People should be discussing how unethical the Destiny DLC is (Old topic)

@planetfunksquad: I think @humanity made it quite abundantly clear in his initial posts, and it seems to have soared over most everybodies heads. He (or indeed, She) is still having to make the same point over and over again.

To re-iterate: Removing content from a game that's already been paid for is absolutely disgusting, and yes, unethical.

• Folks respond with 'oh well it's an MMO, so it's expected' - MMOs dont generally remove old content or otherwise restrict access to it. The content no longer being relevant (and by extension, unused) is not the same as removing access to it.
• Others say 'The original game is no longer the end-game content' - While that is absolutely true, it still doesn't excuse Bungie holding content that used to be accessible to ransom.
• Or perhaps 'A lot of DLC splits the playerbase. This isn't any different' - Splitting the pool of players is not the same as telling half the playerbase that they flat out cannot play what they used to play as and when they want to.
• 'The DLC was announced in advance, so that makes it OK' - It's fine to make such announcements, but it's far from fine to do this while hiding the fact that players that don't engage in the DLC will soon enough have a chunk of their game taken away.

Really, no matter how this is sliced, it's bullshit of the highest order. Shame on Bungie for thinking that was even remotely acceptable, and shame on some of the people here for making such easily defeated arguments in Bungie's defense.

Heck, I don't even own this game (PC gamer only atm) and I'm furious on behalf of the playerbase, including those that are too stupid and bloody-minded to even fail to realise that there's a very glaring issue here.

I don't understand where all the money they invested into went. Like half went to marketing alone right? Cause nothing went into content generation. I'm very ignorant of how triple A games are made but I THINKsome of the budget is generally used to content development. The real kicker is that the content that's there isn't like artfully crafted or so amazing that it make sense how little content there is. I'm sad I bought the game and gave them money, it will be the last time out of principle I think. I'm happy for the people that do like the game, to each his own and all that jazz

I think it's a clear sign of the fundamental problem with Destiny. Trying to make an mmo on consoles and not understand what makes mmos fun and engaging.

1. People in mmos love major content updates in patches thus we should release dlc that makes everything obsolete. Best of both worlds clearly.
2. Lots of mmos have grinding. People must like it. Let's have a ton of grinding.
3. Raids were cool because you had to make groups with twenty people you knew. Even though most games actually have some form of raid matchmaking in or are implementing it.

I think that the way they are handling map locking is bullshit, but I don't think they are going to change it because the OP is in such a small minority. Jeff brought it up in the Quicklook ... if you are still playing Destiny avidly at this point, why wouldn't you buy the expansion? I feel bad for the OP, but his problem probably only affects 1% of the people still playing Destiny.

Destiny is already unethical for charging $60 for a game with $5 worth of content

I think that's probably true to a good extent, but the game hasn't been out long enough for this sort of defeatist reduction, if I could call it that without sounding like I'm trying to attack you (which I'm certainly not).

Destiny released only 3 months ago at this point. So to accept your premise, we'd also have to accept that it would mean it has stopped selling, which of course it hasn't. At this point any newcomers that want the entirety of just the base game still have to buy the expansion to access it, unless they're willing to take time away based on a convoluted calendar schedule.

That might cause the game to stop selling, in which case your point becomes quite a bit more valid, but at this early stage, Bungie are shafting their players, and said players simply shouldn't be standing for it.

Yeah, I just don't buy that argument. I think that's the wrong way to look at it. I'd say, if you're still avidly playing Destiny than adding 3 more missions and strikes really doesn't provide enough additional content to break up the monotony. You're always going to be replaying the same crap. With this content you'll play something new once and then you'll be back to replaying the same crap. I think people should wait it out.

@tehpickle: Agreed. I hear a lot of "They didn't actually remove any content, they just put content you don't have access to on the weekly rotation". Thats a shit way to look at it.

No, they just thought that the word 'trilogy' was overused and they used the phrase '10 year plan' instead. But Destiny is a franchise and it will be (at least) a trilogy. That's been their plan all along. They have officially stated to be working on Destiny 2 right now. Already releasing teasing bits of information about it. Like how they design Exotics and whatnot. Destiny 2 will probably be out in 2-3 years I'm guessing.

