Responding to the Director's Cut has been a struggle. As I said in my [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/253234588?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]last post[/url], I'm more concerned by what wasn't discussed than what was, but that doesn't mean I don't still have a few bones to pick, and my biggest issue right now is with the Eververse Store. Rather than just rail against it though, I want to break down the problems that I see and offer a view towards a potential solution. The first step to solving a problem is identifying it; [b]what is the Eververse Store?[/b] Eververse is the in-game purchase - referred to as "MTX" (microtransactions) in the [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/48058]Directors Cut[/url] - hub for Destiny, which sells in-game items for currency purchased with real-world cash. Fundamentally, the purpose of the store is to elicit extra funding in the form of "minor" purchases from players who have already purchased the "major" content packs for Destiny. In this way, a price can be set for these large, core updates that does not act as an excessive barriers to entry, while still providing the funding for the ongoing development of all areas the game. [b]So what's the problem?[/b] The Eververse Store's strategy to sell "cosmetic items like universal ornaments, weapon ornaments, shaders, ships, sparrows, emotes, and finishers" has never been particularly well received. Pushing the sale of cosmetics may well work in a range of other games, but in Destiny, it creates animosity by running afoul of the Hunt. The Hunt (or "Grind") for loot is one of the core aspects of Destiny's gameplay and "loot" in this sense can be broken down into three primary categories: [i]Power, Perks[/i], & [i]Personalization[/i] ("[i]3 P's[/i]"). Power is a modifier that affects the overall damage dealt and received by a player in a specific activity, and is calculated from the average values across all of a player's gear. Perks are modifiers found on individual pieces of gear that tweak the Sandbox environment, offering things like reduced cooldowns for specific abilities, modified ammo availability, re-tuned weapon behavior, etc. Personalization is the aesthetic look and feel of any individual weapon or piece of armor, from the pure visual customization of [i]Dresstiny[/i] to the sound design and balancing of that favorite rifle. While 2 of these 3 P's are available exclusively through gameplay, Eververse in its present form attempts the restrict the third by locking many of the most unique and ornate personalizations behind a paywall. This sets it at odds with the rest of the Hunt by removing these items as the targets or objectives of gameplay, and creates an antagonistic relationship with Destiny's players that negatively affects sentiment and engagement with store, reducing revenue and ultimately leaving it not fit for purpose (or at least significantly sub-optimal). This is not to say that Eververse should go away, or that it is devoid of all value. I fully accept that Eververse plays an important role in supporting Destiny as it moves forward and acknowledge Luke's statement that "For example: Whisper of the Worm's ornaments were successful enough that it paid [dev cost-wise] for the Zero Hour mission/rewards to be constructed." What I am saying is that by reshaping Eververse to remove this antagonism and to instead support the pursuit of all 3 P's, engagement with the store and the player sentiment surrounding it can be markedly improved. Now the next question: [b]What could Eververse look like?[/b] There are a lot of other successful games that do in-game purchases, so I'd like to run some quick comparisons: [i]World of Warcraft[/i] sells mounts, pets, in-game services (like race or faction changes), and in-game gold (via WoW Tokens). Personalization via cosmetic mounts and pets sell without enduring Destiny-levels of backlash because of the sheer quantity and variety of cosmetics available in the game, and because there are effectively no armor or weapon cosmetics for sale. In-game services can be fairly expensive and may be the subject of some griping, but are viewed as rare, supplementary utilities distinct from primary engagement with the game. The same is also fairly true of WoW Tokens [1], which rely on WoW both being a subscription-based game and having a full internal economy (neither of which apply to Destiny). [i]Warframe[/i] sells equipment storage slots, frames, weapons, pets, skins, resources, and fab time reductions via its multi-purpose premium currency [i]platinum[/i]. Pretty much everything purchasable with platinum from the in-game market can be earned through gameplay (except for storage slots, minus some small exceptions), and platinum itself can be earned indirectly by selling pieces of gear earned through gameplay to other players who have purchased platinum from the market. Here, purchases act primarily as a convenience and an accelerant to the generally lengthy and grind-y unlock process of finding blueprints, gathering resources, fabrication, and upgrading that governs all of the game's loot (all 3 P's). This accelerated access to Power and Perks is enabled by the primacy of solo and co-op play in Warframe, and the effective lack of any real competitive modes in the game - PvP exists largely as a novelty and niche mode, and there are no "Worlds First" raid races or high-visibility rankings or leader boards where "buying power" would provide a competitive advantage. PvP-focused shooters like [i]Fortnite, Apex Legends, CoD BO4[/i] and [i]Overwatch[/i] predominantly sell Personalization as character and weapon skins, emotes, sprays, etc. through randomized lootboxes. In these games, the Power and Perks of our 3 P's are either preset and tightly controlled (the heroes in a hero-shooter) or randomized, gained and lost within each match (gear in Battle Royales). This is the style of monetization Destiny's Eververse Store currently most closely emulates, despite the significant difference in approach to Power and Perks in gameplay, resulting in the mismatch of objectives and the conflicts previously described. As another point of comparison, [i]Diablo III[/i] is mechanically similar in many regards to Destiny, and was once monetized through a real-money auction house. This "feature" was removed with the Reaper of Souls expansion following heavy criticism and the game currently has no in-game purchases at all. RoS is about to enter Season 18 [2], seven years after the game's original launch, and while the current scale of support and development are orders of magnitude shy of Destiny, that doesn't meant there aren't lessons to be learned. Destiny is wonderfully unique experience, as can be seen in these comparisons, and it means that many of the monetization strategies employed by other big games don't fit it very well. Additionally, some of the games which might mechanically seem a close companion have either avoided attempts to rely on in-game purchases or have abandoned them completely. So what now? Well, I think the greatest model for how Eververse might evolve going forward might best be found in none other than [b]Pokemon GO[/b]. "Holy s**t. You did not just bring up a mobile game." Yes, I did. I even made a pun. Allow me to explain. ... in the next post? Turns out there's a character limit and I wrote a novel. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/253268523?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]Pt. 2 (3?) available here.[/url] (for the most committed of readers) [1] Players looking for more gold (in-game currency) may buy WoW Tokens for real-world money and sell them in the game's Auction House. Players looking for more game time may buy WoW Tokens with gold in the Auction House and redeem them for supplemental subscription time. This has the dual benefits of reducing 3rd party "Real-World Trading" and providing highly dedicated and engaged players a way to play effectively for free. [2] Seasons create periodic refreshes with season-specific bonuses, balance tweaks, and the occasional new item or two. It's relatively little dev work (now that the infrastructure is well established), but some small number or perk changes can upend which gear sets are most viable for high level play and result big shakeups in leader boards and play styles.