BWU (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, December 05, 2014, 21:35 (3881 days ago) @ General Vagueness

Anyway you forgot them killing the loot caves, which were grind incarnate, but a popular theory is their popularity made the game look bad, because people thought it was so un-fun that people would rather shoot at defenseless enemies than play it properly, and I know at least one or two people (outside of this forum) that bought into that to some degree.

Farming the loot cave was one of the dumber things I've seen gamers do. I think it was absolutely the right decision to remove it and I'm glad it's gone. I don't buy the theory that people really thought the game was un-fun. What we saw was merely gamer's worst tendencies (to min-max and streamline things to the extreme at the expense of having fun) bubbling to the surface. Apparently you sometimes need to protect gamers from themselves...

-As Cody Miller said earlier, wanting to unlock that next perk or buy that next weapon helps keep people playing. If they are still playing when DLC comes out they will be more likely to buy it.

What? but you just said

As usual, I fail to see how that works. Destiny doesn't have a subscription fee. It doesn't display ads on old signs scattered about Humanity's lost cities. It doesn't have micro-transactions that players are encouraged to buy to speed up getting better weapons or armor. The only way Bungie and Activision make more money is if we the players are happy enough to buy DLC or future games. Until then, each player is an active drain of resources (the servers don't power and oversee themselves!) and each unhappy player put off by the grind is both a lost future sale and a chance for word of mouth to decrease other future sales.

so which is it? Is the grind good for Bungie and Activision (in a way you understand) because it gets people to buy DLC, or is it bad for them because makes people quit the game and not buy DLC, or is it good for them because it makes people quit the game and not be so taxing on their servers?

It is bad but it's also not completely black and white. The less fun a player has the less likely they are to buy DLC or a sequel. But, your question sorta assumes that grinding and wanting to level up a weapon or perk are always the same thing. I think players really do like progression to an extent. Up to a point it's part of the fun of the game. Past that (hard to define) point it becomes grinding. And the point is different for everyone.