Destiny - The Taken King Leak and Why We Shouldn’t Care

Ahhhh, Destiny. The last game you’ll ever need… since you won’t have money or time left to buy or play any others. Late last night, details for Destiny’s third expansion pack, The Taken King, were leaked to Kotaku.

New features for the expansion include a new raid, PvP maps, and most notably, a third elemental subclass for each of the game’s three classes. These subclasses will consist of “an electrical storm for Warlocks (arc); a gravity bow for Hunters (void); and a flaming hammer for Titans (solar).” Sounds cool to me!

“What’s the price of admission to partake in this new endeavor?” you may ask. Only $40. “But Michael,” you reply, “Didn’t I already pay $60 for the full game and $35 for the season pass?” Yes… yes you did. “This DLC should be covered by the season pass then, right?” No… no it isn’t included in the cost of the season pass.

If you aren’t concerned or confused by now, let me help you with the math. Assuming you’re still playing Destiny now, after purchasing the game when it launched in September 2014, you will have most likely spent $60 for the retail copy of the game and $35 for the season pass (or $40 if you bought the two already released DLCs separately).

Conservatively, that means you would have spent at least $95 on Destiny during its first 9 months of release. Throw in an additional $40 for The Taken King on its expected release date of September 15^th, 2015, and you will have spent a total of $135 on Destiny over the first 12 months of its release.

This may not seem like a lot of money for the value when averaged out over the games’ life for those 12 months ($11.25/month), but it most certainly wouldn’t feel that way if you are still hoping to buy and play through the other new games that have been and will be released.

Compare this cost to a game like Battlefield 4, where purchasing the Premium Edition for an extra $50 nets you every DLC the game releases (which, as of this writing, is comprised of five expansions plus some other features). New maps, guns… the works. That’s a pretty comparable cost to Destiny and its DLC if you bought the Premium Edition of Battlefield 4 at launch ($110 total).

However, there’s one important distinction to make. You don’t actually need a Battlefield 4 Premium membership to keep playing and enjoying Battlefield 4. The experience you get from the original maps is just as good as those in the DLC. Alternatively, in Destiny, you have to buy all of the DLCs if you want to get new loot, level up, and participate in weekly events. Basically, you have to pay in order to keep up with the game.

It’s important to note that all of the information related to The Taken King is leaked and potentially subject to change down the road. If that’s the case, then my argument might be meritless. If that isn’t the case, and the leak is 100% accurate, then a terrible precedent is being set here and we must do something about it before this becomes endemic to the video game industry. All you have to do is something as simple as saving yourself $40: Don’t buy the DLC.

Evolve didn’t sell as well as Take-Two hoped it would (approximately 2.5 million units across all three platforms). After learning about the game’s extensive DLC plan and lack of initial content, gamers took a stand and spoke with their wallets in opposition of Evolve.

This happened to be so effective that the CEO of Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick, even mentioned that Take-Two has “come out of that experience reminding ourselves we have to have a strong single-player opportunity” and that “if there were something lacking, I would say it would be that it was probably a bit too multiplayer-focused, which we knew all along." We can only hope that gamers will come together again to vote with their wallets when The Taken King releases. If they don’t, paying $135 just to continue playing a mediocre game at best could become the industry standard.

As a once-proud member of the hype-train that was Destiny, I really wanted to like the game. And I did, right up until the time I was told by an NPC that they didn’t even have time to explain why they didn’t have time to explain an important part of the “story” to me.

That being said, I still played the game for a few more weeks. I ran the Vault of Glass a bunch, PvPed, farmed materials, and grinded my way to level 30. It was all great fun, until my gamer friends refused to join me and I finally realized I was basically playing a mobile game that was built for consoles. Unfortunately, if that doesn’t make sense, my fellow Guardians of the Light, I don’t even have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain.

by Michael Landau