Comparing the Costs of MMOs to Destiny 2

[@simonrobineau2520]

For day 1 veterans D2 was never free to play. In fact we lost money when the DCV was introduced.

[@HonestPug]

Yeah this is true, I still miss the Leviathan raid. But only people who played back then lost money. New players who are coming to the game right now are not losing any money, unless you make the argument for seasons which is why I didn't include those costs since they're not permanent. But even then F2P players have access to more raids then we did buying Destiny 1 & 2 at launch, 3 vs 1.

[@cynthiahembree3957]

I do want to note that if FFXIV locked raids or any other content behind a paywall (like a dungeon key) Square Enix would be crucified. Or if they decide to remove Eorzea from the game. The issue isn't the price it's what you are getting for that price. I regret the money I spent on Destiny. I would spend the amount on FFXIV again several times over. It's a really good game with really solid updates and a consistent update schedule. I sadly can't say the same for Destiny.

[@HonestPug]

Don't they lock new raids behind expansions? Plus with Destiny you don't pay for a sub, so you can come back anytime to experience content you paid for unlike FFXIV. And Destiny has gotten some good updates over the years. I still remember quitting during Year 1 when Destiny was at its worst, and came back when things got better. The game now is 1000% better than it was during it's first year. For example, a new free-to-player can play 3 different raids, compared to only 1 raid in both vanilla Destiny 1 & 2 (which you had to buy the games at launch).

[@Kellial55]

i regret to differ with "Plus with Destiny you don't pay for a sub, so you can come back anytime to experience content you paid for unlike FFXIV. " they REMOVED content that i paid in destiny 2 i had bought those extention but we can't even play it anymore. I think you are a little biased in your opinion of the game which is fine because every opinion is subjective but please don't say you can come back anytime to destiny to play what you paid for when it's not. Have a nice day:)@@HonestPug

[@HonestPug]

You're referring to content that was sunsetted. Yes that sucked, I miss the Leviathan raid, but they said they aren't doing that anymore. Going forward we're not going to see that happen, hopefully. The only content that gets removed is seasonal content, but even then some of it remains as playable strikes. You can still play Shadowkeep content to this day which came out 4 years ago for example. Believe it or not I'm not being biased, I just have a $1 paid per hour played mindset which is why I personally don't think asking for $230 for all the paid content they offer is unreasonable. (I've paid way more than that for all the content in the game, and I have over 2.6k hours played since Destiny 2 came over to Steam) TLDR: You can still play content that came out in 2019.

[@Kellial55]

Yeah i was refering to that and while they said that they won't remove anymore i guess i'm just wary of big named companies and live service games nowaday . While i understand your mindset for 1$ per hour played, i'm more of how worth is that hour compared to other games or i paid for something worth it. for my exemple i paid for swtor subscription for a month and now i have acces to all of it anytime and they won't remove it. While for destiny you pay the same price for dungeon and even if they said they won't remove things anymore there is a precedent. (Dunno if i made myself clear as english isn't my first langage ^^") I guess for you who have 2.6K hour on destiny 2 and paid for it on years it is worth, but i wonder how it is for a new player who want to acces to all of the content and have to buy all of it without knowing if they'll spend as much time as you or if they'll regret what they bought. Anyway i liked your video and the message, i just wanted to point that out :) @@HonestPug

[@HonestPug]

Yeah no worries, you're good. I worry for new players too which is why I made this video with the core focus on content that is more permanent, and why I ended the video with, "The real question you have to ask yourself is, do you want to spend money to experience content beyond what's available for free in Destiny?"

[@HorrorCrisisTime]

You can play the entirety of ff14’s campaign AND its first two massive expansions for absolutely free. That alone is hundreds and hundreds of hours of game time for literally zero dollars. And it’s not repeating content either like when you’re constantly doing the same strikes and the same pvp maps like in D2. I also don’t know if I would actually consider D2 an MMO itself. It’s got a few open world planets but a large majority of the content is instanced with only a small fireteam playing at once. It’s multiplayer and online, but it lacks the MASSIVE part of MMO

[@HonestPug]

I consider any game that has raids a MMO.

[@AllisonWilliams-o5f]

This video comes across as very intentionally disingenuous. Not including the seasons in the yearly cost isn't right as it is 'required' purchases if you want to keep up with actual current content and story. Without buying the seasons you don't gain access to any new story content, new exotics, new activities, and basically the entire update progression of the expansions. The excuse of "they're not permanent content" is moot since /nothing/ is permanent content in Destiny anymore. I paid for Red War and everything else that got sunset and now it's gone. By your logic the cost of Destiny 2 would be $0

[@HonestPug]

Exotics that are released each season can be unlocked for free. From a narrative perspective, yes, purchasing seasons is required, but honestly the point I was trying to make was that over time the amount of money you spend on content isn't that much compared to subscription based MMOs. Personally I play Destiny 2 for expansion content. Yes sunsetting WAS a thing, but they openly stated that they're not going to do that anymore and hopefully they don't (they really can't afford to go back on their word at this point lol.) You can still play the entirety of Shadowkeep which came out in 2019. And the Dreaming City, along with the dungeon and raid, is still in the game from Forsaken which came out in 2018.

