Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

How Activision is Screwing Destiny Fans

How Activision is Screwing Destiny Fans

Bungie and Activision recently revealed Destiny: The Collection . You knew it was coming. This all-in-one package includes absolutely everything you need to get started. For $60 you get the base game, The Dark Below, House of Wolves, and The Taken King . It will also obviously come with Rise of Iron, Destiny ‘s latest ambitious expansion. If you pre-order The Collection you’re entitled to the same pre-order bonuses as current Destiny players who pre-order Rise of Iron .

Simply put, this is going to be the best deal in gaming in 2016 – right alongside The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition . For those of you who have yet to take the plunge – the Destiny virgins – I’m not sure you realize the amount of game you’ll be getting for $60. This is easily a collection that is capable of providing thousands of hours of play time depending on what you like to do. If you’re into the grinding, into PvP, and into tackling all of the story missions, this will easily last you until Destiny 2 rolls around.

For all of you Destiny enthusiasts who have been there from the very beginning, you’re learning a hard lesson right now. You’re learning the same lesson as everyone who invested in Mighty No. 9. You’re learning the same lesson as anyone who couldn’t live a day past launch without playing The Witcher 3 . The lesson is this: it never pays to be an early adopter or day-one gamer.

Sure, there are some intangible perks for the early adopter that have nothing to do with economics. Getting there first means you get to be a part of the formation of the fan-base; a contributor to the zeitgeist. For many of you the launch day for a game you’re looking forward to is like a holiday. You take off work; clean your game room in preparation; delays are agonizing. If Destiny was that kind of game for you, then maybe you feel like going in day-one was worth it. I would totally understand if you felt ripped off, though.

If you think about it, the day-one fans are the ones who gave the most to Bungie, and received the least. Actually, I’ll rephrase that and say that they gave the most to Activision. I’m sure the publisher is largely responsible for the pacing and pricing of content, and Activision really pulled one over on the day-one fans. $60 was spent on the base game, which was a total ripoff for what you got at the time. Destiny was sorely lacking in content, and there was no story to speak of. Another $20 was spent on The Dark Below, and then again on House of Wolves. So far we’re up to $100 for a Destiny experience that, while more fleshed out, was still lacking any kind of significant story or end-game.

How Activision is Screwing Destiny Fans

The story and end-game goodies came with Destiny ‘s first major expansion, The Taken King. There’s another $40. We can finally consider this a full game, albeit one lacking staying power. I can only speak for myself, but I spent a solid 60 hours with The Taken King and then I was done again. I still feel no pull to go back to Destiny , but perhaps Rise of Iron will satisfy my hunger. To find out, I’ll be dropping another $30.

For those of you still working out the addition, we’re looking at a total of $170 spent by day-one Destiny players who felt compelled to keep up with every addition. When tax is taken into account, it really isn’t a gross exaggeration saying that many of the most devoted Destiny players have spent upwards of $200 searching for a game that they thought they were getting back in 2014. If you bought the season pass with the original game, which only entitled you to the the first two DLC packs and not The Taken King , I think you saved something like $5.

Now we could argue all day about whether two years of Destiny was worth you spending that extra $110 or not. That’s not the point, though. The point is this: if you’re looking forward to a huge game that is guaranteed to get multiple DLC packs or expansions, think twice about diving in day-one. It never pays off. If you’re willing to wait, you can count on it: there will be a GOTY edition of some kind that will include absolutely everything for a fraction of the cost. With a heavy sigh, I admit that this is a mistake that I’ll probably continue to make. You will too, and publishers like Activision are counting on it.

To top