1980: A Right Way and A Wrong Way

I know I said I wouldn’t write about Heavensward again today and I’m not going to focus on it too much, but it will enter into the discussion a little, for reasons that will shortly become apparent.

The separately-sold “expansion pack” as it existed in the ’90s and early ’00s is something of a rarity these days, typically confined to the MMORPG subgenre, while other types of games tend to leverage the high-speed Internet connections most people have these days by offering lots of smaller bits of piecemeal downloadable content.

In some ways, this works well; the “a la carte” approach of piecemeal DLC means that you can pick and choose the things you want to bolt onto your game for a lower price without potentially being stuck with some things you don’t want. On the flip side, however, in my experience, a lot of DLC — though not all — is significantly less substantial in terms of content and value for money than your average expansion pack. There are exceptions, of course — Oblivion’s Shivering Isles DLC springs to mind, as does Burnout Paradise’s additional island whose name escapes me right now — but those are actually both getting back into “expansion pack” territory again, and thus are outliers to a certain degree.

Bungie’s MMO shooter and “thing that isn’t Halo” Destiny had its new expansion announced recently, and it’s kicked up a bit of a fuss, specifically over its pricing. The base game of Destiny has plummeted in price since its original launch, meaning that the new expansion — which costs the same as a full game at £40/$60ish — will, in most cases, be more expensive than the main game. But that’s not what’s got people riled up: the problem is that there’s a super-expensive “Collector’s Edition” coming that features some exclusive content that can only be acquired through this special edition.

Nothing unusual, you might think, until you hear that the Collector’s Edition is only available as a bundle deal including Destiny, its expansion and the pieces of DLC that have been released to date. This means that fans of Destiny who want to get their hands on the exclusive content pretty much have to buy the game and DLC again just to play the expansion. And the alternative means of buying the game for new players — a bundle including Destiny and its expansion for around the £55 mark — effectively means that new players are getting the expansion for considerably less than veterans.

I can’t say I care a whole lot personally because Destiny simply isn’t my type of game, but what surprised and dismayed me a bit about the whole situation was this interview on Eurogamer with creative director Luke Smith — a guy I don’t know that well myself, but who used to work with my brother and was, as I recall, part of the 1up crew. Smith was, to my recollection, always rather outspoken about things, particularly when it came to companies doing shitty things, so it was a tad disappointing to read his responses to Eurogamer coming out as little more than PR-fed “we can’t talk about this” nonsense. And if it was PR-fed, the PR company wants sacking, because Smith’s responses did nothing to alleviate the concerns of players who are upset over all this, and more than likely infuriated them further.

The reason I brought up Heavensward at the beginning is because it’s actually in a similar position to Destiny’s expansion. Final Fantasy XIV itself can be picked up for a pretty low price these days, but Heavensward is not-quite-full-price-but-nearly. The difference, however, is that both existing and prospective players have plenty of choices of how they pick it up. They can buy A Realm Reborn and Heavensward separately. They can buy a bundle including both A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. They can buy Heavensward by itself, in standard and special editions. And they can buy most of these options in both physical and digital formats.

As such, even though Heavensward might seem expensive for an expansion pack — though it’s worth noting that in terms of content, it’s seriously rivalling A Realm Reborn’s base game, at least in terms of story length, sidequests and open-world areas — the player base has had absolutely no objections to how it’s been positioned and sold. In fact, I’ve seen more new players in the game in the last week or so than I have for a very long time — and those new players won’t even be able to touch any of the Heavensward content until they complete A Realm Reborn and its five subsequent content patches.

But they don’t mind, because they’ve been given options, and those options have been made clear. Where Bungie is falling down with Destiny — and where they’re going to lose a lot of previously loyal players if they’re not careful — is this communication side of things. Smith’s responses suggested that Bungie was either unwilling or unable to listen to player concerns on these matters; it may well be a matter of the company’s hands being tied by publisher Activision, but still. That’s not how you build loyalty. That’s how you destroy loyalty.

P.S. Heavensward is amazing. (Sorry.)