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Comment by stuart78 | Hacker News Reader

Just one opinion here, but I've played a /ton/ of Destiny in a fairly casual but consistent way (e.g. no raids or Mic) since launch, and I think it is fairy underrated at this point. There were definitely droughts along the way, but at this point it is a solid game, which when played on Xbox One X is IMHO the finest looking game on consoles. The semi-multiplayer modes are great fun and they've tuned the weekly reset cycle to a point where pretty much every play session is rewarding in some way or another.

I'm glad for their independence and look forward to what the future brings, and I do hope that further investment in Destiny (3 or continuation of 2) is part of that picture.

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I share this opinion. I was so excited for Destiny (fun fact: it came out the same day Apple announced the Apple Watch - I remember playing Destiny then taking a break to tune into the keynote) but it was pretty unpolished on Day 1. I dived back in with The Taken King, which I really enjoyed.

I ignored Destiny 2 when it first came out, then picked it up on Black Friday last year with all the expansions. I basically treat it as a single player game and absolutely love it. The combat is so sharp and tight, the missions are enjoyable.

I know it has a lot to offer with raids and fireteams and all of that, but I just want a few hours of escapism and for that, it truly delivers.

I do enjoy the game, but I can't agree with this insane pricing model. Just on principle I refuse to pay $60 for a game and $40 for DLC and then $20 for more DLC then $40 for an expansion and then $40 for DLC to the expansion. I'd play it if there was just a single cost that was reasonable. Until the game stops getting paid DLC and there is just a flat cost to play the rest of the games I am not going to get back into it.

You vote for this kind of nonsense with your money and people keep buying it then this will never stop.

So how do you pay for all the additional content then?

The sheer amount of art assets that have gone into these expansions can't be produced for free.

Leaving aside arguments about the gameplay provided (some liked it, some didn't), there has to be a funding model for this.

Maybe the model doesn't give you what you're looking for out of this game, and that's fair - you can just move on to a game you do enjoy.

But for some of us, the additional zones, weapons, gear, raids, encounters, enemies, vehicles, quests, mechanics, maps and modes that come with the paid DLC are worth the money.

I don't think it's "nonsense", I think it's fair value for the time I spend, and the enjoyment I get, out of the game.

The ratio of cost per amount of content seems very low to me in comparison to other large scale games. Maybe that is just what it takes to create a game as polished as this. If that is the case then it doesn't seem economical to develop.

If you compare it to how much content is added to each major expansion of World of Warcraft and the cost per year of always being up to date then Destiny falls very short.

Doesn't World of Warcraft have a subscription model? Are you considering those costs too?

I think that's one of the arguments here. Destiny has a subscription model in all but name, and pretends they don't. They want to have their cake and eat it too as a business model. I feel like had they explicitly called it a subscription model I for one would have been happier with some of my spending on the games.

Comparing each expansion release individually to the cost I paid for it isn't working in their favor, and only makes it harder for me to justify "the next expansion" if the perceived $/content is too low for the last couple. As opposed to the aggregate model I might use with a subscription service where maybe I didn't get all of that year's cost value in any single month, but cumulatively it was great.

Anyway, part of the driver of the current business model was supposedly Activision's fault in trying to CoD-ify the franchise, so maybe Bungie can course correct here somehow. (I'm a bit doubtful, personally, but will be watching.)

It's explicitly not a subscription because you can still play the game without purchasing the additional expansions. I have played Destiny 2 consistently since it was released for PC, but I play it almost exclusively for PvP (Crucible). I can continue to play PvP without purchasing the new expansions. The main difference is that I won't always be able to unlock some of the new guns (which is fine by me).

I'm not saying there aren't perceivable advantages to the current business model, just that it isn't a business model that seems to be working for me personally. I stopped playing both D1 and D2 at about the same point where an expansion came out that I wasn't interested in, and I couldn't ignore the paywall. Partly because yes more of the lore and PvE is paywalled than the PvP is.

