Discourse on the Evolution of Destiny’s Micro-Transactions
Written by: Robozombie1 (Mason LaPointe)
Only a year after Destiny’s original release and only a couple of weeks after the release of the (Glorious!) expansion The Taken King in September 19, 2015, October 13, 2015 marked the debut of directly bought emotes and one of media’s most annoying characters since Jar-Jar Binks, Tess Everis. Good ol’ Tess had opened her doors to a dreaded place far worse than the Dreadnaught or Oryx’s Ascendant throne realm, the Eververse store. Eververse’s new emotes could be bought with the currency known only as “Silver”. You, however, could not earn it through gameplay, but Bungie did give some out for every Guardian to buy 1 or 2 of the emotes.
Later on in the month, Destiny’s first live event, “The Festival of the Lost”, was also the first “festival” of Destiny’s loot boxes. These loot boxes came in 2 distinct types: 1. “Treasures of the Lost” , which could only be bartered for with Silver and 2. “Gifts of the Lost” , which were lesser-quality loot boxes that were only earned by means of quests and other sorts of gameplay. Despite this, everything in both of these “mystery bags” were only, and strictly, cosmetic and Bungie, suffice it to say, handled this premiere event very, very well.
With Bungie’s second live event, the “Sparrow Racing League”, came a new form of microtransaction, the “Record Book”. Seemingly a forerunner of the (far better) “Battle Pass” for Epic Games’ multiplayer masterpiece Fortnite, this new item would unlock a handful of cosmetic goodies such as armor, sparrows, shaders, and emblems, given that a Guardian had some spare change of 1000 Silver. Many Guardians considered “this” to be excessive, but even though the backlash was mild in its manner, these poor, sweet summer children would not yet know that it would get worse.
Otherwise remembered fondly as the “Taken Spring” , the “April Update” added yet another type of loot box, the “Sterling Treasure”. Not only did these treasures include many reprised Year 1 weapons such as the Badger CCL and the Longbow Synthesis, but also marked the first time that armor sets were on the market. And to be quite frank, this new armor was nothing short of spectacular! A new customization consumable called “Chroma” was introduced alongside its respective “Spektar” armor. Guardians all over the galaxy could now also imitate Oryx’s minions with the new “Desolate” armor set, and it was genuinely amazing. Better yet, each of these “Sterling Treasures” guaranteed a piece of one of the new armor sets, unlike some future engrams. You could also earn up to 3 of these per week, and per account. Although Bungie was walking the thin tightrope of not having their loot boxes affect overall gameplay, they were able to make it across when they had the armor drop at ridiculously low levels.
The release of the “Rise of Iron” expansion in September 20, 2016 brought with it many things, including a free Record Book which was far grander than the previous version, Exotic weapon “Ornaments” (a euphemism for the term “reskin”) , which were bought using “Bright Dust”, and a replacement for the “Sterling Treasures”, “Radiant Treasures”.
Making its not-so-glorious return in October 2016 was the “Festival of the Lost”. This second iteration of the event saw one of the greatest outcries in the franchise’s history as it was considered to be one of the more stingier live events. The drop rate of its new armor was, without a doubt, scarce, with a dash of cruelty. Even if a Guardian chose to pay some of his real-world glimmer (a silly way of saying to get one’s wallet out) to purchase some Treasures of the Lost, he would typically get the same stuff he did before and would rarely ever get any new Ornaments or a chance to get that coveted “Ghost Ghost”. For these reasons, this horrific take on the Halloween-themed event is referred to as “Festival of the Cost”, and rightfully so.
Things would get better though, as Bungie learned its lesson from the mistakes of the previously mentioned update and would use their previously established microtransaction format to get its next two live events (The Dawning and The Age Of Triumph) on the right path., Bungie also added a new mini-market called the “Silver Dust Kiosk”, which finally gave Guardians the ability to buy previous Eververse stock directly for Silver Dust.
As many things in Destiny 2 were overhauled, Eververse was no exception. “Bright Engrams”(which dropped after every level up) were introduced, and they were quite frankly not the “brightest” idea that Bungie conjured up. These new loot boxes contained multiple things such as the controversial one-time-use shaders, weapon and armor mods, ghost shells, sparrows, and to top it all off, contained about 50% of all the loot in the game (this would also become extremely evident in Curse of Osiris).
As this DLC’s title “implies”, Eververse was the true “Curse of Osiris”. According to Forbes’ estimate, over half of this expansion’s items were locked behind “Bright Engrams”. Not only that, but none of these items could be earned through gameplay. Among these items were the new exotic ghost shells, which held significant perks for XP and loot.
Two weeks after CoO launched, it was a “dawn” of a new age, that age being a revolutionary one within the Destiny community. The second iteration of the “Dawning” live event can only be described in 2 words: REMOVE EVERVERSE . This event was the last straw for any sort of tolerance that the community still had for Eververse. Moreover, it lead to a huge revolution within the forums where they were flooded with those 2 distinctive words. The Dawning essentially suffered the same fate as 2016’s Festival of the Cost.
With the promise of a new and improved approach to in-game monetisation, came the second coming of the “Crimson Days” in February 2018 , and it was a astronomical improvement over the past few live events. The event’s Crimson Engrams introduced a new “knockout list system” which ensured that Guardians never got the same item twice, like how they did in the past. Not only did this lovely live event bring with it these engrams, but lo and behold..... it actually brought incentives to play the game. More specifically, if you played activities such as the Leviathan raid, it’s raid lair “Eater of Worlds” , the Crucible, or the weekly Nightfall, you would be able to earn limited time special items such as Exotic ornaments, sparrows, and more.
Yet another battle was won in the war against microtransactions with the “Warmind” expansion in May 2018. A system known as the “Prismatic Matrix” was introduced, and it followed the same monetisation principles as the previous live event. Every week, there would be 10 items featured from the new “Prototype Engram”, in this Matrix. Everytime you activated the Matrix, it would “knock out” one of these 10 items from the list, ensuring you never got a duplicate. This new system allowed for a more reasonable means to get what you wanted, week by week. However, there has been one minor conflict with Bungie’s new monetisation method. Recently, a new Iron Banner emote was in the Eververse store for $10. This far more direct purchase spawned some backlash, but certainly not as bad as before.
The Future??: If Bungie sticks with their new Eververse system, chances are that the live events will improve over time, resulting in a fair balance between gameplay and monetisation. But for now, in the wise words of Paul McCartney, all we can do now is “hope for the future”.
Author’s note: Expect future coverage on the upcoming Forsaken DLC.
Robozombie1
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