Just one day after Season of Wishes launched, Bungie removed Destiny 2’s $15 “Starter Pack” microtransaction. The microtransactions quickly became the subject of criticism and backlash due to pay-to-win concerns.
Bungie’s long-running live-service shooter monetization model has over the years become increasingly reliant on DLC and numerous microtransaction channels to support the game, but yesterday the store introduced a new “starter pack.” When players noticed that it had been added, many Concerns were raised The company had gone too far.
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How are these microtransactions different from the many paid services of the past? Well, the point is, this one includes powerful guns and in-game materials that usually take hours of playtime to acquire. That’s it. Destiny has incorporated pay-to-win elements in the past, but this is the first time they’ve explicitly gone beyond aesthetics and time-saving mechanics and into a world of pay-to-win.
Concerned voices include popular Destiny content creator Datto, who incorporated some of his recent YouTube videos into offering microtransactions, asking, “How much can the tone-deaf get?” I asked.
One way players have expressed their disdain for this pay-to-win package is by posting online reviews on the Steam storefront, with users labeling the item as “capitalism,” “crime,” “psychological horror,” etc. It was about tagging. The list has since been removed.
The controversy comes at a troubling time for Bungie after an underwhelming expansion earlier this year and low player engagement leading up to the Destiny saga’s finale. In fact, when Bungie laid off 8% of his staff last month, he cited lower-than-expected revenue.
As concerns grew louder in the days since the Starter Pack was introduced, Bungie apparently acknowledged that those concerns were valid and quietly removed the item from the store. IGN reached out to a Bungie representative, but they declined to comment on the matter.
Travis Northup is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @TieGuyTravis and read his stuff Click here for the game article.