It’s funny to me that Destiny: The Dark Below will probably get trashed by most of the Internet gaming media (which means that it’ll get something along the lines of an 8.99999993/10), who will then be baffled that people will still buy the expansion and wonder why their strongly-worded reviews did not bring about the end of Destiny. In fact, Destiny as a franchise is fast becoming the new Call of Duty: loved by Internet critics, loved by “the unwashed masses”, hated by the “hardcore”. Or at the very least, certain members of the “hardcore”.

For better or worse, the “era” is over, if it really existed. I think Destiny shows that gamers as a whole no longer care about on-disk DLC (or at least not enough to affect their purchase) or content being cut so it can be added as DLC later. This probably has some distasteful long-term consequences for the gaming industry, and I think it’s a bit of a shame that The Axis Of Evil(tm) basically trudged ahead and did whatever they wanted and gamers as a whole just kind of went with it.

I think it’s kind of the same reason it’s funny to watch people just get angry and when the person they’re upset at doesn’t react at all, it just makes them even angrier. Impotent rage is kind of funny to me, and impotent Internet rage is even funnier because of how hyperbolic and self-important it can get. I kind of like it when overly self-important gaming communities get put in their place. Not to worry, though, guys, you can still take comfort that your choices in media make you superior to the unwashed masses.

Getting back to Destiny as the new Call of Duty, I can’t decide whether it should have been expected or not. On one hand, it had so much hype that a bit of backlash was inevitable, but on the other hand, I’m not sure anyone could have anticipated this kind of reaction from certain sections of the Internet gaming community, even factoring in that the Internet lends itself to a bit of hyperbole. Expected or not, though, it’s causing some weird cognitive dissonance all across the Internet. Are we “supposed” to love it or hate it? I don’t know the answer to that question.

2 thoughts on “Destiny: The Dark That Sits Below The Internet Gaming Community”

  1. We see it alot these days, online games or games with huge online components. Most don’t give a second thought as to what it costs to keep them going.
    I think an important thing to keep in mind is most games that have this kind of online integration typically come with a subscription. I’m not going to make an argument for or against in disc dlc. It’s clear that this is a call made by the publishers, the ones bank rolling the creative minds working on the project.
    Why do it? Maybe the game ended up costing more than anticipated. Maybe the costs of maintaining the game were higher than expected. Credit a very savvy audience for being able to recognize the changes made to the final product, but in the end its discovery is absolutely meaningless.
    The point is, this strategy is optional and up to the end user. I took the plunge, and I can say that at this moment the price versus the amount of content has me unsure if I would buy the next expansion.
    We are always wanting bigger and more. Clearly 60 bucks per copy isn’t covering that anymore. I’m not sure what the best way is to make it work, but this is far from the worst option.
    #millennialsarebitches

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    1. The point is, this strategy is optional and up to the end user. I took the plunge, and I can say that at this moment the price versus the amount of content has me unsure if I would buy the next expansion.

      I’m actually a bit surprised to read this, given how gung-ho you’ve been about the game so far.

      I think you bring up a good point, though. It’s strange that for as much as we (by which I mean the Internet gaming community at large) pride ourselves on how much we know, sometimes we forget how to apply the knowledge in practice. I think a bit of transparency in the financial aspects of video games would be helpful, but on the other hand, I’m reminded of a particular thread on NeoGAF where people were completely unable to accept some basic economics behind video game development despite the fact that multiple developers and publishers entered the thread to confirm that the numbers were accurate. What good is it to pride yourself on attracting developers and publishers to post on your forum if you can’t accept what they have to say?

      #millennialsarebitches #isthatarealhashtag

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