Bungie explains forced repurchase and massive price hike

A Destiny man explains why everyone is being screwed over and why it's ok.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-22-destiny-the-taken-king-director-defends-40-expansion-price-tag

Destiny: The Taken King director defends £40 expansion price tag

Bungie has defended the full-fat £40 price tag of Destiny's upcoming major expansion The Taken King, as well as the fact that fans will have to rebuy the base game and its existing two add-ons to access exclusive content in The Taken King's Collector's Edition.

The Taken King expansion will launch in three different packages when it arrives this 15th September. It will be available as a £39.99 digital download for players who own the game and existing DLC already or as a disc-based £54.99 Legendary Edition which also contains the base Destiny game and existing DLC so new players can get all of the game's content in one package.

It's not cheap, but then Destiny has an incredibly engaged playerbase who still log on for more than three hours every single day, on average. Which is a lot of hours of play from the content released so far.

But then there's also The Taken King: Collector's Edition, which costs £79.99. This contains a number of physical collectibles and several pieces of exclusive in-game content, including three class-specific emotes and exotic weapons with XP boosts.

It's odd to see something like emotes - which only hardcore fans will really care about - being held back for a version of the game that also requires the purchase (or re-purchase) of the base game and its two add-ons.

Fans reacted in anger that content aimed at their wallets would be exclusive to a version of The Taken King that required they spend money on content they had already paid around £75 for - £40 for the base game and £35 for its DLC expansion pass.

Fans also criticised the fact that The Taken King costs as much as the full Destiny game did upon launch, and the fact that the Legendary Edition catch-up option for new players costs £54.99, meaning that newcomers get all existing content for just £15 when you factor in The Taken King's solo £40 price-tag.

In a wide-ranging discussion on the pricing of Destiny content last week at E3, The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith largely defended Bungie's decisions on the financial outlay required from fans - but also said that the developer would continue to listen to fan feedback.

Eurogamer: So it may seem like a small thing but you're adding exclusive content to the game - three new dance emotes - that players can't get unless they rebuy the main game and the two existing DLCs. Is that right?

Luke Smith: There is no way right now for you to get the new dance emotes without doing that. Those are Collector's Edition exclusive. We've set some stuff aside for that edition specifically to really make it appeal to fans who have engaged with the game already and also to people that will enter the game this autumn.

Eurogamer: Can you see that some fans are confused that you're asking them to buy stuff they already own?

Luke Smith: Yeah, I can totally empathise with those people. But the Collector's Edition is a pretty cool package for people who want to pursue that stuff. Otherwise, surely what you're saying is that you would want to buy them separately, right?

Eurogamer: Well, yeah. I would rather do that - pay a few pounds or dollars or whatever - than spend money on things I already own.

Luke Smith: [Laughs] Well, we have nothing more to talk about regarding your opportunity to spend extra money in Destiny, other than The Taken King and the three versions we've announced.

Eurogamer: Is Bungie considering selling customisation items such as this separately? Or is that against the studio's philosophy for the game?

Luke Smith: Rather than comment on the Bungie philosophy, here's what I'll tell you. If someone made a golf clap emote, I would spend money on that. Like when someone falls in the Vault of Glass. At the moment I bow when I'm trying to mess with them. So... I empathise with some of the things you're saying.

Eurogamer: I feel like you should put some of these things that you are empathising with into practice.

Luke Smith: We have nothing to announce today. We're reading the forums and the reactions to this week's announcements. We will continue to discuss player feedback with respect to the the game and Collector's Edition content.

Bungie has defended the full-fat £40 price tag of Destiny's upcoming major expansion The Taken King, as well as the fact that fans will have to rebuy the base game and its existing two add-ons to access exclusive content in The Taken King's Collector's Edition.

The Taken King expansion will launch in three different packages when it arrives this 15th September. It will be available as a £39.99 digital download for players who own the game and existing DLC already or as a disc-based £54.99 Legendary Edition which also contains the base Destiny game and existing DLC so new players can get all of the game's content in one package.

