This is 100% a fantastic thing. (Destiny)

by slycrel , Tuesday, October 06, 2015, 01:06 (3432 days ago) @ cheapLEY

It's not, and there's nothing wrong with saying it. I'd prefer not to be painted as chicken little here.

And I'm not trying to do that. Seriously.

I just really don't think this is an issue at all. I seriously don't think it would be harmful if Bungie did sell Motes of Light, or Sparks, or whatever. As long as they don't do the obviously bad things like gating unless you pay. As long as they don't make Motes drop less often if you don't pay. Things like that.

I'm glad I'm misunderstanding that. I think I misread the tone in your earlier post.

So, let's say bungie does sell motes of light. The situation becomes one of "fun". Bungie says "hey, we realize that gaining experience for your weapons and armor can be a grind. So if you pay us, we'll let you skip that". As a player, if I don't want to pay, I am now essentially a 2nd class citizen. I need to spend more time to get the same out of the game than someone who is paying for motes. If my time is more precious than money (generally true once a certain income level is reached), and the people I play with are paying to skip that time, it becomes in my best interest to do so. Not because micro-transactions are bad or whatever. But because the game is different if I choose not to pay.

This is the same as not buying TTK really, on a much smaller scale, and I think that was cody's big concern. The game, quite possibly, will fracture into two different games with two different playerbases. The "leechers" that don't pay but pony up their time, and the "feeders" that are paying and thus feel entitled to more differentiation than the "leeches" that aren't.

This isn't a huge problem right now because everyone is a paying customer. This distinction will only get worse, and fast, if the system goes free to play.

without micro-transactions you don't have to split into all these groups. You can be all "hey, you play destiny? Cool, we should run a strike sometime!" Micro-transactions open the doors to a much more fractured community, with groups that appear to be playing at different levels.

And an argument can be made that those groups exist today, so new lines won't really matter. i.e. raiders and non-raiders.

Also, I don't see them as attempting to cash in on people's OCD or anything. I don't mean this callously, but if you literally can't prevent yourself from spending money just to complete a collection of digital (useless) items in Destiny, or just to fit in with your friends, you really have some issues and need to evaluate the things you're doing. I truly don't see how that's Bungie's problem. It's not their obligation to prevent you from doing stupid things. I also don't see this as encouraging that, though. It's about self control and how you value your money and time.

As a grown adult I agree with this. However Destiny's target market isn't necessarily grown adults or people in a perfect place. I was serious when I mentioned skinner boxes. A quote from the bottom of a Kotaku article:

"Destiny is a MMO FPS game, with a budget of around 140 millions dollars. Among their design staff is John Hopson, Ph.D. in Behavioral and Brain Sciences from Duke University. Currently, 16 million players spend an average of 3 hours logged in daily to the game."

I really enjoy destiny. Bungie has done something amazing with this game. But some of the MMO aspects are a little disturbing to me.