It was only a matter of time, I suppose, but Bungie are bringing microtransactions to Destiny next week on Tuesday 13th October, with Tess Everis reterning to the tower with the Eververse Trading Company.
However, Bungie are keen to stress that these will not impact the actual gameplay in any way, and that she will simply be selling a series of new cosmetic emotes – dance moves, basically – with a new game currency called ‘Silver’ that you’ll buy from your respective console store. Prices, items and descriptions will be revealed at launch next week, but all players will recieve a small amount of Silver to try and tempt you into checking out the new store.
Bungie make it absolutely clear that “If you’re not interested in what Tess has to offer, you won’t ever be forced to pluck an item off of her shelf. You’ll still receive updates to the game, and you won’t lose a Crucible encounter or fail to clear a Raid because you didn’t have the right Eververse Trading Company emote equipped.”
However, this is potetially a sign of a changing business model for Destiny, as Kotaku reported that the second year of Destiny won’t feature the kinds of expansions that we saw in The Dark Below and House of Wolves. Instead, we’ll see more regular updates, quests and missions added for free between now and the release of a full sequel in Destiny 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) next year.
This seems to be hinted at by the opening statement from Bungie’s blog post, which says, “We’ve already said that there’s more to discover in The Taken King – and there is – but beyond the content available in the launch window of The Taken King, our goal is to continue creating experiences that will keep the game fresh, fun, and surprising.”
I wouldn’t call microtransactions and emotes particularly surprising in the modern games industry, but at least they’re being added in a relatively minor and inconsequential fashion.
Kevling
I’m happy with this, especially if the Kotaku report about is true as it ensures everyone is on the same version of the game and people aren’t left behind through an unwillingness to pay.
My only concern is, what happens if they don’t sell the number of dance moves they were expecting?
Ah what am I saying. They’ll make millions.
Stefan L
Obviously, Bungie and Activision know what kind of uptake they saw on the first two DLC and season pass from the first year, but will microtransactions (we don’t know how these will be priced yet, of course) generate quite the same amount?
Then again, we also don’t know what future content will entail. Yes, new missions, quests and bits of story, but will it be as expansive and alter the game as much as the first two DLC packs? Will there be another raid before Destiny 2? More strikes? Or will they play around with existing content in different ways?
The latter would be less demanding of resources, at a time where development really wants to be turning to focus on Destiny 2 in a big, big way.
Either way, it’s interesting to see what happens next.
vjmwilliams
I’m ok with them doing this for cosmetic items. I’d like to think that this will fund a few updates/dlc between expansions. As the game moves even further into MMO territory there has to be another way for income to be generated as opposed to going to a subscription model.
Selling cosmetic items probably how Guerilla continued to support Killzone SF with free map packs between the season pass dlc’s. Hopefully Bungie/Activision will follow this example.
Kronik76
Destiny – the game that keeps on giving. Er, I mean taking. I stopped playing when the taken King DLC was announced. Bungie won’t be getting any more of my money, they are well and truly shafting their customers.
Nocure-fd
Same here. Shame, it had so much promise and potential.
fillip2k
This seems like a massive crock of poopie to me. Surely when they realise to fund further development they need money generated from emotes that any normal person is not going to spend money because they impact the game in no other way that silly dance parties they’ll think “oh okay not much uptake lets stick game progression requirements behind the paywall”
I see an end coming to my playing destiny soon once “microtransactions” become a requirement for progress, which is a shame as game wise they did so much right with TTK. Bungie never seem to be able to hold on to a bit of honest goodwill at the moment…