Destiny‘s new expansion The Taken King is set to come out in September and should appease the hungry hippos of the Destiny community. The expansion also costs a full $40 which has caused some confusion. Not only is there a full price tag but there are also numerous special editions being released to cash in including the collector’s edition that costs a full blown $80 and includes content that cannot be purchased anywhere else including class specific emotes and weapons. Players will also apparently have to rebuy the base game as well as the other two expansions to access the new content.
Fans have expressed significant anger at the fact that the expansion seems to be targeting players wallets. There’s also been controversy over the legendary edition of the game that costs $54.99 and includes all the pervious expansions as well as the base game. Meaning new players will be getting all of the expansions for $15 while players who started at launch will be getting much less bark for their buck.
The creative director, Luke Smith, spoke to Eurogamer about the controversy. In the interview, the writer from Eurogamer touched on the exclusive emotes and the fact that players will be paying the same price as the base game that had more content than the expansion. He also got to the point where he expressed that he wasn’t going to pay so much money to buy the game and the two DLCs all over again to which creative director Smith replies “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” and “If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen.”
Smith, in the interview, stated that the team thought the value for money was very good for Destiny players but the way the director conducted himself gave the impression that he expected players to desperately “throw money at the screen” The director eventually summed up the argument that players will have to rebuy content with the fact that it all depends on “The player’s assessment of the value of the content.”
Finally Smith, when confronted with the low price tag for new Destiny players, said “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.”
In an attempt to quell the anger among the fanbase, Destiny community manager DeeJ took to Reddit:
“I understand that you want me to go on record right now with something that will address the disappointment that’s being expressed here,” Deej wrote. “I’m going to [defer] to the Bungie Weekly Update, in which we’ll talk more about the things we’re doing to celebrate the year-one Guardians who helped us build this community. I’ll also revisit our goals in offering different versions of The Taken King. Ever heard the old adage about trying to please everyone?”
The weekly update DeeJ talks about will be Thursday. Gamespresso will keep up to date and watching for Bungie’s reaction to the fans.
Sources: Eurogamer, Gamespot