This Week In Destiny History
For all those who have been gone over the last week and are just now joining us, things are….different in the Destiny fandom, to say the least. Some tone-deaf decisions and statements have thrown player against developer on a level not seen since….uh, well, I’ve never seen things this bad, and I’ve witnessed a lot of gamer savagery.
Activision has been getting more daring lately in their pricing structure for add-ons to the video game Destiny, with the latest expansion, The Taken King, costing twice as much. This could be construed as fair, since there’s a lot more in the game and they addressed a lot of fan concerns and complaints in this version. Activision is also republishing Destiny with all the expansion packs included. That’s standard practice, so no sweat there.
Where they tripped up was offering a Collector’s Edition of said republishing that includes special DLC you can only obtain within. “Three Exotic Guardian Class items featuring XP bonuses, three class-specific emotes, and three armor shaders to customize every Guardian class,” Activision said. There were people who wanted these things yet didn’t want to be forced to rebuy the entire game over again.
If that was the match that lit the fuse, this was the TNT: Eurogamer interviewed The Taken King creative director Luke Smith during E3 and published the interview right after word of this Collector’s Edition hit the air. The website expressed to Smith the exact concerns the fans had, and the response he got was….well, wow.
Eurogamer: Final question on prices –
Luke Smith: Is it also the final question on the emotes?
Eurogamer: I’m not going to mention them again. I can’t get them.
Luke Smith: But you can if you buy the Collector’s Edition.
Eurogamer: I’m not going to buy the game and the two DLCs all over again.
Luke Smith: Okay, but first I want to poke at you on this a little bit.
Eurogamer: Poke at me?
Luke Smith: You’re feeling anxious because you want this exclusive content but you don’t know yet how much you want it. The notion of spending this money is making you anxious, I can see it –
Eurogamer: I do want them. I would buy them –
Luke Smith: If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen.
Eurogamer: What I’m saying is that fan frustration is not because they don’t understand the proposition. It comes regardless of how cool the exclusive content is. The frustration – and mine as a fan – is that the method of acquiring it requires me to re-buy content I bought a year ago.
Luke Smith: [Long pause] It’s about value. The player’s assessment of the value of the content.
This was beyond the typical shortsightedness or thinly veiled greed you sometimes see from AAA video game companies. This was on a French Revolution level, a “Let them eat cake” style of talking that has been known to incite riots. After so many controlling tactics from huge game companies, after DRM and always-on Internet and on-disc DLC and pay-to-win, we had hit Peak Douchebag, the point where game makers proudly and openly considered themselves above us, and felt we could be exploited in every outrageous manner possible.
The response was swift and would have involved torches and pitchforks were it not mostly digital. Destiny players swore off ever playing the game again, swore off Bungie, and vowed never to buy another game of theirs. Activision immediately went into Defcon 5 Damage Control and attempted to placate nerves on Reddit and NeoGAF. Eurogamer also responded to the outrage, with the interviewer Tom Phillips tweeting that the verbal tone of the interview was different and being taken out of context.
Eventually Bungie had to backtrack and offer the Collector’s Edition digital content separately for $20. Luke Smith had to timidly come out of hiding and offer a full apology.
Anyone who knows me knows I can be sarcastic, anyone who remembers podcasts I’ve done knows that I can be pretty blunt, and anyone who’s watched me in a ViDoc knows I’m pretty unpolished.
However, most of you don’t know me.
Reading my interview with Eurogamer and imagining it came from some random developer of a game I love – that random developer looks like an Asshat.
But that Asshat was me – and those words rightfully anger you.
I’m sorry.
My words made it sound as if Bungie doesn’t care about their most loyal fans.
We do care. We are listening. And we will make it right.
Can Bungie make it right? That’s not up to me. It might not even be up to them. Ultimately it’s up to their corporate overlords at Activision, who may not care until decisions like this start seriously affecting their bottom line.