We are living in a time when the gaming industry has become the largest industry in the world. This means that the competition has gone fierce and game developers really need to step up their game to deliver good content to their fans.
One small mistake today by any developer is enough to make its fan base switch to a better option. We have seen quite a few examples where corporate greed has led to famous franchises tumbling down from their top spot and into the pages of history.
We are all well aware of Destiny. It is a first-person shooter franchise by Bungie that was launched in 2014. Bungie is famous for its excellent work on the Halo franchise but sadly, this was not the case when Bungie launched Destiny.
It went through a tough time, as the game was buggy and had to be fixed. Bungie managed to save the first game by major fixes, new content and major DLC content, which transformed the game’s experience. You can view the original title’s trailer below:
Following Destiny’s staggered success, Destiny 2 was launched in 2017 and it was a disaster. It was not as buggy as the first title at launch but the real problem was that Destiny 2 had fallen prey to the curse of micro-transactions.
It was so intense that even some of the base game content was locked behind a paywall. This meant that players who bought the game at full price still needed to dish out more cash to access content that was already in the game. Check out the trailer for the game below:
Bungie faced severe criticism over this move. Bungie tried the same tactic, fixed the game a bit, and released two DLCs as well for the game, for a price of course.
However, this time, it feels that the damage has been done beyond any repair. Bungie’s repeated attempts to bring back the gamers to its franchise seem to be failing.
Destiny 2 has received two major expansions and the game has been out for only nine months. The DLCs have very good content in them but still, Destiny 2 has lost most of its fan base.
People seem to have left the game for good and Destiny 2 is not on anyone’s radar anymore.
This was later removed with a future update but the players who were already upset with Bungie were pushed to their limit with this move.
We have heard very few about the game lately and the only time even Bungie was excited to say something about the game was when it latest DLC came out. You can check the trailer for the latest DLC for Destiny 2 below:
The worst factor to contribute to this factor has been microtransactions. To top it all off, Destiny 2 lacked everything that the original title had. Players were not allowed to transfer their characters and their gear.
Players had spent hours and hours trying to get all that gear only to leave it in the first game and start fresh with Destiny 2. Even the loot of Destiny 2 is not up to par with the first game.
All this added to the misery to the players who now seem to have moved on from Destiny 2.
At this point, we can compare Destiny 2 with Warframe because Warframe offers pretty much everything that Destiny 2 does and even more.
Warframe was released in 2013 as a free to play the first-person shooter that offered both singleplayer and online multiplayer. Warframe has come a long way since its launch and is now a title that is frequently in the top charts of Steam.
This does not force the players to first pay a premium price for the game and then later pay for extra items as well which are helpful for playing the game.
Guardians! We heard Ghaul stole your weapons.
No worries, we’ve got your back!
Congrats to the team @Bungie on #Destiny2! pic.twitter.com/2Kqib3UDAV
— WARFRAME (@PlayWarframe) September 6, 2017
This is one of the reasons behind Warframe’s huge success and the main reason behind its ability to maintain a strong community even after 5 years of its launch.
This could work out for Destiny 2 as well. At its current stage, people will continue to leave Destiny 2 because new players are hesitant to jump onboard a dying game.
If Bungie makes Destiny 2 free to play, it can then hope to attract new fan base to the game and later give them better incentives to stick with the game.
If a player is getting a game for free and he likes the game, he will spend more money on the game. This is the current trend of all huge games nowadays.
We can take an example of Fortnite as well which is a free to play the game and even the items which are locked behind a paywall are only cosmetic, still, people are paying to Epic Games for these cosmetic items because they like the game and there is no catch when downloading a free game.
Currently, Fortnite is giving heavy returns to Epic Games just based on the cosmetic items being behind a paywall.
Bungie had a very strong player base with Destiny but it has nearly lost all of that community because Destiny 2 failed to deliver on every front.
Still, if Bungie wants to see Destiny 2 come back to life, their best bet is to make the game free-to-play. This will attract players to the game, which have been reluctant to pay a premium price for the game and still pay more for in-game content.
If Destiny 2 wants to survive at least as long as the first game did, it needs to really make the fans happy and bring back the community that has left the game broken hearted.
Let us know in the comments section below your thoughts about whether Bungie should make Destiny 2 a free to play game or not. Will this change the current state of the game or has it gone beyond the limit of coming back to it’s formal glory?
