Mac version. (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, July 07, 2014, 21:14 (3795 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I simply cannot understand this.

You think it would be better to CUT OUT XBOX PLAYERS COMPLETELY than it is to provide nearly the same game (let's be honest, the timed exclusive content is a tiny fraction of what everyone gets) to both camps?

9 vs 5 days seems like a pretty big difference... but will it, still, in a year? Will you feel behind, somehow, because you missed those four days of playing in July 2014?

I'm not saying for a minute that nobody has the right to gripe, that PlayStation owners seem to be getting the better end of the stick at this point, that there isn't a reason to be put out... i'm saying that the response in this post, that you'd rather that there simply not BE any Xbox versions, so as to avoid the butthurt we've seen today...

I guess I haven't heard a better example of 'cutting off your nose to spite your face' in all the years I've been speaking english. :)

Yes. I mean, maybe?

I've spent the past decade happy with my Xboxes and Halos. But I also had a clear choice. I could invest in the Xboxes and play Halo and Forza and Gears but I also clearly gave up some really neat games like Journey and The Last of Us and the Uncharteds. But it was kinda more my choice. I knew I was investing in one set of games at the expense of the other. In the same way I've chosen to be a Mac and iOS guy over Android and Windows. I gain a lot from those choices but also miss out on a lot. I've done most of my gaming on Xboxes and iOS products over the last few years while my brother has built himself up some pretty cool gaming PCs and streaming, connected Android devices. Neither of us was wrong in our choices, but we both got and missed out on certain things because of them.

Now take it forward to Destiny. I was pretty darn unhappy with the surprise Alpha. I'd been looking forward to the Beta for a long time and suddenly my seemingly sound strategy of playing the beta on my 360 and maybe thinking about a nextgen console in the fall fell apart. I feel like I missed a whole lot. I'm sure you've noticed I like writing about Destiny and I would have written the heck out of the Alpha. I would have been up on that table looking at that map. I would have walked round and round that mechanical Traveler hologram contraption. I would have been out in old Russia trying to get a feel for the way each faction fights in case it could be linked back to story. Instead I missed out on all that and watching it on streams totally isn't the same for me. I watched a couple quick videos from Beorn and left the rest alone because I can't connect or relate without actually playing it. It's like trying to watch TV in another language or something. I could have kinda seen what was going on but I wouldn't really get it.

I'm not nearly as unhappy about the beta as I was this morning. Miscounting the days it would last for Xbox at the very first got me upset, especially when added to missing the Alpha. Five days which now include both days of the weekend is better than it was first said to be. (To be clear, even Bungie's website listed the Xbox version only running through Saturday and later changed after the black and gold graphic was released.) Now, I'm more unhappy at the way all of this has been communicated. The Alpha was announced as it went live on one platform after the beta had been teased for months on all four. The Beta is shorter for one group after they already missed out on the Alpha. What constitutes the timed content and how long the time delay is still being communicated by asterisks instead of actually speaking to fans. That sucks. And of course, I also dislike the industry trend of more time exclusives, more limitation, more actual content being locked away. Maybe Destiny isn't so bad, but what about the next game? That Destiny, one of the biggest games in a while, is supporting the trend doesn't bode well for future titles from other developers.

So, when I combine my usual method of choosing one platform over another with my disappointment of the Alpha and Beta with my distaste at the industry trend of timed exclusives and the poor communication about those exclusives... then yes, I think it might be better for Destiny to be purely exclusive to one console and not the other. It would save on headaches like today. It would have given me a clear choice of what console platform I wanted to buy into.

Would it have made financial sense for Bungie, trying to develop a massive new game and once again try and sell it to only half the console population? Maybe not? Heck, maybe even probably not! I get that often business deals are the reality that get us great things like Destiny. I get that Destiny might need to sell to both halves of the console market to be profitable so Bungie can keep making us games. Would it makes sense to deprive millions of players the ability to play Destiny? Bungie is a game company, they like to make games for everyone, so no, maybe being console exclusive is not the way they wanted to go and I respect that too. But, I also have, over the past decade, very much enjoyed the stability and ease of use and assuredness of knowing what I am and am not getting when I choose a platform. Yeah, it sounds kinda awful to say I wish that either the Playstation or Xbox populations didn't get Destiny so the other half would have an easier time of it, but that's the way things have been for a long long time! And it largely worked! Of course I wouldn't want Destiny to be taken away from either side like Halo was taken away from the Mac users. But if Destiny had only been developed for Xbox or Playstation I do think it might have been less problematic.

This morning I did get overly upset, I was even a bit of a jerk especially when I usually try and stay level headed. I regret that, I really do. But I don't think I'm doing the "cutting off my nose to spite my face" thing here. At least, not completely...?