State of the Eververse (Destiny)

by MacAddictXIV , Seattle WA, Thursday, October 17, 2019, 12:20 (1647 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I genuinely don’t think you’re naive. I know I sound harsh. That’s at least partially intentional.

I don’t think that telling people to be more responsible with their money or justifying it as just a business doing business is the answer. It’s like telling a gambling addict to just stop gambling, as if that’s easy. The Eververse is literally relying on those tendency to make money. That’s as much a fact as the earth being round. That’s what I mean by not debatable. You can argue the merits of such a system all day long, but that it’s designed to play into the fear of missing out is just a thing that’s true.

Yeah, I agree with you that Eververse could definitely improve. I just don't agree with you on the extent that this business practice is literally exploiting helpless FOMO people. I specifically said "helpless" because of what you said about gambling. I have a strong annoyance of people who think that people with disorders are "helpless" and that people are taking advantage of them. I say that because I have a disorder. And while I appreciate things that either don't escalate my disorder and/or help be compensate in some way to live a "normal" life, I also understand that this is my life and I am solely responsible for it. So in that regards, to use your gambling example, I don't think that people should intentionally invite a gambler addict over to a game of poker, but I also don't think a gambler should go to a casino or any other place where they might be compromised.

In the same way, I don't think that Bungie/eververse should specifically target disorders or behavior patterns, but I also think that we as people, not just gamers, need to understand that we have a responsibility too. And this is mostly what I argue, it's very easy to for us to say as gamers that it's the other persons fault and we hold no responsibility. So when I see the post that you see, all I saw was a one sided "Bungie is evil for doing X" with no other side of the equation.

So I guess to finalize this thought, I'm not debating with you that behaviors/disorders can be exploited, I'm saying that exploitation is a two way street in that both sides, to some degree, are allowing it to happen, developers and gamers. And both sides can improve.

I’m not here saying Eververse is the worst thing to ever happen. On the spectrum of these things in video games, it’s a hell of a lot better than most. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask for and expect better.

And I've agreed with that from the very start :D I just think the consumer/gamer needs to be factored in as well.

I agree with you on a lot of things. I don’t think every person needs every item in a game (at least cosmetics—I still honestly do have issues with the fact that something like Cody missing Hawkmoon for an actual year is something that can happen in a video game he paid a lot of money for). I don’t mind that some things can only be bought for real money. I think obfuscating which items those are is a really shitty thing to do.

You will never convince me the weekly rotation isn’t designed to get as much money as possible.

I think every business that wants an increased revenue year to year while not sacrificing their customers. We can both agree that this was designed to make as much money as possible, I just think we differ on at how much of an expense it is on the consumer.

How many people will spend a bunch of bright dust on armor, only to miss one piece one week and then have to spend money to complete the set? That’s predatory, I would bet good money that’s a feature, not a bug.

I mean, honestly we had this conversation before that money and time are both currency (at least that's my belief). So in that sense I think that everyone is buying the armor one way or another. What people don't like is that some people have more money than time and vice versa. But for your example, I don't necessary consider this Predatory (I hate that word, I just keep seeing a Bungie employee pouncing on a gamer and ripping his jugular out) because Bungie has explicitly stated that Destiny is a live game where things can you can say "I played while this was happening" and if you miss it you miss it. I see that as the same thing for a weekly armor piece, if you weren't on that week then you missed out. But at least they give you the option to buy it later.

I don't know, I mean to each their own on what people think Destiny should be.