right. These so called "dlc" characters are being advertised even before the game launches now. Means it's purely a predatory attempt to make more money from gamers as these characters could have been put in the initial launch even if it had to be delayed by a few months.
@Terra_Custodes The only dlc I got for T7 was Noctis from ff15 but begrudgingly as the same company released link, yoda, vader in soul calibur for free back in the day.
@get2sammyb It's shocking how clueless they are and they stopped the Last of Us multiplayer effort.
It almost makes you think it was good and they thought if they release it will make us really really look bad.
It looks like they are building a game around DLC and not the other way around....
@Flaming_Kaiser I believe their reasoning was that they don't see it making much profit in its current iteration. Meaning it's not MTX hell enough
@Terra_Custodes I agree generally that there were complete games, but we'd also see new releases FAR more frequently. You mention SF Alpha 2 but there were 3 SF games released that year in 1996 and another 4 released the following year in 1997. Honestly i'm not sure which is worse and I think people conveniently forget this aspect when they talk about 'complete' releases.
@z0d15g0d 100%. As I said it's a 'suckers' or 'FOMO' edition, many live service games have them, it's nothing new. But it does suck.
@z0d15g0d If you make it cheaper or let's say "cheap" would not more people get it? I think would make more people get it and get invested.
I came to peace with that games will be a monetization wet dream of CEO'S and investors. The new generation is already made to believe it is normal to pay through their nose for their "free" games.
I will just buy the smaller games with less of that and buy the triple A games later at a discount for all the cut out content sold to us later.
I have no issue with paying €70 but not if it's also monetized to hell and back. Destiny 2 is a joke a game that is build around monetization instead of other and right way.
@z0d15g0d It's such a pity that the new generation will lose the ability to play real games in the future with the way games are made nowadays because they will think its the normal way.
@Terra_Custodes You're still on topic as DLC was the demise of "free" which was actually a full game because they did all the hard work to ensure their games sold. Not to say they still don't do hard work but if you look at Sony first party games they are full games and the DLC is an add on which is how DLC was supposed to be. Not charging players almost full game price for characters or maps that should have been in the full build or a nostalgia skin.
@Flaming_Kaiser Yea the new generation think buying the skins is how you pay for the game. My nephew asked me for £50 to spend on Roblox and that was his reasoning. Now that gaming is more widespread we defo need some kind of enforcement policy cause innocents are getting taken advantage of.
@z0d15g0d So instead of making their product a higher quality they just up the price? Can't see anything stupid with that...
Cutting out singleplayer content it just plain sounds stupid.
@Flaming_Kaiser The only games I day 1 now are Sony first party games. Everything else is a wait and see. I'm still playing D2 but that's because I paid for the yearly pass for lightfall thinking it would be as good as witch queen but I was so wrong. That's the last money bungie will see from me for a long while. Their advertising is also false as it says "free to play" when in fact most of the content is locked behind pay walls so it should be "free to try".
@Flaming_Kaiser You're right but gamers are at fault cause we keep paying for it.
The starter pack is such an egregious rip-off. It should be free for new players, or sold for $1. "Microtransactions" are out of control because idiots out there buy them and it inflates their value. $20 Call of Duty and Fortnite skins can only happen because people buy them, unfortunately.
I agree with you but "idiots" is a bit extreme. It's more likely they are "vulnerable" so these studios are taking advantage. A lot more 12 yr olds play cod than 18 and above. Anyone who uses team chat can tell it's mostly kids on.
Yea the "Gamer protection organizations" are severely lacking and game mags and sites have to be careful what they say so as not to be "excluded" which sucks. The extortion and victimization of gamers will continue for years to come.
I think the Live Centre of Excellence should be closed after Jim Ryan leaves, because this was him and Herman’s brainwave and let Sony Japan run the rule over projects moving forward. There is no way that a company like Bungie that is failing so massively should have any input into what other, very successful Sony first party studios are making. I bet that Faction's 2 was probably looking brilliant, but Bungie didn’t want anyone taking away from their cash cow. Neil Druckmann is a divisive so and so, but the games he has been involved in have had fantastic gameplay. Sony should allow Factions 2 to be released as a Beta. Let us the fans see what it’s all about. If it’s crap, then we can all thank our stars that Bungie did get involved and stopped it, but if it’s awesome, close the Centre of excellence and get Bungie to fall in line before all of the 3.5 Billion odd completely goes to waste. Bungie have run out of ideas big time.
So those "suggestions" they made to Naughty Dog for Factions 2 are looking a bit suspect now.
Good thing the game is still in development.
For those who don't understand it, ALL OF THIS is just about finding boundaries what is "too much" and what is "still acceptable". All this predatory behavior is professionally called GYROS.
Ladies and gentlemen... the studio Sony bought cause they were "experts" in live services.
@z0d15g0d I totally agree with you it's a pity the new generation thinks it's a normal thing.
@z0d15g0d I even stopped buying first party on day especially when they started making CE without a disc but do include a steelcase. 😑
@z0d15g0d It's sad to hear how low we have gone now...
@Terra_Custodes Yea it feels that way for me too. My video game consumption has been declining sharply over the years. I remember when watching a cutscene or cg trailer for a game used to get me hyped because back then they still put effort into making the actual game stand out. Now it seems they use the trailers to mask the train wreck they're trying to peddle. Its the current state of society that's causing this level of censorship but humans shift trends every 10 to 20 years or so. Another decade to go I guess.
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