Destiny isn't an MMO, but to those trying to make a MMO comparison whenever an MMO releases an expansion I cannot recall (out of 17 or so MMOs I have played for more than a year) them ever locking you out of pre-existing content. Often the MMO goes free to play or you get more content (and sometimes you even get the expansion for free at some point). So, there's no real argument there at all and saying that just comes off as you being a troll.

Ya, I think this is shitty, but I haven't ever seen reason to believe anything about Destiny was anything but (except for the original reveal of the game, that was probably the only time this game seemed like it had potential to me). Destiny is nothing but a money vacuum and they just want you to keep spending money on it. When that becomes the point of any product then there's a problem with the product. Products always suffer when it becomes more about money. Destiny will probably only get worse from here.

@zevvion said:

Yeah, this was 100% the plan all along. Bungie's contract with Activision leaked during the Infinity Ward lawsuit and spelled it out pretty clearly:

The 27-page agreement calls for Bungie to develop four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games," code-named "Destiny," released every other year, beginning in the fall of 2013. Bungie also agreed to put out four downloadable expansion packs code-named "Comet," every other year beginning in the fall of 2014. Activision has never disclosed release plans for Bungie's titles.

Obviously things can change, as evidenced by the fact that Destiny came out this year instead of 2013, but there's no reason to believe the number of games Bungie agreed to is one of them.

@tehpickle: That is exactly what I meant - thank you. I thought people would be a little more outraged at this because it's, to my knowledge anyway, the first time I've seen a developer take things away from you with some dirty DLC trickery. People are going crazy over review embargos and whatnot but this is a company actually messing with things you already own in a really distasteful way. Add to that the fact that I haven't seen Bungie be anything close to apologetic about anything in this game, quite the opposite really, and they come off as really pompous and detached from reality. I mean I'm not one of those people saying Destiny is a piece of trash. I've mentioned plenty times that I think there is a lot of good in the game, but there is way more bad and on some level it would be nice to know the developer has listened to the criticism and are making attempts at fixing what they can. Instead it seems like they're actively trying to figure out more clever ways to stretch the treadmill and keep players working harder and harder for what little rewards there are left.

But I guess most people don't care about getting things taken away from them. I haven't seen anyone really in the press comment on this either. I suppose since there aren't any hilarious screenshot friendly texture bugs it's not really worth talking about. Surprisingly I never get too riled up about game stuff, but this really hit home on some weirdly personal level. The idea of having things intermittently taken away from me because I wouldn't spend more money on the game really bothered the hell out of me.

it might have been said, but don't forget that xbox players pay the same price than ps players for less content. That's also unnaceptable.

now new iron banner also locked behind DLC.

one more piece of content lost without DLC

I'm usually tolerant of stuff like this as long as the game is fun to me. Yet the last year I've grow tired of console, AAA, mainstream, big budget whatever gaming. Honestly it seems these companies want to squish every single penny out of you in any chance.

I know AAA is not exactly a booming industry these days, but guess what... you ain't gonna fix it by making it a bad deal deal.

Sold my xbox one and I'm thinking on giving my ps4 to a cousin because sort of kind of don't wanna have anything to do with these games anymore, PC its where its at.

It's the Halo 3 matchmaking system all over again. I am happy to have removed Destiny from my console and resisted any urge to purchase this DLC. Maybe things will change if it ever goes on sale for absurdly cheap, but otherwise no thanks.

@donpixel: I agree with the way you feel. lots of people ask me why I haven't just bought DLC if I still play game. My answer is I don't want to give money to bungie or anyone else and let them think that they are doing something right. Destiny is probably worse case of game getting cut down fast, 6 months and forcing you to pay more if you still want to play. Fuck that. People need to talk with the only thing that matters, cash. I would love to know the numbers on DLC, who bought it before game came out and who bought it afterwards and total number. I'm sure bungie thinks DLC is great cause they made lots of money.

Also the whole Xbox users getting shafted on content. But really, Destiny is just a bad game.

Actually, they did the same thing for Halo 3. If you didn't buy the map packs, you got fucked (you were locked out of playlists you could previously access).

