I know this has since been removed from the store, but I wanted to share my perspective on it. In the event that others out there might feel the same, or more importantly, to provide perspective for those making these decisions.
Time is the universal currency, so it felt disheartening to see items I spent time earning in-game assigned a real-world value. Everyone invested their own amount of time to unlock these rewards, essentially implying that time was worth $15. This opens a can of worms; what is my time worth when playing? If I were charging you by the hour, I'd be expensive (just being cheeky). So, something meant for leisure is now made tangible. It disrupts the immersion of playing this game and being rewarded for doing so, affecting accessibility, player retention, and engagement.
Three exotics, three cosmetic items, and some in-game currency—how is the value divided among these items? Do the exotics have a real-world value of $1, $2, or $4? That's the slippery slope I see when offers like these arise.
Destiny 2 is far beyond the point of becoming a mobile gacha-game. Gacha-Games create friction with timed events to frustrate players into buying things to speed up their progress. Some can afford the price to play, while others might feel pressured to do so to keep up. It's a manipulative way to make a profit.
We pay for experiences, not to be handed a one-to-one itemization transaction. That play pattern shouldn't be allowed in Destiny, especially considering, by this implementation, the theoretical value of a seasoned Destiny 2 player's account. In mobile games, it isn't uncommon for an account with many unlocked characters or features to be sold to someone else. Are you telling me we could do the same? No, it's a video game; these things aren't real. So why would we start assigning them any real-world value outside of the time we put into getting them and the experiences gained by doing so?
-
Edited by A_mo: 12/2/2023 4:20:52 PMIt should just stay a store as much as possible. Some of the more transactional things are things people ask for like the loom stuff or similar things. If time is a universal currency then there's going to have to be ways for people to catch up and for them to be in control of what that means for them. People always center more of the universe on themselves when they think about universal things than they will let themselves think they do. Almost everyone does to some extent. There's just going to be more things for the game to make money from. Hopefully they stay non intrusive to the core game. The hours that people get to play or immerse themselves with have to come from somewhere. It might as well be from something optional. Also if they sell it can't get sunset! For a longer time.