[@pyrrhos8175]

Can't state on the other entries as I've either not played or only experienced the F2P versions, but the cost of playing FFXIV listed here is wrong. Free Trial - Base game levels 1-50, Heavensward expansion 51-60, Stormblood expansion (recent change) 61-70. No subscription required. Each expansion is about 85hrs of story then side content on top ranging from raiding to crafting to mass public survey zones to two roguelite zones that alone can deliver hundreds of hours especially if you wish to go solo, and that trend continues to the later expansions. The Online Starter Edition purchase is not required to be purchased. It is the free trial content with access to full multiplayer features for those expacs, such as messaging, hosting cross world parties (can still be invited to), pvp, free companies (guilds), housing, surpassing the in game currency cap, and the community ran market boards using said currency. This is predominantly a carry over from when they made the free trial and needed something for people who were old players but had only purchased what would be come free trial content. Repeat this does NOT EVER need to be purchased. It offers nothing in terms of content and is purely a legal relic for veteran players who wish to still play but not progress. Current expansion (currently Endwalker) which includes all prior DLC - 40 upfront price, 90days of free sub, 13 a month afterwards. First year would = 157. FFXIV expansions come out every 2 years, but since Endwalker is coming to a close yes you would have to pay for Dawntrail next summer if you have caught up and wish to continue, but if you are a fresh player the Free Trial will offer more than enough content to make it to summer next year considering it without any measure of side content such as raiding is 255 hours. Dawntrail if it follows past trends will be 60 dollars then have the subscription fee on top, making its first year the 216 you came up to, then the second year 156. Preordering will also likely come with a nonconsumable item to boost XP gains below the new expansion to assist catching up making your time more worthwhile permanently. As for content being taken out of the game as that is a very heavy criticism of Destiny 2 being fronted as a story driven mass multiplayer game, the only content that leaves is either seasonal or so historically bad that it needed to go to later be replaced (FFXIV 1.0 or the Heavensward Diadem area). Seasonal content that was missed usually becomes a microtransaction or is reintroduced the following year as an in game currency purchase, but some are legitimate cases of FOMO until reintroduced such as the FFXV multiplayer mount or the recent 10th year anniversary mount, but they are all cosmetic and their uses have alternatives even for f2p members. This video is a good idea in concept but I feel like it is lacking in research and being very biased toward encapsulating Destiny as a game you don't need to stick with as a main game as its intended design. This is despite the game advertising itself otherwise with year long bundles including content you refuse to acknowledge as part of experience which mainly function as the games story and patch content to keep it active. Putting these other MMOs under the same lens would further hurt your argument. IE, if you were to play FFXIV only for the story it would equate to a 60 dollar upfront purchase plus 6 instances of resubbing (5 patches of story plus a closure .55 patch that transitions to the new expansion). That would total out to being 138 dollars every two years. This can even be further lowered if you are good enough at dodging spoilers by only playing the month leading to the new expansion for the patch content, making two years of content complete for 73 dollars. I personally find 14 and Destiny to be very comparable both being 10yr long overarching storylines with very rough starts reaching their conclusions around the same time in the games industry. Hell both games have trouble catering to a midcore audience as well as having burnout troubles during down time, but the execution of both companies to deliver their respective products to keep their players interested and involved speaks for itself. At the end of the day monetization is subjective on a person's willingness to spend and their personal ability to, but in regards to the situation at Bungie and Destiny 2 it's a whole other world of problems beyond just the money that they need to tackle. There's a reason someone like Chris Metzen or Yoshida are seen as heroes of their communities but Pete Parsons is currently getting more of a viewing that Bobby Kotick is known for.

[@boardguy2]

Bruh leaving the rick roll was devious.

[@ThePunchBag]

good video, glad youtube recommended it. I bought all expansions for destiny 2 over the years at full cost and dont even play anymore. sad

[@HonestPug]

I bought all the expansions, and before it went F2P I bought the deluxe edition lol. With the way things are going The Final Shape might be my final year of playing Destiny 2.

[@ExtraHecticana]

Wow is actually pretty good right now

[@aiyemhim]

I get the inflation of prices, but what's so shameless is that they slashed away contents that are usually in those bundles and then inflate the prices at the same time. Also the slashed contents are put behind a pay wall with unrealistic price tag The skin bundles are way too overpriced, costing more than a full game from steam store. Used to love this game, now i can say that with all money grabbing tactics the company has littered onto it.