It's not cheap, but then Destiny has an incredibly engaged playerbase who still log on for more than three hours every single day, on average. Which is a lot of hours of play from the content released so far.

But then there's also The Taken King: Collector's Edition, which costs £79.99. This contains a number of physical collectibles and several pieces of exclusive in-game content, including three class-specific emotes and exotic weapons with XP boosts.

It's odd to see something like emotes - which only hardcore fans will really care about - being held back for a version of the game that also requires the purchase (or re-purchase) of the base game and its two add-ons.

Fans reacted in anger that content aimed at their wallets would be exclusive to a version of The Taken King that required they spend money on content they had already paid around £75 for - £40 for the base game and £35 for its DLC expansion pass.

Fans also criticised the fact that The Taken King costs as much as the full Destiny game did upon launch, and the fact that the Legendary Edition catch-up option for new players costs £54.99, meaning that newcomers get all existing content for just £15 when you factor in The Taken King's solo £40 price-tag.

In a wide-ranging discussion on the pricing of Destiny content last week at E3, The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith largely defended Bungie's decisions on the financial outlay required from fans - but also said that the developer would continue to listen to fan feedback.

Eurogamer: So it may seem like a small thing but you're adding exclusive content to the game - three new dance emotes - that players can't get unless they rebuy the main game and the two existing DLCs. Is that right?

Luke Smith: There is no way right now for you to get the new dance emotes without doing that. Those are Collector's Edition exclusive. We've set some stuff aside for that edition specifically to really make it appeal to fans who have engaged with the game already and also to people that will enter the game this autumn.

Eurogamer: Can you see that some fans are confused that you're asking them to buy stuff they already own?

Luke Smith: Yeah, I can totally empathise with those people. But the Collector's Edition is a pretty cool package for people who want to pursue that stuff. Otherwise, surely what you're saying is that you would want to buy them separately, right?

Eurogamer: Well, yeah. I would rather do that - pay a few pounds or dollars or whatever - than spend money on things I already own.

Luke Smith: [Laughs] Well, we have nothing more to talk about regarding your opportunity to spend extra money in Destiny, other than The Taken King and the three versions we've announced.

Eurogamer: Is Bungie considering selling customisation items such as this separately? Or is that against the studio's philosophy for the game?

Luke Smith: Rather than comment on the Bungie philosophy, here's what I'll tell you. If someone made a golf clap emote, I would spend money on that. Like when someone falls in the Vault of Glass. At the moment I bow when I'm trying to mess with them. So... I empathise with some of the things you're saying.

Eurogamer: I feel like you should put some of these things that you are empathising with into practice.

Luke Smith: We have nothing to announce today. We're reading the forums and the reactions to this week's announcements. We will continue to discuss player feedback with respect to the the game and Collector's Edition content.

Eurogamer: Taken King costs £39.99, which is almost same as base game. Does its content justify that?

Luke Smith: I'm going to use American dollars, because British pounds are just foreign to me...

Eurogamer: Literally foreign.

Luke Smith: Indeed, an ocean away. So, purchasers get a big, rich campaign. Fully voiced cinematics and the story of what happens when an angry alien god wages war on a solar system, all with a satisfying conclusion. You also have a new subclass to pursue and unlock. We also have a bunch of new strikes - we're not yet talking about how many - and a new raid. We're showing two new PVP modes and four PVP maps this week, and it's a fairly safe bet we're not done yet showing things off. So I'm fairly excited about the value proposition. We're calling this a major expansion because it is. We're giving people a whole new place to go, that new destination...

Eurogamer: I get that it is big but it is also the same price as the base game. That had four areas rather than one and more missions than the Taken King. Why is it the same price?

Luke Smith: All I can do is answer that with the same thing I just gave you... We're really comfortable with the value we're giving to players this autumn. I believe that once we begin to share more, players will be even more excited. And for existing players it also comes with the Founder's pack with a new Sparrow, shader and emblem.

Eurogamer: Just not the emotes.

