I hadn't visited the subreddit for a while (Destiny)

by Coaxkez, Wednesday, January 03, 2018, 14:23 (2357 days ago) @ Funkmon
edited by Coaxkez, Wednesday, January 03, 2018, 14:32

I understand it, but I don't agree with it.

Basically, players don't like being reminded of the MTX storefront. They want it to be a thing that exists in the background, as an option but not a, ahem, "requirement" (don't worry, I'll come back to that), and they feel that events like The Dawning push it too close to their faces. The logic goes that, in a loot-based game like Destiny, locking rewards behind a paywall diminishes the legitimacy and fun factor of the game. They feel that the odds of acquiring certain Eververse content are so low that you're forced to buy them with real-world money if you want to have them. This would be easier to tolerate if the storefront was kept out of sight and out of mind, but events like The Dawning just remind them of all the goodies they can't have because they don't want to spend money on them.

To an extent, they're right. Like all MTX systems, Eververse is designed to make you want to spend money on it. That's the whole point. Part of that involves placing certain rewards behind paywalls with astronomical odds of earning them through gameplay, and events like The Dawning are definitely designed to function as glorified advertisements for the storefront. These things are, in my view, self-evident.

But that doesn't mean they're bad in and of themselves.

The point of divergence lies in how much value a player places on Eververse items in the first place. As long as they remain cosmetic, I place no value on them at all, and so the existence of Eververse and events like The Dawning doesn't bother me at all. However, there are a large number of players who feel that it destroys the "collect-a-thon" hamster wheel gameplay loop of Destiny because they have to spend money to get everything the game has to offer, and while I don't agree with them, it would be unfair of me to discard their opinion simply because I do not share it. When a portion of your customer base feels like they are required to spend money to get their money's worth, even if they're wrong and the "problem" is on their end, you have a failure of communication.

Ultimately, Bungie will need to analyze their data and make a decision about whether Eververse is worth their time. It rakes in truckloads of cash, but some argue (usually without data, but I digress) that the departure of players who leave the game because they don't like it offsets that revenue in the form of lost DLC sales and, potentially, lost sales of future titles in the franchise.

In any event, going to the subreddit and expecting to receive anything less than a full-on circlejerk of salty whiners who are more interested in being heard than having a discussion is a mistake.