Yes, $45 now. $30 if you have a nearby Sears (in-store only) or fortunate enough to pricematch it at BestBuy and whatnot that is YMMV because there is no stock to ship.
I wouldn't recommend this game for $45 because of the DLC shenanigans, and I would be hard pressed to recommend someone buy Expansion Pass I before trying out the game, which is bare enough as it now than before.
i keep thinking about this post
I would be okay with all this if it didn't feel like I was paying for the privilege of continuing to play a game I once had access to.
Well, you're not though. You've described an actual subscription, the value proposition is totally different, and I never play games with subscription fees, I personally just can't do it with my personality type and habits.
I'll give you an example. If you're a PvP-only player, the DLC is nowhere even remotely close to a solar system's worth paying for IMO. The new maps and weapons alone are just simply not worth it. But they can continue playing, actually as much as they want, without any real disruption, and should as long as they feel like it.
Instead of increasing rewards, they put rewards behind a paywall. That's not really rewarding but stingy.
that is definitely true.
And they expect me to recommend this game to people for $80 just to play it?
but yeah ABSOLUTELY not. no way I would ever consider that a solid value proposition.
If I were going to try to sell Destiny today in the sense of recommending it to a friend, I would first ask if they were able to buy it on PS4 or not today. Much as it sucks, to me the game is simply worth more money right now on Sony's console despite their shittier online infrastructure.
Then I'd tell them
it's $45 and they can probably get their money's worth if they had fun with shooting things in the early Halo games, and aren't averse to PvP, and also he'd have people to play with.
Then if they bought it and liked it, I'd say that there's a way overpriced DLC with another raid, for $20 or $17.50 if they were on board enough to want another after that. But, if they could hold off, the chances of a game of the year edition or discounts on both the base game and expansions were pretty high.
I guess I know a couple friends who would probably enjoy destiny and I used to play Halo co-op with but don't have PS4s, and so I can't play with them, and my guess would honestly be that they'd wind up buying at least TDB after getting hooked. But that's really neither here nor there and speculation of course. I'm sure you all have anecdotes of your friends quitting forever that you could produce on demand too, I'm just bringing it up because it's something I think about. Beating Halo 2 Legendary with my buddy that grew up on the same street as me is such a fun memory from like over a decade ago... I would love to raid with him one day.
Generally speaking, the value proposition of Destiny (in a different way than, for example a game with a traditional monthly subscription model) increases for new players the longer the game has been out, because that's the way boxed game sales work. Guild Wars 2 is $40 and goes on sale for $20. I could buy Starcraft II for $18.30 right now if I didn't own it.
Combined with that, Destiny will always include mechanics that ease the burden of the intermediate stopgap (levels 21 through around two levels below the cap) for a new player compared to a veteran. Upon hitting 20 you don't have to catch up to people, and
then go after the new viable tier of gear- you just start working toward that tier from the baseline.
But by all means, if you don't support what Bungie is doing, and don't want to reinforce it, that's a better reason not to recommend it. Sales don't come with asterisks, and the better Destiny sells the more likely Bungie is to stay the course than to dramatically alter core systems or change course. Don't purchase any future DLC either- especially when it first comes out. And that last part will be most important when Destiny 2 comes out- don't buy it
at launch unless you want to indicate that Destiny is a good thing that you want lots of. Those numbers mean things to the industry and I think the signal most people want to send is the one that would be sent if Destiny 2 sells less than Destiny 1.
Anyway, this actually is sort of an experimental pricing model. How it performs over the next few years will definitely influence if Bungie keeps doing similar things as well as if other companies attempt to replicate it.