Luke Smith: It doesn't because they come with the Collector's Edition.

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.

Eurogamer: Final question on prices - The Taken King and everything released so far comes at a significant price reduction for people who want to jump in to Destiny this September. All games do Game of the Year editions now - I understand that, that's not really an issue. But when you look at the reduction involved - it's barely any more than just buying The Taken King solo.

Luke Smith: This autumn we want to have a moment of convergence where players like you and me who are engaged with Destiny can match up with people who are just joining in, who didn't pick the game up last year for one reason or another.

It's also important to remember the temporal valuation of content. If you played during The Dark Below, you were playing when there were Swordbearers everywhere. That's now gone and you can't recapture that now. Some things are being left behind as we move forward. It's the same with House of Wolves, right now, with the Fallen showing up all over the solar system. Those things are going to be less relevant as we move forward and the Taken are everywhere.

We don't have a way to go back in time and experience those things again. So the players who were there can say 'I was here when...' and 'I did it when it was new'.

I wish I had a way of better telling players that I was there back then. That I had a better way of embracing the legacy of my time with the game. This is something that we on the development team talk about all the time. It's really important that we figure out ways to embrace the legacy that players created in the first year... I'm not going to talk about how we're going to do that but it is right in the forefront of our brains. It's missing right now in Destiny.

As for The Taken King itself, Eurogamer got to go hands-on with the

On a side note: while eurogamer does the journalism's, gamespot told us in over 100 million articles how totally bodacious an rad it is, and how you should get up off your chair and buy it right now!

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-the-taken-king-s-story-soars-to-new-height/1100-6428332/

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/destiny-the-taken-king-what-destiny-fans-want/2300-6425672/

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-the-taken-king-s-new-mayhem-mode-is-totall/1100-6428291/

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/destiny-the-taken-king-s-story-mode-reminds-us-of-/2300-6425687/

Gross.

They even had a hard time justifying the price in their Giantbomb interview. Nobody was taking their explanation about the content seriously.

Their fanbase and people showed them with their money, that they will show up and gladly pay for less than what their money should get them by paying for these expansions, because they enjoyed a poorly designed game. Why the **** would they not continue to hike up the price? This myth that Bungie will actually fix the game and one day actually give you your money's worth is just that, a myth. The status quo is printing them money, if it wasn't printing them money, then there would be a small chance they would actually improve.

What a douche that Luke Smith guy is. And **** Bungie Activision.

Why Activision? Bungie made an entire video gassing up how Activision gave them all this freedom, all this money, and their contractual demands were get out of our way. When they hit big they wanted all the credit, frankly when you get all the credit, you must then accept all of the blame for the shitty stuff. Would be the fair thing here.

guys its okay though, isn't it okay?

Man, this read like something from The Onion. I'd call that guy a twat, but then I'd be doing a disservice to twats.

This can't be real? He's practially telling you that you're stupid if you're a customer of their product...

Why Activision?, do you not remember Bungie before Activision, the difference was night and day. Sure the douchebaggery might of been in Bungie all along and being unleashed from MS allowed them to act this way but Acti are still a cancer and every company they touch slowly but surely turn into anti-consumer shitheads, Blizzard being one of the more notable ones. There's an unmistakable trend were they're involved.

Yeah this isnt going well, you guys should check out the Destiny forums its pretty much gone and everyone are talking about the interview in almost every single thread lol.. while you would expect an apology after a terrible response like this in an interview ( he basically said everyone are idiots and they'll throw their money on anything they make/release) this is Bungie we're talking about (as a fan of destiny its sad that a shitty company like Bungie is responsible for it) and they just wont apologize.

Again everyone go check out the Destiny forums its filled with rage and angry fans.

@finalstar2007: Are you getting this DLC?

people need it otherwise ppl won't be up to date its like a mmo expansions if you dont have your screwed

Already pre-ordered yes lol

Yeah i aint going to miss out on it, i have my own very active clan of girls and guys and we play literally every single day, already have over 600hours of gameplay time and despite the price tag for this upcoming DLC i know personally i'll be getting my money's worth.

its just sad that the game could've had one great story.