World of Warcraft costs $180 per year (a required $15/month). It's also 14 years old, so you're playing all the onion layers of content added by expansions which were funded over the years by people paying a $60 initial purchase (the initial purchase was finally removed last year) and again on each expansion.

Your comparison to WoW only seems to make the point that content is expensive and Destiny is much cheaper.

That's True, it is probably more per year to play WoW, but it is also what feels like 10 times the content. It may not be as beautiful, but there is way more to do per dollar spent.

Destiny feels like they are trying to take the content density of a single player campaign and turn it into an MMO.

WoW has a staggering amount of content. Destiny does not. They're not even on the same playing field.

On top of the subscription, you also have to buy the WoW expansion for $40 to stay on the cutting edgr with the content. Essentially WoW is having their cake and eating it too.

I feel bad for Destiny. They're asking $70-80 per year to stay caught up on content and people are complaining it is too expensive, yet WoW can ask for $220. The visual fidelity of their content is top tier, if not THE best, right next to God of War. That is incredibly expensive to produce and games at this level of visual fidelity are usually produced on a 4 to 5 year cycle, not actively maintained MMOs with seasonal content.

So they command about 1/3 the annual price of WoW, yet they are expected to deliver the content quantity of an MMO with the visual fidelity of God of War. This is the world's most expensive content treadmill.

How do you measure "content" in this evaluation?

Asking for real, because I played WoW, and if I compare the detail, complexity and variety of the content in Destiny to what you get in WoW, factoring in the price difference, I am not sure I agree that it's less..

As someone who is satisfied with the value I get out of Destiny, I am genuinely curious to hear what you feel is missing for your personal enjoyment of the game..

What would they have to provide for you to feel that the cost is worth it?

I'll buy a DLC 100 times before I buy a loot box.

Don't worry, they'll sell you those too.

As long as the loot boxes are for cosmetics and are not deceptive in any way, I have no issue with games including them.

The alternative model is what franchises like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed do: spend $60 every year on a brand new game while the previous year's game is unsupported. And $60 is without any of the extras...you can pay $80 for a deluxe edition, buy some lootboxes, etc.

Between the two, I actually prefer the continued development model. It also makes you feel like you can pick it up anytime and not be playing an obsolete game.

Paradox is another example of a company doing this well. A lot of people complain about the total cost of buying Crusader Kings II or EU4 with all DLC today (~$300), but these games have been in continuous development for half a decade or more. All that effort has to be paid for somehow.

>The alternative model is what franchises like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed do

Another alternative model is a monthly fee, like many MMO's use. Remember when bungie said they wanted to deliver a first person MMO experience with an ever expanding world? Most people didn't take that to mean paid DLC for every new raid and sequels which wipe your character's progress.

I think most game companies are terrified of the monthly fee after the row of corpses of "WoW killers" that depended on a monthly subscription.

Most believe that "WoW is the only thing in the world that can command a monthly fee and it'd be hubris to think your new game could do it."

Since 2014 I've been playing with mostly one solid group of real-life friends. We've had times where we weren't playing as much, but Destiny would eventually draw us back. Forsaken has been amazing, and we are having a blast at the moment. This is the best Destiny has ever been.

The general sentiment among friends (and the community) is that this is a good thing.

>they've tuned the weekly reset cycle to a point where pretty much every play session is rewarding in some way or another.

Oh my god this. It's almost impossible for you to rotate through all daily's and weekly's with three characters without resetting before you're done. It's great, it's still the same seemingly mundane stuff (just kill a bunch of shit, collect whatever bullshit) if I read it aloud to you, but it's so damn satisfying. The gunplay is a well oiled machine, and it feels amazing to just screw around.

Bungie very much has the feeling of space combat down since Halo. Played Marathon using the keypad =)

It's fine that you enjoy it casually, but the end game is what most people who are hard on the game care about. That's where they've had a lot of issues and it's the single most important aspect of a game like this. If your diehards don't enjoy end game then you have a problem.

Rumor has it, that they join netease... Which then leads to a mobile version of destiny...

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