Bit different buying a game to play and enjoy it and paying more money to finish the game quicker,

They're still both a waste of money and it someone wants to finish the game quicker so be it as long as they still enjoy it.

[quote]They're still both a waste of money and it someone wants to finish the game quicker so be it as long as they still enjoy it.[/quote] Nobody should be able to finish the game quicker in this fashion.

If I bought all my desolate armor it would give me a whopping 15 light. I'll be able to finish Lord of the Rings extended edition before I finish anything on Destiny at that power

They just made infusion 1 to 1 so that point is null. Unless you have no materials your desolate gear goes straight to 320+. Someone who buys the sterling packages will have all the armor before someone who just plays the game. That isn't right. Imagine future DLC and Destiny 2. It's just 2 sets of armor and a few items now. Before long it could end up like Black Ops 3 where they have weapon skins, emotes, sparrows, ships, and God knows what else in them. It's only going to get worse and nobody sees this.

So I trade one 320 armor for another. It's no difference in that regards. Micro transactions will never be enough to support an expensive to run 500 person company. They are not and will never be bought in enough frequency to do that. Even if 350,000 people bought one sterling treasure each (which won't happen) it wouldn't even make a dent in Bungie's outgoings.

It's simple in the regard you trade armor you earned for armor you bought. Why put armor in endgame activities when people would rather buy it? See the issue there? You cannot possibly think that people will only buy one sterling treasure package. Most people will buy multiple silver bundles to get what they want because "I earned my money, and this is what I choose to spend it on -blam!- IT". In order to tell me that silver isn't adding to their bottom line in a big way you'd have to show me their game sales. TTK has been out for 7 months now and the Legendary Edition is going for 40 dollars new at Best Buy. Silver purchases are no doubt blowing away game sales by now. But here's the thing: this new update isn't the only instance of silver offerings. There have already been 3 small events. I will agree that silver comes nowhere near an initial game launch, but you are naive to think Bungie isn't making absolute bank from silver right now. To buy just the EMOTES right now, you'd have to get 3600 points. That is somewhere around 40 bucks. Not even counting the sterling treasure. People are going to keep at it with sterling treasure until they get what they want too. Essentially Bungie is getting double or triple back on the initial game purchase multiple times over. Of course the most important factor here is how many people are actually buying silver? I know damn well there is a lot more than 350,000 people playing this game. Put all this together, and it spells disaster for gamers in the future. No developer is going to turn down the chance to get more money from the consumer. Buying games is great. What isn't great is when they put all the cool stuff that they know people have asked for and want behind additional purchases. Vanity or not, the developer will spend a lot more time making things for people to buy instead of putting content into the actual game so they can double or triple their investment with minimal effort. To put this in another perspective, IMAGINE IF WE HAD GOTTEN EXPANSIONS INSTEAD OF PURCHASEABLE SILVER ITEMS. That would be 4 including this one. You can't tell me you don't wonder what could have been. If you don't, you really should. We all should. Because right now we are playing a part in Destiny's future.

You don't need each person buying them. There's people buying more than one and buying silver more than the cost of the original game lol. Edit: what makes it even more ridiculous is that it's over digital content that will be irrelevant sooner rather than later.

So less people spending more money equals less money.

On something that cost them next to nothing to make? That's huge profit lol.

Profit that will be used to pay ongoing expenses. Micro transactions may be profitable as a standalone line item but in total p&l it won't make much difference.

Bungie has money. There's no reason to believe they are struggling in the slightest bit. I mean for goodness sake they made a twitch studio(which isn't really being used) that probably cost them more than the update itself lol.

No business ever wants to not make money. Having money and making money aren't the same thing in business.

No business tries to destroy their foundation with their consumers either and Bungie has been doing that very well for a while now. Rather than making sure they continue to build their relationship they have had with their fan base that has been around for years before destiny was even thought of, they are burning them any chance they get at this point. In all honesty, I'd be doing the same. If I can get paid to do next to nothing work wise because of the stupidity of people, why not try and get extra cash. Which is why this is going to ruin the future of gaming. Other companies will see this model and begin to realize, "why are we busting our asses off to make quality games, when we can just make relatively simple, cheap and chop it up and sell it? Why not throw microtransactions on top of that as well? Stupidity will keep us in business, with no need to slave ourselves day and night to make something worthwhile for the players."

Do you have proof of this, not opinion but hard proof. I see this kind of speak get thrown around but no one has been able to prove this beyond stating opinion.

Proof of what exactly?

You claims of foundations being destroyed.

Look at the forums lol. Look at how Bungie used to post things about how many players have participated and/or beat events such as IB/ToO/VoG/CE, etc. When was the last time they have done that? When was the last time they mentioned how many players/hours have been logged? When have they ever said how many active players this game has or had(not registered mind you, as that is an extremely unreliable number). Bungie seemed to care more about the game when it first came out. Now it's just, "hey, they are bored again start up IB next week, reskin some new content, but don't forget to add more emotes and gear for sale with real money, and whatever they want nerfed, break all weapons in the category."

Those stats are still publicly available via their API alliances such as with Destiny Tracker. Still not got any proof.

Destiny tracker doesn't show how many players are active lol just who has attempted pvp. Go on there and give me a solid active player base number. You want proof, I am giving solid info on how things have changed. Where is your proof to show Bungie is ever growing because people are so happy. Please relay how many players are currently active, how many have attempted the "new" PoE, KF...you know the game.

Guardian.gg has active player stats via API