this problem can be broken down into 2 sections. cosmetics, and pay to win.

cosmetic MTX in a box price game, is the most laughable thing i have ever seen and honestly doesn’t deserve debate. anyone who believes a cash shop existing in a non F2P game is okay is simply not worth talking to, and, are evidently the majority.

P2W in destiny is very hard to rationalize. cross thinks he’s solved this problem, but this is about what is considered content, and what is considered power. other P2W games all let you insert money and gain power either instantly or through some kind of loot box. Diablo: Immortal tried to get around this by requiring you to play a dungeon to cash in their loot boxes, but this brings up the other feature of P2W games, you can pull the “give me more power” leaver over and over and over again until you’re bankrupt. destiny doesn’t do any of that. destiny doesn’t let you put in money and gain power, and they don’t leverage gambling to incentivize you pay more money. the ONLY way you can consider destiny P2W is through expansions, seasons, and dungeons giving you more guns and exotics. he mentions how there is content in the season pass that is “pay to win” but the season pass also locks out the seasonal content. these are not separate purchases. thats without mentioning that the only thing these would be useful on are guns that can no longer drop.

overall this video has a lot of accusatory language and posturing with multiple strawmans and poorly supported arguments. he uses a clip at one point where someone says destiny costs over $100 a year when that is factually untrue. buying all of the new content in destiny has never cost over $100 in a single year. if you are just starting now, yes it does cost over $100, but to buy all of the destiny 2 content, when not on sale, is still cheaper than playing wow for 1 year. the price of the content just isn’t the issue, its the fact that they’re selling cosmetics on top of that and not investing in player investment into endgame progression, something this game has simply lost from what it was in D1 and maybe forsaken. the reality of the situation is, baring PvP, we are getting more content that basically ever before. people will go off about reskins on gear, but completely ignore the fact that the alternative is getting nothing at all. if lightfall had been a better story and the neomuna content wasn’t such a slog, people would be much more positive about the game at the moment.