Destiny sure seems like a game built for microtransactions, and that’s probably because it was. And today, developer Bungie finally revealed how that will work.
Silver is the name of a new in-game currency in Destiny that you spend your real-world cash on. It is launching October 13, and — at least at first — you can use it to buy new emotes (dancing animations) from the in-game merchant Tess of the Eververse Trading Company. The 18 emotes that you can purchase will include the three that were previously only available in The Taken King Collector’s Edition. This seems like an easy way for Bungie and publisher Activision to boost the revenue that Destiny makes between expansions, and maximizing that average revenue per player is crucial for a major online game like this.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1816154,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"D"}']In a blog post on its website, the developer explained why it’s implementing this opportunity to take more of your money:
“Our plan is to use these new items to bolster the service provided by our live team for another full year, as they grow and create more robust and engaging events that we’ll announce later this year. It has been, and continues to be, our goal to deliver updates to the game. Going forward, our live team is also looking to grow beyond vital updates and improvements to focus on world events, experiences, and feature requests.”
Bungie also explained how this will all work. You buy Silver through PlayStation Network or Xbox Live, and you can check Tess to see a full description and visual demonstration of the emotes before you buy them.
Of course, at this point, you’re probably looking for reassurance that this isn’t some “pay-to-win” feature that will give bonuses to people with healthy bank account balances and high credit limits. And Bungie is happy to tell you to relax.
“If you’re not interested in what Tess has to offer, you won’t ever be forced to pluck an item off of her shelf. You’ll still receive updates to the game, and you won’t lose a Crucible encounter or fail to clear a Raid because you didn’t have the right Eververse Trading Company emote equipped.”
It’s hard to read the blog as anything but defensive and aware of the fact that people typically hate microtransactions — or at least a loud minority hates them.
But this also seemed inevitable.
Destiny, as a product of Activision as much as Bungie, was likely always meant to get some sort of microtransactions. Call of Duty, a franchise not exactly hurting for cash, introduced packs of “supply drops” that players can buy to give them an advantage during multiplayer fights. That is in addition to a huge number of cosmetic items that players can buy.
So Destiny fans should probably consider themselves lucky that they’ve avoided all of this up until this point. And at least acknowledge that Bungie knows you can’t stand it.
“If you’re still skeptical, you can log in next week and take a look for yourself,” reads the Bungie blog. “We’ll be dropping some free Silver into your account so you can purchase an emote or two and become legend through the power of dance.”