I enjoyed destiny it was a good mechanics game but last tuesday after I had seen what they did by placing the DLC above and beyond the main game I went to my local gamestop and traded it in (something I never do) because I was a high level player they wouldnt allow me to play their base game anymore unless I paid their at least 2 time fee. Bungievision its fine if you dont want me to play your mediocre game anymore i wont.

And no one ran any kind of news article on Destiny actually removing content people previously had paid for. Eh videogame 'journalism' I guess.

Pretty much everyone ran news posts discussing this.

Yep. They have shown over the months that criticism means nothing to them. Money means everything. They dismissed people's criticism entirely, because those people had 60+ hours into the game. I used to think Bungie was at least a very attentive developer. Very in touch with their userbase. But they are definitely one of the worst devs I can think of at this moment.

@zevvion: I honestly have never felt like a developer was being this disrespectful towards their own playerbase as much as Bungie has been with Destiny. It's also the only time where I felt like the developer was being abusive to the playerbase and it was wrong to reward that sort of behaviour by purchasing more things from them. Played a lot of games, never felt like DLC or whatever was a huge problem. I never had really strong feelings one way or another about most developers - the game was fun or it wasn't simple as that. But Destiny, man, it really felt personal, like these guys want me to jump through as many hoops as possible and they're not even trying to hide it.

Well I'm happy they let me have the PS4 version for free after buying the PS3 version. Because I wasn't going to buy it again anyway.

Yep. This. Bungie's gonna charge what the market will bear. Regardless of the end product, um, Destiny cost a metric fuckton of money to make, so I'm not particularly surprised to see the price point on the DLC. That said, I'd say the gaming press is doing its job by saying, frequently and with a fair bit of vigour, that the content in the DLC isn't a super-great value, and that Destiny is maybe not everything that it's been made out to be. I don't know if the record number of pre-orders also emboldened Bungie to give this the go-ahead, but it probably didn't help.

I mean, if you want to get into ethics, you'd probably also need to take into account the fact that Bungie also has a bunch of employees working on Destiny, so making dramatic price cuts or whatever might force them to lay some staff off, meaning they might be short-handed, meaning the next bit of content may not be very good or that they might not be able to make Destiny into a viable franchise in future sequels, which, as Salarn said, is pretty much starting an ethical discussion about the nature of capitalism.

@muttersometaxicab: Destiny made its money back day one. Any monetary argument means dick at this point. It's pure profit at this point. If they lay off people while making money hand over fist than that would continue to be an ethical dilemma firmly stuck in Bungie and Activisions court.

@muttersometaxicab: As it has been mentioned many times over, Destiny is not an MMO, and this isn't about getting "left behind" simply because you don't have access to new raid gear. This is about being locked out of base game content because you didn't buy additional content. I don't know how else to explain it - they are reclaiming parts of the game and suddenly telling you that you can't play those parts anymore.

Imagine that someone is definitely going to buy the DLC, but he can't spare the money all December because it's the holiday season - or whatever. Why should this person be penalized all month long, being unable to earn strange coins, unable to do weekly heroics or even daily missions to earn shards? Even without the DLC there was a huge game update that introduced new gear which was better than previous raid gear. You could spend an entire month leveling your new vanguard equipment so that when January rolls around and you can afford the DLC, you'll have a fully upgraded level 31 set and ready to raid with your friends - and you need to be 31 in order to beat the raid. But you can't do the daily today so no shards for you, and you can't do the weekly so no Xur coins, which means no upgrades for your exotics - and we are still talking about upgrading stuff that isn't part of the DLC.

This isn't about DLC being expensive or not offering enough content. We have had shitty, overpriced DLC for years now, thats nothing new or worth getting upset about. This is, once again, about DLC locking you out of base game content. It's completely unethical because they shouldn't have any right to retroactively lock parts of the game you already paid for away from you. What if the next DLC completely locks Mars out for players? An entire world becomes a DLC only zone for a week? How far would you say Bungie would have to go, how much stuff would they have to lock you out of until you purchased another DLC bundle until there was an ethical issue here? What if every other week everything except for Earth was locked out of the full retail game you bought, because hey you know they added new areas to the other planets and you either buy the DLC or you get lost in the dust? Because the moment you start saying "oh it's ok it's just a few parts of the game locked out for a week it's not a huge deal" you're automatically giving Bungie permission to keep going further.

