Destiny: Bungie has said it will sell the content – the three shaders

It might seem like Batman fans are the angriest gamers right now, but Destiny fans are giving them a run for their money. Following some pretty dismal interviews, Bungie has apologized officially and offered up a solution. Kind of.

The short version is this: The first Destiny expansion to come out that isn’t part of the game’s initial season pass, The Taken King, is set to hit this fall for $40. That’s in addition to the $100 or so players have already spent buying the game itself and its various parts. New players, on the other hand, will be able to purchase the whole thing for just $80 – that’s the original Destiny game and all 3 expansions.  Additionally, this Collector’s Edition comes with some new character emotes and shaders (armor color packs, basically) that are only part of this edition.

To pile on the bad vibes, Destiny’s creative director Luke Smith gave a rather flippant-sounding interview with Eurogamer, where he suggested that the interviewer spend the full price to get the collector’s edition, taking a teasing tone.

“I want to poke at you on this,” he said. “You’re feeling anxious because you want this exclusive content but you don’t know yet how much you want it.”

“If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes, you would throw your money at the screen,” he added, suggesting that people would want to pay $80 for what are essentially some character animations.

Later, Smith said that, looking back at the interview, the guy in the interview – referring to himself as if he was a gamer reading the piece – looked like an “Asshat.” It was right, he said, for people to get angry at him.

Bungie has said it will sell the content – the three shaders, three emotes, and three exotic items – for $20 this September. Meaning that, if you want the new Taken King expansion and that package you’ll be saving a total of $20 over the full Collector’s Edition, which would add a full game and two other expansions into the deal.

Bungie also says there are some bonuses coming for fans who have been playing since launch and even “additional information” coming for those thinking about buying the game a second time.

The apology is nice, but accompanying it by asking players to pay $20 for the Destiny equivalent of horse armor and suggesting that they still think there are people who will buy the entire game a second time pulls the apology back down to earth before it gets anywhere.

If outrage continues, maybe Bungie will rethink things a second time.