Cool. At least you're loving it. Well, a lot of people do.

Being a life long gamer, I've learnt not to get on the bad side of video gamers.

Luke Smith was being a mild prick, and maybe he was expecting mild backlash. All Destiny channels are in full rage mode. If only we had that much anger to level at Boko Haram and ISIS.

What a dick move and what a douchebag in the interview..

Yeah the community is highly active

Out of almost 400 friends on my friends list there is always 150 or so people playing the game daily (thats just my friends list) and the game is still amongst the top streamed game on Twitch.

Did you know that the Destiny Taken King DLC E3 reveal at the sony conference has over 6 million views?? the Microsoft Tomb Raider E3 reveal didnt even hit 500k views lol.. the destiny userbase is massive despite the haters online (similar to CoD)

If only the game was as good as the views it gets on a trailer >:D

Blizzard made Hearthstone which was a good game, made Reaper of Souls and "fixed" Diablo 3 into a "good" loot rpg, I use quotes because I'm a condescending dick to loot rpgs (okay in general, but more so to loot rpgs), and Heart of the Swarm was pretty good during Blizzard working with Activision. Plus Activision proper doesn't exactly have a big say in how Blizzard does business, Blizzard prints money, they get away with murder if they want. So any short coming of Blizzard is all on Blizzard. A publisher can only be so dick, at some point the design failures are a developer thing.

Liewise Bungie might have been more chill and more community friendly back in the day, but the design failures of Destiny aren't uncommon for a Bungie game. Bad level design has been their biggest short coming since Pathways into the Darkness. It carried over to Marathon. It was an issue in Myth. It was what ruined Oni in the long run (some people will say shaky development, I give no fucks, end result is end result), and there are notorious examples of bad level design, if not bad map design by Bungie in the Halo games. Which is what Destiny is a dull, repetitive shooting gallery that Bungie has made before, only this time without the vehicle sections to mask the repetition.

Because this isn't even Arkham/Mortal Kombat scenario where the game is good, the publisher is dick. Destiny's actual design is pathetic, and that's on them. Otherwise overpriced dlc? They were doing map packs with Halo for so long, and had a 60 dollar expansion. In fact I distinctly remember with Halo 3 that certain playlists could not be played anymore if you did not have certain dlc maps. And not those special map playlists, shit like team objective, btb, team slayer, etc.

One might argue that was at least fixed with Halo Reach, except their response to people thinking Armor Lock is shit and bloom sucks, was duh we'll just keep it there and make no effort to adjust it over the course of a year. Their tribute band came in, and within one month gave you the option to play with bloom or without bloom, and nerfed armor lock.

So again, for what reason is Activision taking the blame? Because if the game was good, Activision would get none of the credit now would they?

Yeah games like Destiny always comes down to this... its either you hate it or you love it.

some people play for few hours and fall in-love with it and some play few hours and straight up go sell the disk.. it really all comes down to that to be honest...

the game is broken, filled with lies created by Bungie but the PvP and raids are fun (same goes with CoD seriously who buys CoD for the story mode? everyone just jump to PvP)

I only buy COD for the campaigns or whenever they have something cool like Spec Ops. That's always nice, unless it's zombies. COD Zombies sucks.

You in the minority my friend ( at least i think so :P), i've never really played the story mode in a CoD mode for the sake of understanding the story, its always been for the trophies and then its straight up jump to PvP lol

CoD zombies stopped being fun after i believe black ops 1 (to me anyways)

I definitely am, and I'm a moron for just buying it for that, but whatever.

Same here. They just did too much with it. I enjoyed it more when it was a simple wave-based mode.

