Hypothetical Questions (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Thursday, May 07, 2015, 16:11 (3733 days ago) @ someotherguy

What if the Strikes and guns were a DLC pack? One that Playstation users got for free and Xbox users had to pay for, or wouldn't get until later, or both.

That happens sometimes, and not even for nefarious reasons. Skyrim for the PS3 could not get the DLCs because the PS3 sucks... well and because Skyrim's codebase sucks. (The PS3's low system RAM combined with Skyrim's legacy Fallout 3 based engine caused big game crashing problems even with the base content and adding in the DLC added immensely to those problems) Did PS3 users have a right to grumble about not getting the DLC at the same time. Yes. But it wasn't a corporate deal designed to try and sell a few extra consoles it was bad programming done half a decade earlier so it's not really in the same league.

Now, to your question, if Destiny had come out with its base content and then the "antiRaga DLC" had come out later for free on Playstation and paid for Xbox then sure, I'd still be mad. Same if the Xbox DLC was not delayed for technical reasons but was held back for business reasons like selling a few more consoles. The first clearly goes against my pay the same amount for the same content policy. The 2nd is a bit more nebulous and would depend on if the holding back period was hours or days or weeks or months or years. In Destiny's actual case the timed content is probably, hopefully a year... but we don't even know that for sure yet. Anything more than say a month and I'd start to get miffed.

Similarly: What if when Dragon Age DLC comes out it gets featured in a half price sale on Xbox? Is that unfair? I'd be paying more for the same content because of a deal worked out with the publisher. Is that the same as this? Or different?

If it came out at the same time and cost less on one platform than the other but was identical in game especially for a game specifically meant to play identically on four different platforms, then sure, that's unfair.

That said, sales and eventual discounts and even things like the price of the console new vs the price a year later or during a Black Friday sale are kinda outside the scope of this discussion. I prefer to limit this to the actual initial business decisions... and not try and calculate all the possible total cost of ownerships of the consoles and games at various points in the past present and future. :)