How Destiny Is Revolutionizing Console Games With Freemium Mechanics
Destiny is the first 3rd-party title by Bungie, better known as the creators of the smash-hit Halo series. Despite being on console platforms exclusively and costing upwards of $120 (original Destiny plus the Taken King expansion) for some players, the game sells incredibly well and has recently taken off in popularity.
I believe that the main driver of Destiny’s success is their brilliant adaptation of mechanics found commonly throughout free-to-play games: The Core Loop, Focus On Retention, and Resource-Based Events. I believe other games, such as World of Warcraft and Borderlands have shown how to execute on each of these elements individually, but Destiny takes it a step further by expanding on all three. In short, Destiny doesn’t just implement freemium elements subtly -- it embraces them completely, creating a true one-of-a-kind experience that their players can’t get enough of.
#1: The Core Loop
Guardians of the Light -- The Heroes of the Destiny universe.
In Destiny, you play as one of the many Guardians of the Light. Guardians are soldiers who fight to keep Earth safe from the enemy alien races trying to eradicate humans from the universe. Those who oppose you, a group referred to as Minions of the Darkness, are being fought on several of the planets across the solar system.
Players can choose to play one of three different classes in Destiny: the Warlock, Titan, and Hunter. Each class defines the abilities of your Guardian, which range from a lightning bolt grenade to a blink strike. In addition to your abilities, you can equip Guardians with weapons and, customizing them to fit your play-style and situation. Each piece of equipment has a "Light Value", which defines its strength. The average of all your gear's Light Values give your character a Light Level, which is the primary progression meter in Destiny. Players make progress by performing actions related to the core loop: Battle, Unlock, and Upgrade.
Destiny's Core Loop: Adventure out and defeat foes to earn weapons and engrams, then use those to improve your gear and light to unlock more difficult missions which drop even better equipment, and repeat.
Battle
The first part of the core loop is battling. As you would expect from Bungie, the various encounters players take on are exciting across the entire game. The visuals, from environment to character animations, are stunning, and the weapons are a mix of new and familiar. In addition to fighting Minions Of The Darkness, players can also face off against other Guardians in a player-versus-player (PvP) arena called the Crucible. Crucible matches can be played on many different maps and modes, providing even more variety to the gameplay. In Destiny it is simple to transition between missions and battles in the Crucible, enabling players to do both regularly.
You can go from exploring the jungles of Venus (top-left) one moment, to diving into the caves of Earth's Moon (bottom-left) the next.
Unlock
The second part of the core loop encapsulates what players earn from completing missions and crucible matches. Upon completing game players get some resources and new equipment. But there’s a twist! The majority of drops come in the form of mystery chests called Engrams. While this mechanic, known as Gacha, is commonplace in free-to-play games, it is very rare in over-the-shelf console games with $60 price tags. Due to the risk of players feeling cheated by randomness and quitting, I believe Bungie took a big gamble in making Gacha a part of Destiny’s core loop. The risk has clearly paid off in a huge way, not just in the form of financial success, but also by enabling close to infinite gameplay via a strong core loop.
There are literally millions of unique pieces of equipment in the game, ranging in rarity from weak and plain to extremely powerful and rare. In addition to better stats, rare items also have Perks. Perks are abilities that only become available once the player levels up the item by using it in battle. Some perks change the stats of the item. For example, one perk increases the reload speed of a gun, whereas another perk increases damage dealt when surrounded by enemies. Since the perks on rare and legendary items are highly randomized, players seldom get the same item twice. There’s also no single version of an item that is optimal, which leads to the endless core loop as players replay missions with an aim of uncovering new rare and legendary items.
Engrams are like mystery chests. Unlocking them can yield any one of thousands of items, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. You never know what you're going to get!