Meh, I thought I wouldn't touch the game but it was 1/2 off for the Digital Guardian Edition. Figured if I was ever going to touch the game I might as well do it cheap... then I saw that get everything for $60 when Taken King releases, sheesh. Oh well, I'm not that torn up about it, because let's say I don't like the base game and expansions to date, I don't have to worry about Taken King DLC. And let's say I like it, or that the Taken King DLC is going to add a lot more story content or something that might make what I don't like about the game better. Well, if it's that much better I splurge, or if I'm patient, I wait until maybe a Black Friday and/or holiday sale where they maybe offer it for $20, or as part as a flash sale. Anyhow, not too torn up about it.

I suspect Mr Smith is probably use to funny wacky dude Gregg Miller time and/or Adam Sessler/DoritoPope shill central driven narrative than anything even approaching hardball journalism. Much like Peter Molyneux shredded to pieces by Rock, Paper Shotgun, the British do not **** about.

I did tell my bros to trade in their base Destiny games and get the new Taken King version come September. Several of us have been throwing money at Bungie/Activision since September and feeding Luke Smith's ego lol.

British journalism is yellower than American journalism. You get better highs and worse lows.

It really isn't.

I am still sad I actually spent money on the previous DLC...

You're fucking kidding.

It's the 101 on British vs American journalism. There's no pretence of political correctness or objectivity with the British that you get with American stuff. That's why The Guardian didn't give two shits when they did that lame-arse commentary on the Pope's eco-encyclical last week that made him look like a Marxist hero.

Also, if you think that's a bad thing, then you're probably American lol.

British journalism is yellower. Makes for much better reading.

Yellow implies cowardly so this doesn't make much sense.

It was Britain who pretty much single-handedly destroyed Nixon, revealed Edward Snowden and America's PRISM scheme, invented Jack The Ripper, took photo's Princess Diana's smash up, got shut down and imprisoned for phone hacking.

if a line can be crossed the British media will do it, not even a comparison.

Although I suppose we should be thankful for Alex Jones, you at least have colorful mentalists.

Fucking Illuminati, always at it.

Bungie has certainly fallen from grace eh?

It's like they jumped from a bridge, with a Bungie.

Bungie.

That is pretty fucking low, even by my standards.

Yellow journalism is sensationalist and head-line grabbing, usually to the detriment of accuracy, precision, and fairness. It doesn't mean cowardly, I don't know where you got that from.

Funnily enough, all the examples you wrote after that are sensationalist and headline grabbing.

P.S The British did not "destroy" Nixon. He was undone by the American system itself long before the Frost interviews.

Where are you from by the way? English obviously isn't your first language, but you're sorta well-versed in English-isms. I'm guessing somewhere in Europe.

i guess you could describe that with the word "explain"

Oh god, might as well just call your fanbase morons. FYI the expansion is only available through the 80 bucks deal that includes the game and 2 expansions on PSN. You can't just buy the DLC and be done with it, greedy fucks.

Um yes you can.

The $40 DLC is on PSN

Interesting tidbit, gentlemen:

The Eurogamer person who did the interview with Bungie is Tom Philips. In the comments section with 400 strong angry gamers, Tom does additional comments and says he believes The Taken King by itself at its current price is worth it if the hours put in are justified. And it seems that his upcoming hands-on impressions of TTK will be positive. He got downvoted like crazy lol.

The mob. Never mess with the mob.

You can buy the DLC alone.

You can't. The expansion alone will be available in 3 months and isn't up for pre-orders. For now, buy our game a second time for 80 dollars please.

https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-sa/search/q=destiny%20the%20taken%20king

https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-sa/games/addons/destiny-the-taken-king/cid=EP0002-BLES01857_00-DESTINYTAKENUPGR

Well this is hitting most if not all the major gaming sites now.. good good!

Yeah but you can still buy the DLC alone when it comes out. On release you won't have to buy the whole game again.

People probably will purchase that bundle by the way. Game publishers have done enough surveying to know that gamers go ape shit for video game swag. For all the outrage, the physical Destiny Collector's Editions have already almost sold out. Probably the same dudes who have been playing since day one.

Gamers be crazy.

These Bungie fanboys will buy it anyway, might as well milk them.

