The Perception Of Value And Bungie’s Problem With Destiny: The Taken King

One of the most difficult questions within the games industry, and indeed within capitalism as a whole, is how much something is worth. It’s a seemingly endless debate, with some games considered too expensive for what they offer, the disparity – particularly in the UK – between prices in stores, online and digitally, and the eternal problem of pricing DLC content to make it attractive to potential buyers.

Destiny is no stranger to this issue, and at launch there were already complaints about the amount of content in the main game, which has since been compounded by the perceived value of what has been released within the two expansion packs since. Admittedly, the value of Destiny is an oddity, when it is still played day-in, day-out despite the criticisms regarding its repetitive nature.

With the reveal of The Taken King, the start of the game’s second year of content, and it’s price point of $40 – twice that of The Dark Below or House of Wolves individually, but with much more content included – that argument has reared its head once more.

In particular, an interview between The Taken King’s Creative Director Luke Smith and Eurogamer’s Tom Phillips revolved around this issue of value, both over the DLC’s outright price as well as the minor pieces of content being made exclusive to collector’s editions, which will also include the original game and the first two expansions whether you want them or not.

Speaking about that exclusive content, Smith eventually admitted that “It’s about value. The player’s assessment of the value of the content.” For those that have already bought the game in the US and its two expansions – let’s use US dollars for the time being – the current running total would likely be $95, with $60 for the base game and $35 for a DLC season pass. Suddenly, by having The Taken King on its own cost $40 and the ‘Legendary Edition’ cost $60 while also including all the previous content, it creates a situation where the value of Destiny and its expansions has shifted even more dramatically than with a typical Game of the Year edition release.

Of course, from a business standpoint, Activision and Bungie are caught in a difficult position. There’s clearly a lot more content in The Taken King than there was in either The Dark Below or House of Wolves, and it may well be comparable to them combined to justify such a price point, but Destiny is effectively an MMORPG by another name, and without subscription fees to sustain it, it needs both regular players who gleefully consume a steady stream of paid expansions and regular stepping on points for newcomers to the game.

The Taken King and its bundles offer such an entry point, but it means that new players can’t be faced with a daunting starting price, which is how we end up with the Legendary Edition costing the same as a brand new game in the US. The inclusion of some exclusive pre-order emotes and cosmetic items ought to be the icing on the cake to draw people in and make them feel special.

However, what so many people have taken umbrage with, as a lot of annoyance has been incredibly visible within the Destiny community on Reddit and Bungie’s forums, is the way in which Smith seems to take the dedication and desires of their fanbase in vain. Personally, I see this as a relatively convivial conversation between two people who are obviously passionate and invested in the game, where, referring to exclusive cosmetic content for the various special edition bundles, he says that “If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen.”

Though deciphering the tone of plain text is always difficult, I feel that he was joking at this point, and Phillips has since tweeted as much. In a day and age where DLC pervades even the simplest of game releases, with rival retailers touting exclusive game content and an often confusing menagerie of DLC regardless, and it all too regularly feels extortionate. Even with a jocular tone, having these exclusive cosmetic items and acknowledging that some people will pay over the odds falls into that bracket, akin to your ISP or bank reserving its best deals and offers for new customers only. It’s a feeling that can be most vexing.

Yet there is another layer to this which has remained largely on the periphery of the discussion, and stems from a more British point of view. A major issue comes from the fact that The Taken King’s release will persist with a $1:€1:£1 exchange rate, which devalues the pound sterling far beyond what we typically see – $39.99 when converted to GBP and then with VAT added tends to hover around £30-33, but to accommodate currency fluctuations and parity with the Euro, will typically end up at £34.99 on the PlayStation Store.

It’s something that is seen elsewhere with more and more regularity – Apple Music is another recent purveyor of this – but it feels all the more galling when the value is being called into question regardless of the currency involved. The simple fact of the matter is that UK gamers are paying over the odds and there’s no logical reason for this to be the case.

Unfortunately, this is another in a catalogue of instances where it feels like Bungie have lost touch with their fanbase or simply defied common sense. Making games is an incredibly difficult process and developers can’t ever hope to get everything right, but at launch Destiny got a lot of things wrong, despite having the compulsive gameplay that has managed to keep so many people hooked.

It has since evolved so that you don’t need to endlessly farm the various locations for materials, so that engrams more reliably give you who you might reasonably expect them to contain, and they’ve sensibly stepped away from the disasterous upgrade systems introduced in The Dark Below. Indeed, with House of Wolves’ launch and The Taken King’s initial reveal, it felt as though Bungie were now on the right track.

Instead, the matter of price and Smith’s comments made in jest have backfired and Bungie have to pick up the pieces. Again. Bungie’s Community Manager, DeeJ, was quick to respond on Reddit, saying, “Please know that we’re reading this feedback and taking it as seriously – as we always do,” and  continuing that he will “[defer] to the Bungie Weekly Update, in which we’ll talk more about the things we’re doing to celebrate the year-one Guardians who helped us build this community.”

Whether this will be a hastily put together promise of new dance routines for first year players or something a little more meaningful and thought out, we don’t know, but it’s almost certain that Bungie and Activision won’t be breaking out an abacus to recalculate their exchange rates any time soon.