Upgrade
The third and final part of the core loop is a system that is also shared by many free-to-play games. After the player has slain some Minions of the Darkness and unlocked their engrams, they’re left with a bunch of gear and some important decisions to make. Generally, players have two goals: improve their equipment and increase their character’s light level. Gear is powered up by dismantling weapons and armor the player doesn’t need, which provides them with weapon and armor parts respectively. They can use these parts, along with other resources to unlock perks on their equipment, making them stronger in battle. A character’s light level increases by using items with higher light values, and as a player’s light level grows, the number of missions available to them expands as well.
As you can imagine, this quickly becomes a careful balancing act of integrating higher-level gear into a player’s arsenal while having to dismantle other pieces to upgrade new gear. In its late game, Destiny introduces an additional mechanic called Infusion. For legendary and exotic rarity items, players can increase their light value by taking another item of the same type with a higher light value and “infuse” it into the former item. This consumes the higher light item, along with some other resources, to raise the light value of the infused item. Since you lose the item you used for infusion, gear with a high light value becomes a precious commodity very quickly.
By infusing high-light value items into lower light value ones, players can bring their favorite guns and armor with them as they attempt more difficult missions.
Upgrading and infusing your items completes the core loop of Destiny. Though it starts out as a simple shoot-and-loot FPS, it quickly grows into an intricate and exciting journey. As Destiny guides players across all the different parts of the game, it makes sure that they are always challenged and are constantly growing in strength. Bungie has masterfully blended free-to-play core loop elements with hardcore gaming, leading to a rock-solid foundation that can be built on for years to come.
#2: Focus On Retention
Since the market for most console games is gamers, the expected experience is different from what we expect in most free-to-play titles. Mechanics such as time gates are almost universally frowned upon, due to the fair mindset of “I paid for it, let me just play”. However, many free-to-play games have shown that these mechanics can actually add to the fun instead of subtracting from it, as long as they are implemented thoughtfully.
Instead of going for obvious upfront value, most successful free-to-play games reward those who retain by unlocking features over a sustained cadence to keep players interested for months, not days. As we know, retention is the key for free-to-play titles. Firstly, because it leads to monetization as players spend considerable time periods engaging in the game. Secondly, retention often leads to communities outside the game, which increase its popularity and longevity.
Destiny makes it very clear that they are not looking for players who pick up a game for a week only to move on to the next one. Much like the freemium titles that clearly influenced them, Bungie wants players to commit to playing for a long period of time, and the core loop design is only the foundation of this strategy.
Some of the retention-focused design decisions in Destiny are obvious. A good example of this is the style of the missions players undertake and the way they are surfaced. Almost every experience in Destiny has been designed for relatively quick completion, with the matches lasting between 5 and 20 minutes. What these missions lack in length, they make up for with replayabiilty. Each different operation has unique drops, and players are encouraged to play them back-to-back through the “playlist” feature, which drops players onto a random map immediately after completing the previous mission, resulting in a fun and seamless experience.
Strikes are repeatable missions with matchmaking, where the player and two other Guardians team up to defeat a mini-boss for exclusive gear and experience to level up their gear.
To go with the playlists that are always available, Destiny offers daily challenges for players to complete. Where the playlists are meant for getting unique gear, the daily challenges provide the biggest source of earning a vital currency called Legendary Marks. Because daily challenges refresh often, and reward players with a valuable commodity, Destiny feels fresh with every session. Daily challenges serve another important role as they gate players from earning Legendary Marks too quickly. Inflation of Legendary Marks would allow a bunch of rare weapons to be unlocked, and once that is done the player could reach a point where they lack aspiration and feel bored. Legendary Marks are kept under strict control to make sure this doesn’t happen, making the experience better for all players.
In addition to Daily Challenges, Destiny also offers Bounties. Bounties challenge the player to perform specific actions such as to get 30 Primary weapon kills. New Bounties arrive daily and can only be completed once, providing a great way to earn experience to level up equipment. All these elements have heavy free-to-play influences and make Destiny a game that always gives players a reason to come back the next day.
