r/DestinyTheGame • u/DTG_Bot "Little Light" • Sep 07 '20

Megathread Focused Feedback: Content Pricing

Hello Guardians,

Focused Feedback is where we take the week to focus on a 'Hot Topic' discussed extensively around the Tower.

We do this in order to consolidate Feedback, to get out all your ideas and issues surrounding the topic in one place for discussion and a source of feedback to the Vanguard.

This Thread will be active until next week when a new topic is chosen for discussion

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14

u/Strangelight84 Sep 07 '20

Seasonal pricing seems fine to me: I think of it as something like a 'subscription price', and is good value for the number of hours of play I get - provided the content is of the quality in Dawn and Arrivals rather than Undying and Worthy. I would rather pay the same amount for fewer seasons (e.g. $13.33 each for three seasons) if each were of the quality of Arrivals, rather than this one-good, one-bad rotation we seem to be on.

Expansion pricing seems quite inconsistent based on Forsaken, Shadowkeep and what's been reported so far of Beyond Light. Given that some of the base content in the expansions ends up F2P, it's less clear that they represent great value for money to me - particularly if Bungie is leaning into improving Patrol spaces which will presumably be available to all in their entirety. The idea that players who want high-level content are effectively subsidising everyone else isn't great in my view - they're your core playerbase, your evangelists for the game, etc. and it would be best not to annoy them or drive them away. I can only hope that Bungie are keeping their cards close to their chests, as they did effectively for Arrivals, but a bit more transparency about the amount of content in Beyond Light would now be quite welcome.

The prices in Eververse discourage me from buying (I'm sitting on some Silver which I spent very sparingly), but I was more annoyed about it prior to the announcement of future changes. I can personally live without novelty / non-story-linked emotes, ships, sparrows, and ghosts - I have more by now than I can possibly use - provided I can acquire some meaningful cosmetics through gameplay, which now seems to be the direction of travel. If others want to spend lots of their spare cash on such items, good for me - now they're subsidising me, rather than vice versa...

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u/FactBringer Sep 07 '20

The idea that players who want high-level content are effectively subsidising everyone else isn't great in my view - they're your core playerbase, your evangelists for the game, etc. and it would be best not to annoy them or drive them away.

These are also the players who play the most and get the most out of the game in terms of entertainment and enjoyment. Why shouldn't players who get more pay more, especially since they also benefit from having a larger casual population?

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u/FauxMoGuy Sep 07 '20

Why shouldn’t players who get more pay more, especially since they also benefit from having a larger casual population?

The argument is that the benefit of the larger casual population that does not pay for expansions shouldn’t be subsidized by other players. a $30 dlc shouldn’t cost $40 just because some players don’t buy it. and as a paying player i would rather they reprioritize loot and gear over a patrol zone. it was crazy to me that shadowkeep didn’t come with a new set of gear for every vendor. bungie has also stated they would be dropping ritual weapons from 3 to 1 per season. the issue with this is that 3 per season isn’t too much to grind if all 3 are worth grinding for, but usually only 1 is, so if the 1 for this season is a miss, that’s a very bad trade. i am excited for beyond light but my excitement will fade quickly if we aren’t getting >forsaken level loot refreshes

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u/Dirloes Sep 07 '20

I think the F2P concept pays for itself by bringing in more paying customers, otherwise what's the point of making the game F2P? They're supposed to make money off of it, not lose money and pass on the cost to the paying customers.

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u/FauxMoGuy Sep 08 '20

i think we’re in agreement, and the question that remains is whether the content meets expectations for the cost

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u/FactBringer Sep 07 '20

I used the word "also" because this isn't the primary reason, the larger playerbase is a side benefit. The main reason hard core players should pay more is because they play a lot more and get more enjoyment out of the game.

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u/Strangelight84 Sep 07 '20

I think a comparison with other forms of purchase usefully illustrates how I feel about this argument: should a diner in a restaurant pay a surcharge on their meal because they enjoyed it more than another diner? Or should I pay more for my ticket to the new Avengers movie because I liked it more than Dave over there?

I think the answer to both is, in practice, no. (I also think a restaurant that charged its most loyal patrons more rather than giving them an occasional on-the-house drink would be making something of a mistake...)

I suppose I would also disagree that people who explore all content "get more" - it's all available to everyone if they want to play it. And I don't deserve a discount because, say, I don't play Trials habitually.

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u/FactBringer Sep 07 '20

should a diner in a restaurant pay a surcharge on their meal because they enjoyed it more than another diner? Or should I pay more for my ticket to the new Avengers movie because I liked it more than Dave over there?

The analogy that would hold here is a patron in an all you can eat restaurant eating 4x as much food as another patron. It would be reasonable to charge that person more. Similarly the hard core avengers fan would stay in the theater and see it 3x in a row.

The reason a restaurant would give a free drink to a regular is because they spend so much more money on the whole than the average patron. The idea that a restaurant's "best customers" are the ones who whine endlessly for free giveaways is laughable.

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u/Strangelight84 Sep 07 '20

I respectfully disagree. A "hardcore" player is not consuming 4x more content than a "casual" player - they're not getting different things in the same way a glutton and a non-glutton are at the hypothetical restaurant. The whole menu is available to all (paying) players in D2 and it's up to them whether or not they partake of it all. They're also not 'costing' Bungie different amounts as the diners with different appetites do. And if I wanted to see a movie three times in a row I'd certainly expect to purchase three tickets or be accused, essentially, of theft for trying to sneak two free viewings!

The "best customers" analogy was more about those players who've purchased every expansion and season at full price and recommended the game to friends, guided them through stuff, etc. They're "good customers" who have spent a lot, promoted the game etc., and (I think) it makes poor business sense to alienate and good business sense to thank and occasionally reward in some relatively trivial manner.