I can't help but feel like the hype train for this is equivalent to the Vault Hunter Train setup by Jack.

They shouldn't have any right to retroactively lock parts of the game? I'm going to circle back to the "this is a larger question about the ethics of capitalism" point - IIRC, you had to agree to a EULA to even log into Destiny, yeah?
Here's a link to it. http://www.bungie.net/en/View/Bungie/eula

"Bungie may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Program at any time. Bungie may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to parts or all of the Program without notice or liability."

It sucks, but that's a pretty standard part of videogame EULAs. Again, to be clear, I think it's a shitty business practice and probably not particularly kind to players, but again, it's not inherently unethical, since that whole passage presumably appeared on the screen before you could even play the game.

Though, agreed, there's a wide-as-fuck gulf between what's legal and what's ethical. I'm just saying that this practice isn't localized to just Bungie.

Or put another way, I can see why that caveat is in there, too, since it also gives Bungie leeway to change the base game on an as-needed basis, too. (i.e. patching in new content or fixing broken/unbalanced parts, which they seem to be trying to do.)

Well that is something we can certainly both agree on.

New this week in screwing the people who didn't buy DLC........ Xur is selling stuff that can only be bought if you own DLC. Never mind the fact that I have the coins and any other of the dozen currencies destiny has, but Xur requires to have DLC to buy any new equipment from him. I can however trade in old stuff to upgrade to new DLC level stuff. I still thank DLC for letting me get to level 30 cause I was stuck on 29. Now i can just buy equipment getting me to 30.

FUCK DLC.....

FUCK SEASON PASSES>>>>

DON'T PAY FOR SHIT THAT DOESN"T DESERVE IT>>>>>>>>>>

Take the game out of your console, put it in its case, start a fire somewhere outdoors (following fire safety precautions), throw Destiny in said fire, and move on with your life.

That's atrocious and insulting. Fuck that game and the people that designed it.

I would like to urge people to stop playing Destiny and conclude with what we've all known for a very long time but somehow didn't sink in with some people.

Destiny is a bad game. It does not deserve your money. Fuck that game.

I don't usually like telling people not to play something, since, you know, everyone has their specific preferences and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but honest to God, I wish people would stop playing Destiny. Not because I'm just some angry asshole who wants to suck the fun out of everything, but because I am genuinely worried about how Bungie's future games may come out.

They basically not only threw a half baked game at us, but also made horrible decisions like locking content FROM people who already purchased the game for 60$, simply because of the fact that they didn't purchase the DLC. How am I supposed to look forward for Destiny 2 when Bungie doesn't have a reason to improve the horrible design choices? We ate Destiny up like it was the best thing ever, so why would Bungie change anything they've done so far? People are still playing Destiny and sales wise this game was a fucking powerhouse.

I want to give Bungie a chance since I know what they are capable of when they actually try. The Halo Trilogy and Reach were honestly one of the best games I've played. It's a damn shame, because Destiny had a shitload of potential, but it was utterly wasted.

I'm not going to tell people not to play something if they want to. The whole point of this thread was to get people talking about what I thought was "gross" about the way Bungie handled the DLC which has in the industry been typically "additional" content, not required new content. I'm pretty sure I failed because no one during the GOTY deliberations even brought it up, apparently graphical glitches in Unity are way more offensive than people being locked out of their game.

What I will say is that when the DLC came out I made a conscious decision to not buy it. This actually cut me off from playing with a really great group of friends so it was a hard decision to make at the time. In the time that has passed I would have probably grinded the same several missions hundreds of times and attempted the raid 4 times, maybe even getting half of the new Raid set - which I assume will become entirely meaningless when the next DLC comes out. Instead I had played through the entirety of Dragon Age: Inquisition which was a blast and I would consider it probably my Game of the Year. I've experienced an entire new storyline, met awesome new characters, explored various exotic new areas, so on and so forth, without the slightest bit of grinding or boring repetition.

So for those still playing and getting angry - maybe pick up another game for a while. You'd be surprised how much more you can experience in the time it would have taken you to level up a single exotic weapon in Destiny.