While the missions and other Daily Challenges are directly presented to the player, some of Destiny’s best retention-focused designs are mechanics most players probably don’t even notice. I mentioned earlier about how using a Gacha mechanic with Engrams instead of traditional weapon drops or crafting helped to make the core loop much more repeatable, but it’s more than that. In addition to improving replayability, Gacha also boosts Destiny’s retention in the following ways:
Offer A Chance To Win Big
Rare Engrams, despite their name, are the most common loot drop in the game. When decoded, Rare Engrams are most likely to grant the player a mid-tier item with a couple of perks and decent strength. However, there is a relatively small chance (about 3-5%) that they will bestow an item of a legendary rarity. This makes Rare Engrams an exciting way to get legendary items since players could always be one Engram away from an awesome new piece of equipment. I believe this element of chance keeps them coming back day after day.
Usually, players will find a Rare-rarity item from Encrypted engrams, but if they get lucky, they'll uncover an ultra-rare legendary-rarity item or special currency instead.
Normalize Progression Through Content
Though I have only anecdotal evidence to support this, I believe that Destiny increases player’s chances of getting a legendary or exotic rarity item from an Engram the fewer sessions they play. This is a potent method of retaining players who play fewer sessions since it allows them to feel like they are keeping up with more engaged players. In addition, increasing the chance to get a legendary or exotic rarity item based on time between sessions helps to retain the most dedicated players who do farm for hours. By scaling down rewards based on activity, the most engaged players are prevented from unlocking everything too quickly and getting bored.
Another key aspect of retaining players in freemium games is an aspiration. For many players to stick with a game long-term, they need a goal they are always working towards, whether it’s the ultimate base defense or unlocking and maxing out every character available. In Destiny, the aspiration is two-fold: have the best gear and the coolest-looking character.
To help set up this aspiration for the player and show them what is possible in the game, Destiny constantly places low-level players into the same areas as maxed-out players and lets them team-up in small skirmishes. Though the gear the player starts with is weak and unexciting, being able to see how much there is to grow gets players excited to keep playing and achieve their goals. In addition to this, Destiny does an excellent job of scaling encounters up or down in strength to challenge each individual player based on their Light Level. This allows players to team up with their friends regardless of their characters’ Light Levels, building camaraderie and forging lasting relationships inside the game.
While out on patrol, players can team up to protect key objectives, like this satellite, with their fellow Guardians. Each Guardian has their damage scaled based on the enemies they are fighting, so players can cooperate and have fun even with drastically different Light Levels.
On top of all this, the level of customization that is available in Destiny is staggering. There are thousands of ways for a player to customize their character’s facial features, and many non-combat elements are included to allow each player to be unique. Special textures, called “armor shaders”, can be applied to whatever equipment the player has, and they can even choose their own ship and speeder-bike to use. With numerous opportunities to see other characters’ setups, and plenty of options available to customize their own character, players are empowered to create their perfect Guardian.
Bungie did a masterful job of adapting basic freemium mechanics to the console platforms. It feels fair and exciting, and it gives everybody a chance to get the most aspirational gear in the game, while at the same time ensuring that less engaged players don’t fall too far behind highly engaged ones and drop off. The only thing missing from freemium is really the ability to purchase Engrams for real money. Below, I’ll cover how Destiny substitutes for this deficit.
#3: Resources and Events
Destiny’s free-to-play influences extend well past the core loop and main retention mechanics. Post-launch, many elements of the live cadence in the game also share similarities with freemium games, from the resource management to their event-driven gameplay.
Increasing Amounts of Resources
One of the most important factors in freemium games is the economy. The first days in a game should be easier and the player needs to make fast progress to stay engaged. Then, just as the player is starting to get used to the fast progression, the progress in free-to-play games slows down, incentivizing the player to either play more often or pay to progress as fast as they’re used to. A successful approach used in many freemium titles is the concept of using multiple currencies to balance the game economy and tackle in-game inflation. This is an element that Destiny embraces whole-heartedly by introducing new currencies often to ensure that the game’s economy remains stable.
