Bright Engrams -- slippery slope? (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Thursday, December 21, 2017, 20:40 (2378 days ago) @ slycrel

Also remember that people's JOBS rely on money being spent at eververse. That inching won't stop, primarily because those people are IN CHARGE of that pool of features. Even if not intentional at all. :/

I'm mostly? fine with what is more or less in there now, though it is much more in your face. I am disappointed that eververse is a vital part of the ecosystem though. I do feel like it's the only way to get interesting things outside of major releases, which is a shame.

The money eververse brings in is dramatically more than the jobs of the small number of people who support it. Prices on microtransactions (everywhere) are grossly disproportionate to the work needed to create them. Pay $10 for a new skin that took one artist less than a day to make? Or $15 for an expansion pack that took 300 people two solid months of dev followed by three months of testing?

Saying "but their jobs" is denying the reality of the microtransactional universe: Namely that it's a cash grab by the corporations to boost profits for their shareholders.

If we hadn't all paid $60+ for the base game, then you would have a stronger argument, but the fact of the matter is that the base purchase is what protects those people's jobs, and the microtrans is gravy on top for the CEO and board of directors and pretty much no one else.

I don’t want to speak for Slycrel, but I don’t think he is defending the eververse hear. I took his point as meaning that Bungie created a situation where they now employ people who’s jobs are completely dependant on the eververse meaning they have a self-fulfilling interest. Therefore, we should expect the eververse to get increasingly larger because there is an active team there use relies on it to justify their very existence within the company.

I'm definitely not defending eververse, just making an observation. It's been made clear that there exists a "live team" that is funded out of eververse. And is in charge, to some degree, of making that ecosystem work. I expect creep on just that basis alone. Let alone the fact that money is good for everyone involved in making the game. Thus we see posts about jobs which are focused on striking the balance between paying for micro-content and "fun".

I see, sorry about my misunderstanding. I agree with your assessment that the live team is likely to make things worse by virtue of being funded out of this microtrash.

I also think it's bullshit on the part of Bungie's PR to say that microtransactions fund the live team. Many games have had live support, dedicated servers (gasp), and continuous balance adjustments without any sort of microtransactional revenue element. Modern games don't, of course, because they're all suckling at the teat of money for virtually nothing (seriously an entire DLC is $20, or you could pay $1000 and have pretty good odds of getting the whole dawning armor set), but they all *could* be just fine without such a system; possible exception to games like WoW that are true MMORPGs (though some MMORPGs get by on microtrans only without any pay for expansions or base game). And if that's not bullshit, and the live team literally is funded solely with money from eververse, then Bungie's accountants are terrible at their jobs and Bungie should *not* be trusted with the ability to accurately predict financial expenses of future projects.