[@Sage16226]

One flaw thing in this video is that destiny is not an mmo. Its mmo lite at best, it does not provide all the features that is provided from mmos

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

True but Bungie definitely monetizes it like a MMO

[@HonestPug]

Personally I think that any game that has raids is considered a MMO.

[@aiyemhim]

​@@HonestPugsure by definition it can be an mmo. But by any mmo standards, destiny2 is far fetched from being one.

[@RvLeshrac]

You seem to be confused about what the arguments are. It isn't purely about how much Destiny 2 costs on an annual basis. It is about the ROI on that cost. When the year is done, all that Destiny 2 content vanishes. You paid $10 per season for content you can never again replay. When you buy GW2 content, it stays there. WoW content, stays there. FFXIV content, stays there. ESO content, stays there. LOTRO content, stays there. Yes, there may be global events that remove content. They're exceptionally rare, world-changing events, which have ALWAYS introduced more content than they have removed.

[@HonestPug]

Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me you didn't watch the video lol.

[@nl4041]

Forget micro transactions, the game itself is such a scam, most of the dlc is barely worth 10$. How about all the scummy moves they made too throttling xp etc

[@tomrisk9287]

so you're saying, bcs the other major MMOs are +200, then it's okay for d2 to be as well... okay... i think i'm convinced... will still complain each time i buy a dungeon key.

[@HonestPug]

I'm a big advocate for paying for content vs paying for access via subscriptions.

[@cynthiahembree3957]

@@HonestPug And this would be fine if they didn't remove said content.

[@HonestPug]

They only remove seasonal content, and I never included seasons in my pricing calculations. My main focus was more on the content that you can play permanently.

[@Sohelanthropus]

Well, it does cost more than all the others, and even more so if you include Seasons (which all of them are trash btw, and skipping one or many doesn't really affect the player) BUT it has way less content than the others So, most expensive for least amount of content award goes to: Destiny 2

[@HonestPug]

But I could argue that's due to the games being older. -Runescape 2001 -EVE Online 2003 -LOTRO 2007 -SWTOR 2011 -GW2 2012 -BDO 2014 -ESO 2014 -FFXIV 2010 -WOW 2004 -Destiny 2 2017 It would be cool if in the future they combine all the content from Destiny 1 & 2, but that's never going to happen lol.

[@purefoldnz3070]

The Destiny logo still looks like a jock strap

[@HonestPug]

Oh my god, why? NOW I SEE IT!

[@purefoldnz3070]

@@HonestPug once it is seen it can never be unseen!

[@HonestPug]

I can't believe I have to post this, but it seems there's some confusion about what I'm trying to say in the video. I was exclusively focusing on content that is permanent which is why I excluded seasons from my calculation for Destiny 2 costs. So here's some more numbers. Costs to play for 2 years with buying ALL expansions and permanent DLC: -Runescape = $160 -EVE Online = $271 -LOTRO = $180 -SWTOR = $15 -GW2 = $125 -BDO = $10 -New World = $70 (if there's no expansion next year) -ESO = $200 + the extra DLC they release with each expansion (can be around $40-60) -FFXIV = $412 -WOW = $412 -Destiny 2 = $230 (if they don't release any more expansions, and continue to remove seasonal content in the future; this number could also become lower if they bundle all expansions together after Final Shape)

[@Belgaer]

I'm really confused, because the math ain't mathing. How is FFXIV more expensive than WoW? Even if you pay the premium sub for $15/mo, that's equal to WoW's sub, and the expansions are $10 cheaper. Even if you include the base price of the game, it's still $372 for the first 2 years and $352 biannually after that. I'm also getting $410 biannually for WoW, not $412, but that's obviously close. However, I literally have no clue how you got $230 for Destiny if you're excluding seasonal content, since that's more than the annual expansion bundle that includes all seasonal content. Did you calculate it assuming someone goes through and buys every dungeon key for each of the old dungeons? That still doesn't add up. Genuinely curious what I'm missing here.

[@HonestPug]

Thanks for checking my math, I was very sleep deprived when doing the biannual stuff -For FFXIV it's $216 for 1st year with buying the game and the expansion, 2nd year is $156 for sub + $40 for the new expansion, but I did accidentally put in the base game price again, so it should be $412 not $432 -WOW should still be $412, 2 years of subbing for $312 ($156 per yr), and buying the expansion each year for $50 (assuming the new expansion can be bought for $50) -For Destiny 2, yes I did exclude the seasonal content and calculated buying the dungeon keys separately. Because I was excluding seasonal content I didn't use the Annual Pass pricing. I've now updated the pricing info, thanks for letting me know some stuff was off!