The legacy of Microsoft lives on, something must have rubbed off on them.

It appears it was derived from the term "yellow". Odd to understand the term "Yellow journalism", but not actually the much more common term "yellow", which in reality is considerably stranger than me missing a phrase, unless it's suppose to be some feigned attempt bemusement? Just like this is. Golly gee whiz.

This argument doesn't hold water either outside of tabloids. Britain has an obsession with celebrity culture, however, America has an obsession with a personality culture as well as patriotism. This extends to broadsheet, while, in the case of British news papers anything bordering sensationalism is primarily restricted to tabloid format, broadsheet news sourcing (Guardian/Telegraph/Scotsman ) is far more objective in it's data as well as riskier (a different entity from sensationalism) in the fact is removed public and/or higher power influence.

Case in point: NSA Something that potentially could have resulted in the paper being forced to close down questioning freedom as we know it, important news, not sensationalism. Sensationalism will develop around it as a byproduct, that's what happens with any world wide news of importance, nothing new.

By the way, it was America, not the United Kingdom who had the largest emotional media reaction. Which makes sense, given they are the source. Discussion is always good, it causes internal examination resulting in social progress, so that in itself is good is my opinion, nothing wrong with America throwing a bitch fit.

I never actually argued that it wasn't ethical. Nor do I specifically have a problem with it The original argument is that the British media take more risks, which they absolutely do. While it was true much of this derived from celebrity culture as mentioned above, it also involved data mining from criminals and/or suspects. Which only becomes bias, when information is presented in an augmented format. i.e. lies

Of what's listed, the only genuine listed sensationalism articles is Jack The Ripper, a boogeyman figure invented by the media that directly influenced the murder, possibly increasing the body count, as well as perpetuated the myth which led to the term "ripper" widely used throughout the world, as well as inevitable copycats both at the time and centuries later.

A case such as Princess Diana, regardless of any format will grab a headline. The criticism came in the form of publishing pictures of the car crash as well as information on the crash. Irregardless of if this data was provided, it's Princess Diana, the papers would sell. It was a very risky thing to do given the public's empathy.

A completely different and literal argument. Prior to the interview Nixon still had public support in quarters, after the interview public perception changed dramatically, the ripple effect is felt to this day. The effects also extended well beyond Nixon himself , prior to the Frost interview, interviews used soft ball techniques, this was a landmark moment with what is now standard practice to push politicians for answers.

e..g.

Try not to resort to insults my friend.

You morons that bought this pile of trash in droves deserve every single screw job you get. Bungie is showing you that it was all about getting more money and not artistic freedom for why they left MSoft.

Oh, we most definitely DO have that much anger. It's just in reservation right now. Neither ISIS or Boko Haram have done enough directly to us (America or Western Europe) to elicit this anger. I think they know this as well. If they piss us off enough, we'll go full scorched earth policy like WWII and there won't be a rock in Syria or Yemen or Nigeria for those 10th century anathemas to hide under.

Or, if they really piss off China or Russia, neither of those countries would mess around.

It's interesting how we went from video games, to politics culminating in proposed mass genocide.

Bungie deserves to get chastised over this, Luke Smith deserves to be beaten up after that....I guess you could call it an interview though it's almost like he was high or drunk when he was answering those questions.

I bought the $90 Digital Guardian Edition and I feel Destiny has been worth my $90 and we'll have to wait and see if I feel like spending another $40 on an expansion.
Bungie does need to wake up though and realize shit like what Luke Smith tried to pull is not going to fly and while there are a fair number of people who have enjoyed Destiny thoroughly, there are a lot more who are upset and let down by what Destiny has had to offer.

They should have stayed with MS and continued as the Halo dev. it seems.

@uninspiredcup: I played desitny. I got my character up to level 27 before I became absolutely bored with it. No real interest in any expansion packs.

This shows me how out of touch Bungie is.

@jg4xchamp: Yeah,,, I never understood why people always blame publishers only. Most of the time, devs are as guilty as publishers.