Destiny fans explode over potential microtransactions, Bungie says not to worry

Destiny now offers microtransactions. It happened, and it's not very likely to un-happen. Right now, the Eververse Trading Company is only selling emotes - special gestures and dances - but some players are dreading what comes next, fearful that Activision and Bungie will start selling items that grant those who purchase them a leg up on their fellow players. After datamining the game and its recent 2.0.1 patch, players found new, unintroduced items that stoked those pay-to-win fears.

Alongside the emotes, players discovered consumable buffs designed to increase loot drop rates when completing the King's Fall raid (the most challenging, most-rewarding piece of content in the recently-launched expansion, The Taken King). They also found consumable buffs that would grant increased XP when killing enemies, "starter packs" that would boost a character to level 25 with a fully-upgraded subclass, and "subclass infusions" which would fully upgrade a subclass. Seems pretty damning, right? Well, don't bust out the pitchforks just yet.

As you can see above, Taken King creative director Luke Smith tweeted that Bungie has no plans to sell the King's Fall raid buffs for Silver, and wrote on NeoGAF that the plan was for these items to be sold by a different NPC in exchange for a currency other than Silver. Smith noted that the buffs were removed for bug-related reasons and have existed in the game's files since before The Taken King launched.

The Destiny community is split on this. Some have taken Smith's silence on the other buffs listed as acknowledgement that they will indeed be sold for Silver, and are pledging to quit the game if that happens. Others have pointed out such buffs are pretty common in the world of MMOs (which, whether you qualify Destiny as an MMO or not, it's a genre from which it takes many cues), and that items like Three of Coins already boost high-quality drop rates in exchange for in-game currency.

If there were a calm post on the Bungie forums that didn't call someone on the other side an idiot or worse, I'd quote it. As it stands, everyone - no matter their position - is pretty mad. Can't we all just get along and dance The Carlton?

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!

Sam Prell

Sam is a former News Editor here at GamesRadar. His expert words have appeared on many of the web's well-known gaming sites, including Joystiq, Penny Arcade, Destructoid, and G4 Media, among others. Sam has a serious soft spot for MOBAs, MMOs, and emo music. Forever a farm boy, forever a '90s kid.

Latest in Destiny
Key art for Destiny 2's Heresy Episode.
"A fun example of a bug becoming a feature": Destiny 2 accidentally made Exotic Glaives free to all classes, and Bungie says "we're going to let this ride"
Destiny 2 Episode 3 Heresy screenshot of Eris Morn
Destiny 2's new Episode suggested the upcoming Apollo expansion will launch on July 15, but that date has mysteriously been scrubbed from the game
Destiny 2 Guardian in Taken energy
Bungie yanked Destiny 2 servers offline for emergency maintenance as Episode 3: Heresy got off to a rocky start, but it looks like we're back in business
Destiny 2 Star Wars armor sets
"Oryx is back": Destiny 2's final Episode takes the MMO to the site of the iconic Taken King expansion for a Coil-inspired roguelite mode, and also Star Wars armor
Destiny 2 guardian in scorn armor
How to get Destiny 2 Twitch Drops and link your accounts
Destiny 2 Kell's Fall art
The Destiny 2 dev behind Titan's game-changing Banner of War was also on its new Exotic shotgun Slayer's Fang: "I gotta live up to this, especially as my first gun"
Latest in News
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Dark Souls 2 fans remind Death Stranding 2 director Hideo Kojima that he won’t be taking the DS2 acronym that easily
Minecraft Diamond Armor
Minecraft Pocket Edition got its name because one of its devs was a big "Nintendo nerd" who wanted to pay homage to the Game Boy Pocket
Death Stranding 2
Hideo Kojima says Death Stranding's themes of connection came about because "I thought I lost everything when I became alone nine years ago"
Monster Hunter Wilds trailer screenshot showing a young woman with long blonde hair tied back into a ponytail smiling slightly, pumping her left fist in the air
Monster Hunter Wilds' infamously confusing menus spare no player, not even Gemma's voice actor herself: "This is honestly what I’m struggling with the most"
Death Stranding 2 kiss
Hideo Kojima says "it was very difficult to direct" Death Stranding 2's big kiss scene, but Norman Reedus thinks "it was niiice" locking lips with Léa Seydoux
Ms. Marvel alongside the mutants of Age of Apocalypse
30 years after the original Age of Apocalypse, Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan will travel to the alt-reality to save X-Men history