The currencies are introduced slowly over time, starting with Glimmer, the primary currency for the game used to upgrade gear and buy early items. In addition to Glimmer, they’ll need materials that are collected by traversing the different planets and defeating enemies. Soon after that, players are introduced to special materials called Weapon Parts and Armor Parts, which are used to upgrade weapons and armor respectively. Players can only get these parts by "dismantling" items in their inventory, destroying the item for Glimmer and materials, so they end up constantly breaking down old items to improve new ones.
All of these resources help keep the economy in check since players need to be constantly consuming their existing resources to progress. The way resources are earned, by battling enemies and dismantling gear, is also vital to keeping players interested as they level up their character. For one, it keeps them engaged by giving them new elements to master. In addition, it contributes heavily to the player feeling like they are always growing stronger. Each action the player takes gives them fuel for their next move, which gives Destiny a good rhythm to its gameplay and keeps players motivated to reach their late game goals.
Early on, players only deal with a couple of resources at a time. As they progress later into the game, they are tasked with collecting an ever-increasing set of materials to upgrade their gear with and use in special activities.
As players move into the late game, Destiny starts adding currencies on a feature-specific basis and the count of different items explodes. At the moment, my inventory consists of 24 resources from 9 different currencies, each with their own uses across many features. Normally in core games, having a large number of distinct currencies is seen as cognitive overload and over-complication. However, as many freemium games have shown, not only can players understand all the currencies, they also embrace them and the extra layer of gameplay becomes a selling point. Destiny follows this line of thinking, and I see many more currencies being introduced in the game’s future.
Events and Expansions
Bungie released two DLC expansions after the launch of Destiny over a year ago, each of which introduced new missions to complete, areas to explore, and gear to unlock. However, they very quickly realized that such a cadence was not sustainable, as content that was worked on for months was quickly devoured by their dedicated fan base in just a few days after becoming available.
Destiny's expansions were fun add-ons, but weren't sustainable over the long run.
So, instead of continuing this trend with their recent "The Taken King" release, Bungie instead decided to change gears and go with a model very similar to the one seen in many freemium games: Events. The duration of events varies from a weekend to a month, and each one has its own set of unique gear and resources that can only be earned by engaging with the event. In some cases, most of the equipment for the event only works while the event is in progress and then becomes locked. The fixed time window makes each piece of gear even more valuable and memorable than if it was added in bulk with an expansion. By developing reusable, short-term events, Bungie has created a cadence cycle that allows them to keep up with the consumption rate of their players while creating a better gameplay experience.
Destiny's fall event, Festival Of The Lost, brought unique helmet "masks" that everybody had fun collecting.
Bungie also introduced a premium currency for their events, which can be used to purchase higher chances of receiving rare items. For example, the Festival Of The Lost event allowed users to pay real money to purchase chests, which they could use to get a permanent version of the items in the event. This allows players to reach both of their aspirational goals discussed above, as the event items are both rare and make their character stand apart from the crowd. The events have been a huge success, and I’m certain has much more in development to bring to their players.
Conclusion
I believe that Destiny has revolutionized console gaming, largely due to their freemium-influenced design. It all starts with the core loop, which takes cues from several free-to-play games in each of its three sections to create a strong foundation for the rest of the game’s mechanics to build off of. As players grow in strength, Destiny introduces Gacha mechanics to help throttle players’ progression and keep them engaged. Finally, Destiny takes advantage of resource-based events to give players new experiences on a manageable cadence.
Though many of Bungie’s design decisions may seem risky, they all come together to form an excellent product. Destiny is a blast to play, has a massive, thriving community, and is constantly growing with new content and events. It has set a new standard for console games, and I can’t wait to see what freemium-influenced experience is delivered next!
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