@humanity: I don't enjoy nor think it is right to tell someone not to play something. Sadly though, without proper results, bungie will pull the same shit again with the sequel

@humanity: Maybe pick up another game entirely. Why should people support terrible business strategies like this? Have you noticed how these things are being called "expansion packs" again? I'm guessing it's because the term DLC is becoming a bit too poisoned but let's not be mistaken about what these are: Ways to force people to pay a lot of money on top of the initial price to get content which should have been there from the start. These people do not deserve anyone's support. Hell they don't even deserve the support from people who completely love the game.

The fact that all your hard-earned items will be mediocre crap once a new update rolls along is not entirely unusual for MMOs (yes I compared Destiny to an MMO and I stand by it). That's not the problem with the game.What people should do or play instead is not really my concern (and I don't know what Dragon Age has to do with it). It only bothers me if they actively support terrible practices because that affects me as well down the line. I understand this can be applied to a wide variety of things but I try to reserve it for the most egregious offenders.

@theacidskull: People are gonna play what they're gonna play. I think Jeff has admitted to spending over $100 on that Supercard wrestling game for his phone.

@hassun: Well I don't really want to get into stuff that I wrote out here a dozen or so times already but yes it is bad business practice, and I brought up Dragon Age simply as an example of a game I played instead of Destiny and had fun with - meaning other people can likewise get off Destiny and have just as much fun elsewhere, with a more rewarding experience.

Well duh, I'm just saying that it's a bit upsetting. It was fun, i'll give it that, but the DLC shit they pulled was terrible. It's what eventually made me give up on Destiny.

@humanity: Well sure, we live in a time of extreme opulence. There are far more good games than the average (or even dedicated) gamer has time to play.

@theacidskull: Not as bad as that Evil Within though huh...huh, huh! Just kidding, if it ever becomes free on PS+ I'll play through it! It ran a bit odd on my PC although from what I read maybe thats how it's supposed to play..

Jeff also tells people not to buy Supercard constantly.

@spraynardtatum: Yah exactly, much like a lot of diehard Destiny players will tell you it's not a very good game overall, yet they buy the DLC and continue playing it regardless. I understand them in a way because playing with friends is always more fun no matter the game, and after a while you get so familiar with everything in Destiny that it almost feels intimidating to leave it all behind despite the fact that there are really glaring issues making you mad every couple of minutes.

Gave me a mini heart attack for a second there, brah!

Well, depends on what you mean by "odd."

If it's Janky and rigid then, yes, it's supposed to be like that :)

I played Destiny to level 26 and I think everyone playing Destiny should stop. It's a free to play game without the decency to at least be free to play. It's a leach, a greedy mooch, and a scam. The very design of everything in that game is to latch onto you and mold into your daily routine. Get up, go to work, play destiny, cry yoursefl to sleep. You're not going to get anything useful out of it unless you do your daily grinds. It enables addicts in a disgusting way and penalizes players like you've illustrated in this thread. I have an addictive personality and this game is poison for someone like me.

You don't have to be an addict to enjoy Destiny but if you are an addict than this game is going to work as intended.

I play GTA Online a bunch because it's actually not a pile of crap that's bringing down the overall value of the game (wtf last years GOTY talks). The game broke 32 million sales before 2014 began, they could easily have asked money for all the content they've given out, maps and missions, mission creator, enough clothing items to suit PS Home, new vehicles and weapons, and the soon incoming Heists which basically are raids, and there are six of them shipping.

They could have made a gross amount of money selling all of those content patches, but they didn't. Guerilla Games chose to give away the DLC maps of Killzone Shadowfall for free long before its release, so that everybody could continue playing together, separating them only by loot and looks.This makes me start questioning pay-DLC for multiplayer that separates the playerbase, and the DLC that asks too much for comparatively too little content. I hope this can change with player/media/potential customer feedback this generation, as much as I know people would happily have dropped a tenner each content-patch of GTA5.

So I've only played Destiny to finish the main game story missions (minus the raid) and was going to buy the DLC. This thread made me not do that. Thanks @humanity

I completely agree that it is unfair, and abusive to fans of the game who can't/won't drop more money on Destiny. That being said, if you're still playing Destiny, you should really just get the dlc.