Bungie Defends The Taken King's $40 Price Tag

[Steven Bogos]

Bungie Defends The Taken King's $40 Price Tag

The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith says the expansion's hefty price tag is more than justified.

House of Wolves [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/destiny]. Now, The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith has defended the price tag, saying that the new expansion has more than enough content to justify its cost.

"We're really comfortable with the value we're giving to players this autumn. I believe that once we begin to share more, players will be even more excited," said Smith. He continued to stress that The Taken King is considerably larger than prior expansions.

"[The Taken King has] fully voiced cinematics and the story of what happens when an angry alien god wages war on a solar system, all with a satisfying conclusion. You also have a new subclass to pursue and unlock. We also have a bunch of new strikes - we're not yet talking about how many - and a new raid. We're showing two new PVP modes and four PVP maps this week, and it's a fairly safe bet we're not done yet showing things off."

Smith also briefly touched on the "Collector's Edition" exclusive emotes, which will not be available anywhere else, effectively forcing prior owners of the game to re-buy the base game and its previous two expansions just to get their hands on them. "There is no way right now for you to get the new dance emotes without doing that. Those are Collector's Edition exclusive. We've set some stuff aside for that edition specifically to really make it appeal to fans who have engaged with the game already and also to people that will enter the game this autumn."

"It's about value," he added, when pressed, "The player's assessment of the value of the content ... If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen."

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-22-destiny-the-taken-king-director-defends-40-expansion-price-tag]

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[dragongit]

and I am more then justified, into not buying this crap. I can buy several games like Fallout 4, and Phantom pain, then pay the equivalent of paying for destiny and it's expansions. I played the beta, I got bored, and I was told it gets worse.

 

[Covarr]

All these expansion's haven't really solved this games core problem: Its about grinding for the sake of grinding, defeating wave's of enemy's so that you can go fight more enemy's and collect armor that will help you fight even more enemy's. Its a giant skinner box. Wheres the fun in that?

P.S. Thanks

P.P.S. "Defend's"? Seriously?

P.P.P.S. Edit: Oop's, the post titles been fixed. Coolio.

 

[snekadid]

Wow, just fuck bungie, seriously. They have a serious problem when it comes to what they think the word value means, as well as several other words. So destiny is possibly the worst MMO ever made, as its not massive and while its expansions are full priced, you only get a single dungeon as compared to EVERY OTHER MMO that offers continuing updates for that expansions life time that lasts for at least a year. O and all the content is just more grind with little effort put in.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I read that as 'Burgie Defend's The Taken King's $40 Price Tag' and laughed way too hard.

Sorry, just sounds like these Destiny players need something to cheer them up.

 

[Gennadios]

Destiny fans were in for a treat at E3 this year

They still exist?

In all seriousness, the gamers I know that didn't outright refuse to buy the game ended up pretty indifferent. I don't know anyone that still plays it.

 

[Zhukov]

"Defend's".

Somewhere in the world, right now, an editor is getting a nervous facial twitch for no apparent reason.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I bet it has 6 hours of story content and reuses at least 80% of its assets. MAYBE you'll get another planet, but I highly doubt it. Bungie has shown that their idea of development now is to squeeze as much money as possible from their player base while giving them the illusion of content (gear treadmill).

The fact that some people have spent hundreds of hours grinding the same horde style missions over and over baffles me.

 

[vallorn]

Defend's

That... I... Nope, a few people have already pointed it out so I thank them for doing so before I burst a blood vessel...

This is almost the same price as buying Destiny again, and to get the extra stuff you actually DO have to buy Destiny and it's expansions again. Why? I don't get it... It seems cool, and I know some people that like Destiny but this is just a ludicrous amount of money.

Also, You might remember the Bungie employee Luke Smith from such wonderful things as;
His 1UP blog: http://www.1up.com/do/my1Up?publicUserId=5519593
In which he claims that Halo is the only gaming series he cares about: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=7597162&publicUserId=5519593

From this it seems like the man is a fanboy who they brought on as a writer in 2007 and he's somewhat infamous amongst various groups. Although, I did find The Escapist's interview of him and other journos in 2006 and I agree with him here;

Video game journalism is just weird. You have guys married to women in marketing for the games they cover. Video game journalism is still very young, very early, still trying to find out what it is

and

We have to be responsible for our actions and held accountable when we manipulate the expectations of gamers"

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_71/409-Game-Journalists-on-Game-Journalism

So, yeah he comes across as a mixed bag, not really sure why the rest of Bungie had him handle the interview with Eurogamer though.

 

[kael013]

[quote/]"The Taken King has fully voiced cinematics and the story of what happens when an angry alien god wages war on a solar system, all with a satisfying conclusion.[/quote]

If it's anything like the last story, I doubt the ending will be satisfactory, but I am glad for new cinematics. That's the part I hated most about the last 2 expansions; they were basically events I paid to get. And yes, I know I'm an idiot for buying the 2 expansions; it's been a boring last few months.

[quote/]You also have a new subclass to pursue and unlock. We also have a bunch of new strikes - we're not yet talking about how many - and a new raid.[/quote]

More group content for those of us without 7 friends to play Destiny with is nice (yes, I'm still pissed off I'm locked out of the best content in the game because I was the only one of my social circle interested in this game).

[quote/]"There is no way right now for you to get the new dance emotes without doing that. Those are Collector's Edition exclusive. We've set some stuff aside for that edition [b/]specifically to really make it appeal to fans who have engaged with the game already[/b] and also to people that will enter the game this autumn."[/quote]

"We know you've already bought everything, but we still want to squeeze you so we made this content just for you and packaged it with stuff you already own."

...Well that's dirty.

 

[Karadalis]

Yeah... emotes...

Thats a game seller right there... thats what the people really want to pay money for... thats value right there folks!

The fuck you been smoking bungie?

 

[XenoScifi]

Whoever at Bungie was quoted saying...

"It's about value," he added, when pressed, "The player's assessment of the value of the content ... If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen."

...IMO should be fired. Not one of my online gaming buddies would EVER get excited about this, me included.

Bungie would have better luck just charging money for this shit as some kind of cash shop deal instead of dangling it as some kind of "extra". Honestly NOTHING would be better and to charge LESS for this expansion.

I am so glad I did not buy into the $500 million cost to make this game hype train on it's way to failville.

 

[IceStar100]

Hold on I'm going to go see if I can find that emote of Bender and leela.

Nope

Ok

Joking aside I have the game and it can be taken with one scene that somes it up.

"Oh the stories I could tell you."

Then tells you nothing. Bungie maybe if you beg and give them your first born Microsoft will take you back. You could do halo again. Would you like to do Halo again? Yeah you would I mean you did look at your only game. See it's halo with names changed.

 

[gigastar]

They talked big before launching Destiny itself as well. What reason have we to believe anything the PR drone says?

All i can see is that theyre getting desperate. Activision is a cruel misteress if you dont earn back your budget.

 

[Something Amyss]

"It's about value," he added, when pressed, "The player's assessment of the value of the content ... If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen."

Hubris is common in gaming companies, but this is Xbox One/PS3 level hubris.

You might as well wait for the inevitable Goty edition with all DLC/expansions at this point, however if they have enough content to justify the 40 dollar price tag as they claim, then that's no big deal.

Watch them pull a Gearbox with Borderlands 2.

 

[Erttheking]

Oh for fuck's sake Bungie, what the hell happened to you? I used to love you guys, but this? FORTY DOLLARS FOR DLC!? I could've taken that money and bought five games during the Steam sale and gotten five times the play time out of it. AND ALL OF THE GAMES WOULD'VE PLAYED BETTER THAN DESTINY!