Just a quick example as an addendum to my previous post: This isn't intended as an apologist post, or to be sympathetic to any group, merely a detailed insight into why companies make decisions, how they make them, and why it is not worth getting hurt emotionally over it or taking it personally. There may be 10 times as many twelve year olds playing Destiny than there are 26 year olds. But rarely do 12 year olds make sole purchase decisions without parental oversight. So when marketing to children, you have to market equally to the children and the parents. It has to be a product that the 12 year old says to his parent "I want that!" and then the parent has to say "okay I'll buy it for you." There are of course, exceptions. This is where some simple math comes in. Let's say we have a total marketing budget of 100 million dollars. If 10% of parents allow their children to have whatever they want with no restrictions, then we can market directly to those 12 year olds. But how much of the total marketing pool (potential buyers) are parents of 12 year olds? (In a real scenario, the demographic wouldn't be 12 year olds, it would be an age range such as 9-13 but I'm trying to be as simple as possible). We research and find that 20% of our marketing pool has a 12 year old kid. Of that 20%, 10% allow their children to have whatever they want with no restrictions. So at first it appears safe that we could invest 2% of our budget directly to 12 year olds. But it's a bit more complex... Let's say that half of those parents are already on our main target demographic of 26 male. ( I know, its unlikely for that many 26 year olds to have a 12 year old but this is merely an example... More realistically, the mid-thirties would be a more likely demographic to have a 12 year old child). So half of the twelve year olds will have one parent who is in our most desirable demographic. So spending 2 million on marketing to 12 year olds would be a waste of our budget. We cut that number in half to one percent, or 1 million of our budget that markets directly to 12 year olds. This small of a market share would be considered a "marginal market" a "tertiary market" a "non-focus" market or even a "test market" depending on what jargon your marketing company uses. In a test market scenario, that one million from the budget might be used to market directly to 12 year olds in order to see what the return was. If the marketing budget spent on that demographic is a million, and the sales reflect that 12 year olds only accounted for 100,000 in sales, then that demographic would probably be considered "negligible" and no further marketing funding would be put forth for that demographic. Of course, the more likely scenario would be to not market to that group in the first place and focus that budget on the main target market of 26 males. Not only would it add to the proliferation of information to our most desirable demographic but it is likely that marketing a product directly to 12 year olds is not a good idea if the game has violence, gore, bad language, etc. If marketing to 12 year olds and the game is rated T or above, it may even be an illegal advertising practice depending on local law. In this case where multiple demographics share a household, we consider that a blended demographic. With blended demographics, we will market toward the one with the most likelihood to purchase our product, knowing that word-of-mouth advertising, or product knowledge sharing will almost certainly occur. There is another scenario we call stacked demographics. This is where similar demographics , or rarely, dissimilar demographics, share a common purchase behavior and can be reached through the same marketing techniques. When one person falls into two or more demographics, we call this a blended demographic. Stacking and blending are where you get the most for your marketing money. One advertising method, and one marketing plan that appeals to a wide variety of customers. When we use one pool of our budget to try and advertise to several demographics, we call this bulk marketing. Bulk marketing would be, for example, creating an advertisement for television which appeals to the 26 male (priority demographic for this example), and it will also appeal to men up to 40, as young as 15. (It may appeal to more, but in general this would be 3 demographics that are relatively easy to stack). So if those 3 demographics add up to 70% of our target market, we will spend about 70% of our marketing budget on that particular marketing campaign. The rest of the budget could be used to target specific demographics and test markets that seem to be trending toward spending habits which we may be able to capitalize on. When marketing toward one specific demographic, we call that focused marketing. So the original marketing plan is a 70% budget on stacked core demographics, and 30% on focused marketing, or target marketing. With video games, after purchases have been made and there is a player base, it becomes easier to track data because everyone has an account that they sign in on. (Maybe not everyone literally, but these days just about everyone). Data will be tracked generally as part of the ToS. It doesn't track personal individual information but rather what demographic each player belongs to. So for the following example, we will say that the 26 male demographic spends the most on DLC, expansions and add-ons. The 60+ female demographic spends the least. So if the video game company nerfs auto rifles, and that causes the 26 male demographic to see a significant decline in participation, auto rifles may get buffed again to try and draw them back. This re-buff may cause the 60+ females to then decrease in numbers. Since the 26 male demographic is more likely to invest more money into the game, (in this example), than the 60+ female demographic, the changes that keep the 26 male demographic are more likely to be kept. Of course appealing to as many demographics as possible is ideal, and if a change to the game sees no reduction in players, then that is a good sign the company is moving in the right direction. But I hope this illustrates why when a company makes a decision it is not deliberately made to exclude or punish certain types of players. The decision is made based on a statistical analysis of what will keep the most amount of paying customers happy. If a player spends 50 a month on DLC, every single month consistently, while another player spends zero, the priority, statistically, would be to keep the type of player that spends 50. This is not to say that the player who spends more money is entitled to a better experience, they are merely entitled to get their money's worth according to their own standard of customer satisfaction. If that level of satisfaction is not met, then it can result in them refusing to spend money in the future. This is why the core demographic that companies try to appeal to is the demographic that is most engaged with the product from an investment standpoint. The company wants to ensure that those who continue to invest have an experience they are happy with, and will continue to make purchases. In the case of video games, the ideal situation and hopeful result is that by focusing on improving that customer's experience, the product is improved overall, and everyone gets an improved version of that game. So I know this was one heck of a long post, but I hope it helps shed some light on why when a company makes a decision to add, remove, or change features in a game it should not be taken personally. You can always decide if a game is worth, to you, the money you invest in it. But emotionally investing in a company's decision making process always results in a bad return. Edited for a couple autocorrect mistakes, this was done on my phone.

Do you work in marketing dude? Holy shit that's a long post...

I agree but....5 games a month?! dayum that's a lot of games dude

Dude are you a Sunbreaker? Cos your hammer just hit the nail on the head. (Yes, corny jokes are a must for forums). Anyways, I agree entirely. It's all about profit margins and let's be honest, if any of us were offered more money for one job instead of another, we'd take the option that paid best. Business it the same. People should be GLAD that others are willing to pre-order DLCs etc as it funds the next game in the franchise etc. Sure, it also lines the pockets of shareholders etc, but shareholders ensure corporations (such as Bungie) stay in business, therefore allowing the game people love to complain about yet still play stays active and updated. Can't have one without the other.

$300 a month!? No one in the world spends $3600 a year on video games. No one.