Last month, Bungie made a number of announcements in the Destiny 2020 Director's Cut news post made on the company's official blog. Among the many announcements was a change that would be coming to Destiny 2 and the way that the game would be handling microtransactions and bright engrams in the future.
In the most recent This Week at Bungie, the Destiny 2 developer went a little more in-depth as to what this means for the future of the series and the fate of bright engrams. According to the post, this is all being done in an effort to make it more clear what players are buying when they purchase items at Tess Everis' Eververse.
Removing Bright Engrams
To begin, according to the latest announcements from Bungie, Destiny 2 will be removing the ability to purchase bright engrams from the Eververse shop during Season of the Worthy. This doesn't mean that the game won't have any microtransactions anymore, nor does it mean that bright engrams will be disappearing either. The exact wording only claims that the cosmetic granting engrams will no longer be available to purchase from the store, meaning players will only be available by earning them through leveling up.
In the blog posts that mention this removal from the Eververse, which are both fairly short, the reason given for no longer being able to buy bright engrams is to remove randomness from monetary transactions. Considering how long these types of microtransactions have been a long running piece of contention between players and developers, it makes sense for company's like Bungie to begin shying away from the practice. However, seeing as how Destiny 2 is currently a free-to-play title, there are still things within the Eververse for players to purchase if they're looking to gain special cosmetics or support the game.
Doubling Down on Battle Pass
Moving forward, Bungie will be focusing prominently on the Battle Pass for delivering most of the incentives to support Destiny 2 with in-game purchases. There will still be items available for silver, including some that were previously only available through bright engrams. However, the developer has stated that it doesn't intend to make any other grand changes to the microtransaction system other than the removal of purchasable bright engrams at this moment.
Again, this comes down to an intent to give players a clearer view of what they are buying when they make purchases with silver or other monetary options. That being said, the Battle Pass system will be getting tweaked in the future to keep players from endlessly farming relatively boring content in order to grind up the experience quickly. Now, while the wording about these changes claims to put the actions in the favor of the players, this does come after some time of players complaining about the randomness of bright engrams, as well as the overall RNG of Destiny 2.
Loot Box Controversies
A number of controversies have made life hard for developers looking to maximize on sales since the introduction of loot boxes in some of the world's most popular games. Titles like Battlefront 2 and Overwatch that already cost $60 on release, but still charged extra in order to unlock content, sometimes affecting gameplay, has been a hot topic for fan backlash. In that case, Bungie wasn't exactly seen as a saint either, considering that Destiny 2 originally launched as a $60 game that also included loot box style microtransactions, on top of periodic DLC updates.
As a result, while plenty of fans are happy to see bright engrams stop being the way that Destiny 2 will try to squeeze money out of players, others are understandably upset over how long its taken in order for them to make this change. However, while some of the decisions that the developers and publishers have previously made throughout the game's lifecycle have been questionable at best, this is a positive sign that big gaming company's are taking player input to heart. Granted, it is entirely possible that the decision to change the marketing strategies for the game has come from the recent freedom Bungie has had from its previous publisher.
Divorce from Activision
The wording in that subtitle is fairly harsh, as the public separation of Bungie and Activision was remarkably civil, considering how much money was tangled up in the partnership. That doesn't say much about how negotiations were handled behind closed doors between the publishing giant and the longtime game developer. However, considering how a number of marketing strategies changed for Destiny 2 after the two companies went their separate ways, it is likely that the inclusion of microtransactions in general were a choice by the publishers looking to gain a return on the investment.
It should be noted that much of this is speculation, as there is plenty about the behind the scenes of both companies that is completely unknown to the general public. Additionally, to a degree it is the intent of any business to make money in the most efficient way possible, so on paper a lot of the least popular decisions generally don't come out of maliciousness, but out of an understanding of business. That being said, when a certain strategy draws a massive point of contention between the developers and players of any game, it is generally in the best interest of the developer to look back at the strategy in order to keep a dedicated fan base.
Funding Destiny 3
Looking again at how Destiny 2 is currently free-to-play to a degree, with only the cosmetic items within Eververse and the Battle Pass bringing in money to the series, there is a question of how Destiny 3 will get financed in the future. In this case, making a good-will move like removing the most controversial microtransactions from the game is probably one of the best ways to gain some fan admiration and keep a dedicated fan base. However, with Destiny 3 not coming anytime soon, Bungie will likely need to be making sure that the community remains engaged if the company is looking to keep the lights going long enough to work on more expansions and sequels.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.