This is 100% a fantastic thing. (Destiny)

by slycrel , Monday, October 05, 2015, 21:59 (3432 days ago) @ Korny

Factually wrong huh? Guess I'll take the bait.

Microtransactions in gaming are a moneymaker. But it's not necessarily a win-win for everyone.

Considering we are playing in a virtual skinner box, monetizing it is going down the same road as casinos are. The house always wins because the game is rigged. Otherwise the house wouldn't bother.

The only difference is they are trying to take the "high road" of saying that you'll never be forced to buy anything and it won't impact anything ever. Sure, you can do that. But it's not strictly true.

Destiny is built around the psychology that everything is funner with friends. Which is true. But friends also bring peer pressure. The lack of a LFG tool in destiny is by design. It means that you're more likely to rope your friends into playing than finding a random internet stranger to play with. Which means more money for Bungie. A little lame, but hey, I get it. They have to make money.

This is one step further.

All the OCD people out there that have to complete their collections? Yeah, microtransactions. My 6 year old? He won't get the micro-transaction, he will just want the new stuff. People will buy these things to fit in, to be cool.

It's kinda greasy the same way that really good SEO for websites is kinda greasy -- it's manipulating the rules (in this case human psychology) to get what they want out of players (money).

Technically what they are saying is true. It's 100% free, and 100% unrequired. But there are ripples, and in the end it's all about making more money. I am disappointed -- I know games like destiny make a lot of money already. I would peg such a franchise in the hundreds of millions. Do we really need micro-transactions to push that further?

What happens when they introduce items that are "free", but save you time? (hint: they've already done this with the red bull XP items, buy a red bull, get an xp booster) What if they sold those via micro-transactions? What if they sold motes of light?

All that said, it doesn't mean that suddenly Destiny is going to suck and the game is ruined. We will all see some benefits for this, and it sounds like they will use this revenue to support growing a new bigger team outside of the expansion/year 3 teams.

It is telling to me that this didn't get introduced a month ago -- they waited for the rave reviews and then "took the PR hit" that this would bring.

So yeah, I don't think this is as simple as it can be made out to be. It's a revenue stream that can be spun as a 100% good thing. But it's not that black and white, and anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves.