The dangers of bungie-jumping

Microsoft versus Sony, Battlefield versus Call of Duty and Forza versus Gran Turismo. These are some of the rivalries that can get people talking about console wars. “Game On or Game Over” is your place to get inside the minds of Nicholas and Andy as they seek to find the true meaning of gaming and tackle some of gaming’s most controversial subjects. Both are award winning authors – although the awards haven’t been mailed or created yet — but trust them. Would they lie to you?

Andy: There are some developers that when their name is mentioned gamers fawn over how awesome they are. There are other developers that when gamers hear their name they sigh and immediately forget about the game they just saw because of the past practices of that developer. For the most part, once a developer gets into that “awesome” category they usually don’t fall from it very fast. Those developers that find themselves in that upper echelon usually can have several missteps before gamers begin to talk negatively about them and start voicing their frustration at business practices, content, PR or what have you.

It makes it even more interesting when we see a developer seemingly actively try to shoot itself in the foot several times within a one week span. If you paid attention to any of the post E3 chatter, news releases and articles you’ll know exactly who I’m talking about. That developer would be Bungie. If you rewind the calendar a year almost everything with Bungie’s name in it was praise and/or hype. Bungie rode the Halo train for all it was worth. I will admit, they did a great job with Halo, however the past couple of weeks have been pretty rough for Bungie, and I don’t think it’s been without good reason.

For those who may have missed some of how this all shook out here’s the crib notes version. At E3 Bungie announced a new expansion for Destiny. There are several different versions, but the one drawing the most ire is the Collector’s Edition for $80 USD that makes gamers pay for content they most likely already have, that being the base game and the first two expansions. A Creative Director at Bungie, Luke Smith, did an interview with Eurogamer in which he offered up a particularly tone deaf comment when he said “If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen.” Bungie took a lot of heat for both of these things, then in the same week announced a partnership with Red Bull in which the only way to get a piece of content (until Spring 2016) would be to buy Red Bull branded drinks and redeem a code found on the can. Thereby locking more content away. Bungie went into full PR mode and apologized to those gamers who had supported the game since launch by… offering to sell them that additional content (not the Red Bull content though) for an additional $20.

Like many others, I am at a loss for words for how badly this entire thing has been handled by Bungie. Once considered one of the premiere developers in gaming, they now look like they think of gamers as ATM machines and are actively looking for ways to squeeze more money out of them. Before I go to in-depth with my thoughts on this I wanted to toss it to you first. What’s you’re take on this situation? Do gamers have a right this time to be frustrated with Bungies practices here?

Nicholas: I’ve never been a massive fan of Halo, to the fact I’ve only ever played two of the games in the series, and by that same token, I’ve never been a big fan of Bungie. That’s not to say I don’t like them, but I never had that love and adoration that so many Halo fans do. This all said, it’s certainly been interesting to watch why I think has been the steady decline of Bungie over the past few years. There was so much hype that came with the announcement of Destiny, how it was going to be the next ‘big’ game and how the developers were going to be supporting it for ten years post launch, but when that launch finally happened it was as if gamers were completely split down the middle. Either you loved Destiny or you completely hated it. Regardless of which camp you sat in, despite the hype, there was no way (to me) that Destiny was going to go down with gamers as the classics of Halo before it.

Reading about Bungie’s E3 woes is all new to me, but as I look at it I can recognise how it is both OK and also a little shady. Starting with the former, releasing a collector’s edition for $80USD isn’t unlike a developer releasing a GOTY edition with their DLC to date bundled with the base  game. In this regard it isn’t really a problem and nor is it uncommon. If you’re new to the franchise it gives those latecomers a chance to feel like they were playing from launch in some respect. With the Red Bull promotion, again, it’s not that bad a thing in my opinion. A can costs maximum $5, and if it only takes a can or two to unlock some extra content then that’s fine by me. It’s a unique marketing tool and makes it different from your standard ‘purchase from the Xbox Store or PSN Store’.

If I look on the flip-side, what I think is stupid and only because it’s arrogant, is the comments made by the Creative Director. Whether your Bungie or Ghost Games, Infinity Ward or Turn10, the one thing you shouldn’t assume is gamers are going to love your game and you’ve got something amazing. What I mean is, certainly have confidence that your game is great, but to me, reading “you would throw money at the screen” just makes me want to react with “piss off”. It just seems too arrogant and actually turns me away to be honest. With regards to the Red Bull promotion, as unique as I said it is above, and it is for the gaming industry, it just feels… cheap. I’m not sure what the content is nor how many cans you need to unlock it, but it just devalues the DLC in my opinion when I need to unlock it by drinking an energy drink. Immediately my response is, “how good can it really be”. So it’s not that I hate it, but I’m sceptical of how good it will be is all.

As for whether gamers have the right to be frustrated, I don’t know. Gamers can certainly not support it, they can certainly find the comments by Smith distasteful, but whether they can be ‘frustrated’, I’m on the fence. To me it just seems like a  “if you don’t like it then don’t support it” situation. What about you though? What are your opinions on it all and what I’ve just said?

Andy: I know what you’re saying, and I agree with bits and pieces of what you said but I don’t agree with your overall view. I know that doesn’t make a ton of sense so let me explain. I see what you mean about a GOTY type edition, and those are fine because they allow those gamers who haven’t played the game to get an edition with all the content. That’s the rub with this ‘The Taken King’ Destiny Collector’s Edition though, it’s not a GOTY edition. It’s for collector’s and big fans of Destiny, this isn’t an edition to get new people to play the game. Especially with an $80 price tag. It just reeks of Bungie, and Activision, sitting up in an office laughing at how much money they can get from gamers who just want new content for a game that doesn’t have much content to begin with.

The Red Bull thing doesn’t bother me all that much, it’s probably a pretty small piece of content that won’t matter a whole lot. Sure it will suck if one person doesn’t have it but it’s the direction games are going now. What I find laughable, or insulting really, is Smith coming out after his horrendous interview and apologizing to Destiny fans in the most asshole fashion possible. One of the things that upset those hardcore fans are the fact those emotes and armour shaders are six minuscule pieces of content that have zero effect on the game, but these are the ‘extras’ included in that Collector’s Edition so the only way to get them is to spend that $80, which is a big “screw you” to fans who have been playing for the past year. Smith apologized to those fans and then said, we will make those available to everyone… for $20USD. It’s asinine that we are even talking about this, but at that price point for three emotes and three armour shaders Bungie essentially wants their dedicated gamers to pay the same price as the first two expansions. It’s mind boggling to me.

I think you hit the issue right on the nose when you talked about developers taking their fans for granted. That’s sure what it seems like to me here. There are some big Destiny fans out there, granted I’m not one of them, but I won’t knock anyone who enjoys playing it. I played, and after a month to a month and a half I was done. But there are a bunch of gamers who stuck by the game the past year when many others jumped ship. Yet, instead of rewarding those gamers, thanking them and celebrating with them; Bungie in their infinite wisdom instead decides to charge them more money for the privilege of playing. It goes against common sense and keeping your customers happy. But, and if history is any indication, gamers will still buy it. They will spend that $20 on six pieces of tiny digital content because it’s there.

To me these are the business practices that are seeping into the gaming industry that gamers need to take a hardline stand against. Yet, developers and publishers are being more and more brazen as to how far they will push the envelope in terms of seeing what gamers will keep shelling out money for. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, they (the developers and publishers) will keep doing it as long as there are enough gamers that buy it. I was one of the gamers who jumped on the hype train that was Destiny. I wanted to love it and I wanted to be amazed at the story and the lore. Maybe that’s part of my frustration with this, that for me, all Destiny has turned out to be is one disappointment after another. Instead of getting me curious about the game again, and drawing me back in – which it very well could have with a proper announcement and price plan – all the last two weeks have done is made me thankful I jumped off that bandwagon when I did. Is Bungie failing that badly at trying to engage their most hardcore fans, or are they just succeeding spectacularly at keeping people talking about their game and knowing those pissed off fans will still pay whatever Bungie wants them to?

Nicholas: That I’m not sure about, and I think it’s a very dangerous road to travel down if that’s the case. It is said that any publicity is good publicity, but I think there’s a limit to how much you can push your fan base until they start to fight back. With Bungie I think that limit is fast approaching. As I said before, their golden era was with Halo and it just doesn’t seem to me like they’re riding the same wave with Destiny, and if other gamers are having the same reaction to this news as you are, I just don’t know how much longer they’ll be willing to put up with.

I would like to think that most publishers and developers, if not all, want people to talk about their companies and products in a good light rather than a poor one, and I think EA is a great example of this. As ridiculous as the polls were, getting voted the ‘worst company in America’ was not a good achievement, and it’s clear they’ve taken steps to turn this around in recent times. If EA didn’t care, and if they were only interested with people talking about them regardless in which light, eventually it would lead to poor sales and I think Bungie would run the same risk if they were actually going down this path.

I wonder though, let’s assume that Bungie heard all this negative feedback and decided to scrap the Collector’s Edition and drop the Red Bull promotion. Let’s also assume that any additional content was priced relatively cheaply too. Would this be enough to change your opinion on the company? You mention bad practices are becoming more prevalent in this industry, but we’ve discussed how many are scrapped if there’s enough heat from consumers. Do you think gamers are silly to forgive companies like Bungie, EA and Ubisoft when they fix up poor judgement calls, or should we be willing to give all companies a second or third chance if they realise their mistakes? Is this forgiveness only leading to the chance of being abused again?

Andy: It’s kind of ironic that we have circled back to this. I mentioned in the opening that once a developer/publisher has a great reputation it’s really hard for them to lose it. On the flip side when a developer/publisher has a negative stigma attached to them it’s equally as hard to climb out of that hole as well. EA is a great example, they have been the punching bag – and rightly so at times – by many gamers. From bad launches for games, questionable DLC practices and the ever infamous online passes for their games. Like you said though, being voted “worst company” for a couple years in a row got them to pay attention and start implementing some changes. Are they perfect yet? No, not by any means but they have made some significant improvements for sure.

You ask the million dollar question, if Bungie relented and switched up their pricing to a more reasonable model, and made other changes with Destiny would it change my current opinion on them? At this point no, not really. If only because they are so hell bent on charging for every little piece of content, the game that they promised was anything but what they said it would be. I don’t know if they caught lightning in a bottle with Halo and were able to run with it as a one-trick pony for years. Now that the magic has worn off are they just another middling developer that can make games look nice but with little substance? Or, is Destiny an abomination and not truly indicative of what they can do? For as long as they worked on Destiny I have to think that it’s a true barometer of what they are about. Sadly, that seems to be greed.

Now, the answer to your last question is more involved. I truly believe in second chances, and third chances for that matter. Yet, the beauty of gaming is even if we want to give a developer a second, third, or fourth chance we don’t have to do it right away. We can wait for reviews to come out, we can wait for our friends to play it and see what they think and we can wait until the game is on sale or used before we give it a shot. Above all else, I’m a gamer, I just want to play games and have fun doing it. The ‘business’ side of gaming has always irritated me. I don’t mind paying for games, DLC, expansions or what have you. The issue I have is when I feel like I am being taken advantage of, when I am being nickel-and-dimed for every piece of content. And most importantly, when a AAA game uses free-to-play payment practices on top of the initial price of the game. When a developer does something like that, then I am not sure I am willing to give them a second chance to be honest.

How about you though? You and I have always been willing to share our views on things. How do you feel about giving companies second chances? Is there anything a company could do where you would write them off forever? Or are you pretty lenient and willing to let past mistakes stay in the past? Maybe the better question is should gamers as a whole be less forgiving so that certain practices aren’t repeated?

Nicholas: There are times when I am one of those loyal gamers who we’ve spoken about above. If a certain developer or publisher releases enough games that I like, then it’s likely I’ll be willing to continue to support them even when there are some questionable decisions made regarding how their games are made or their additional content released. For example, like we said, EA have made some arguably poor choices and released some average games, but with the love I have for Need For Speed and Mass Effect, I’m never really going to turn my back on them. Same goes with the Assassin’s Creed franchise and Ubisoft. Now, while I’ve mentioned that I’m ‘loyal’ it just means that I’ll not immediately rule out buying their games, it doesn’t mean I’ll buy each one or each DLC pack without hesitation. I still like to read reviews and opinions on whether I’ll like a game or not. That said, there are a few franchises where I’ll always buy the next instalment because I’m a fan.

It’s interesting though, even when we’ve discussed over-priced DLC or microtransactions, none of these things have ever really bothered me. Sure, I don’t support their implementation, but I’ve never been bothered by the fact they’re there. I couldn’t care less if there’s a $50 season pass for Batman: Arkham Knight or launch day DLC for Mass Effect 3. For me, it’s always been a case of “if I like it I’ll buy it, if not, I’ll leave it”. There’s really never been a developer that has done something so poorly that I’ve immediately ruled out ever buying a game from them no matter what they’ve done.

This makes me think though, are there any developers out there right now that you think have been consistently horrible in their practices and decisions lately? It’s still early days for Bungie, but are there any cases that come to mind of developers or publishers that are persistent in their scumbag-iness?

Andy: That’s a really good question, man I hate typing that. I’m not sure that there are any developers out there right now who I would flat out avoid because of their shady, exploitive practices. Rather, there are some games that I won’t get anymore because I haven’t liked the quality of their past couple iterations. For instance, Call of Duty. The last CoD game I actually enjoyed was Modern Warfare 3. Black Ops 2 was disappointing and the two games that followed did absolutely nothing for me so I am done with that series. Sadly, I am saying the same thing about Assassin’s Creed. Of the last three games the only one I enjoyed was Black Flag, I never finished AC3 or Unity. Both of those series have just taken developmental turns that no longer have me engaged or caring about them. So, it’s not so much about the developers shady practice but more on my perceived value of their games.

Here is the scary thing though, I’m becoming immune to shady practices, skimpy DLC and subpar games. For the most part, and to differing degrees I’ve come to expect each of those things. It should be the exact opposite, but within the past couple of years when I buy a game I think to myself “I wonder what will be wrong with it” or “I wonder what they are going to charge extra for.” Heck, we’re seeing already with games like The Division – a season pass has already been announced… for a game not out until next year. It’s obvious developers and publishers are trying to figure out how far they can take things to generate extra revenue for themselves. At the same time, it’s starting to seem like gamers are becoming more and more aware of these practices and they are starting to call attention to them. We’re not at the point of a lot of pushback yet, but I think developers should be on notice that we are getting dangerously close to the line of what gamers will and will not tolerate.

To wrap things up this week, do you think what Bungie has been going through the past couple of weeks is a good cautionary example for other developers? We’ve all seen different developers becoming more and more aggressive in additional things they charge gamers full on top of full price AAA games. For the most part gamers have accepted it, while complaining a little about it, but are we truly approaching a time when gamers flat out say “enough is enough”? After all, these developers can only push the envelope so far can’t they?

Nicholas: I think the case of Bungie is just another example of the same sort of thing we’ve been seeing for a while – if you’re going to make an unpopular decision then you better be prepared to explain it well enough as to not turn off gamers. The issue is that Bungie announced these new DLC plans and they followed it up with, “we can make anything and you’ll buy it.” Like I said, a bit of humility and a bit less doucheiness might have made a difference to how gamers reacted.

By the same token, developers and publishers need to stop treating gamers like we are bottomless pits with wallets waiting to be exploited. Between Bungie re-releasing Destiny and Warner Bros. shafting gamers last week with Batman Arkham Knight it just doesn’t fill us with confidence that these companies are about making a great product and more about making a great profit. Ultimately though, like we’ve always said, some companies will be great and others not so much. In the meantime, they just need to realise not to push too far, because even the greatest companies can fall from grace with just a few bad decisions.

Tune in next time for the next instalment of Game On or Game Over. If you have any ideas for our next article, feel free to contact Andy or Nicholas on Twitter.