One of the most interesting aspects of the gaming industry is how prevalent microtransactions have become. Of course, it affects us gamers, but the weird thing is that the spread of these things is not really anomalous with respect to the rest of our economy either. Understanding how microtransactions play out in games is an important case study in understanding a lot of things about the world today.
There’s no clearer case it seems than the Eververse Store in Destiny 2. Obviously the game hasn’t become pay-to-win, but it is quickly becoming pay-to-stand-out, which is just a different variant of microtransactions that are becoming increasingly popular for gaming companies everywhere. Why is this? Well, the answer is pretty simple: It’s profitable. Many of us keep buying this stuff.
Anybody who has been playing Destiny 2 recently can confirm that this is the case. Go through the game, have a look at any of the characters running around, and those that are standing out the most are likely getting a lot of their gear from the Eververse store.
In the past, whenever you saw an awesome looking character, you would invariably end up clicking on them to see what quests they have completed in order to get their gear. It is just such a shame that, more and more, doing this winds up finding gear that can only be bought on the Eververse store.
Is it really worth it to pay to look cool? Well, if there’s any indication from Destiny 2‘s gameplay, then it seems lots of us think it totally is worth it. Why else would developers offer up so much gear, many of which is actually more expensive than lots of DLC available for the game? People are buying this stuff.
But the saddest part about the increasing dominance of in-game stores for loot-based games like Destiny 2 is that it completely defeats the entire purpose of the game. If the fun of the game is ranking up, collecting cool new loot, and making your character stand-out or be better at doing what you do, then all of this purchasable loot is basically taking the fun out of the game.
Even more than this, however, is the fact that a lot of this loot can’t even be acquired through quest lines. You can only buy it with real dollars. If gamers want gaming to remain an enjoyable past time, they will have to learn to hold off on making too many purchases like this in the future. We’re only incentivizing bad practices, and Destiny 2 is quickly becoming the poster child for this worrying trend.
