I understand every frustration, and personally think the $20 is about the most ridiculous piecemeal price tag they could have pushed. I'm just disappointed with the collective reaction, and the kneejerk vitriolic mentality that seems to have slowly poisoned the well. Disappointment, anger, no matter how well founded, when it boils over into normally reasonable people abandoning rational discourse, it's time to take a break.
The worst part is that we're beginning to embody some of my least favorite aspects of other subs that grow too large and insular. Two things i'm noticing in the current megathread...
Comments like: "Everyone is suddenly so happy with Bungie! Bungie changes one thing and is price gouging and you're all just eating out of the palm of their hands!"
Every top comment is essentially some variation of the above ^
This tells you that we've got a victim complex while simultaneously being an echo chamber. I think it stems from a very real feeling of helplessness against a product we love taking a turn for the worse, but also piggybacks on caring too much about what other people do with their money. It really is a "Wake Up Sheeple" phenomenon, with all the angst that comes with worrying that it's going to blow over without any change.
What needs to stop is the aspects of witchhunting we really love. Luke Smith has become a pariah in two days, all because of a single article that was a written transcription of a verbal interview that no one heard. We picked apart every one of his statements like vultures and went out of our way to interpret everything he said as the most cynical, smug, and sneering insult to the fans as possible. Even the Eurogamer writer began to feel uncomfortable with the controversy they provoked, tweeting some (way too late) context that the interview was "good-natured". Too late, he's already a meme, and some of the things I read on here about him made me feel ashamed to be a part of the subreddit.
We have been historically free from the kind of hive mind horrors that plague subs like r/gaming, but I fear for the future. Frankly, it doesn't really matter how right we are in this case, because we've established the dangerous precedent of representing the most extreme end of the spectrum. The next time a "scandal" rolls around, and we react to this extent, who's to say we don't get it wrong? Ever seen that happen on reddit?
My article for Planet Destiny was getting trashed for "sucking Bungie's dick", when I made a sincere effort to give Luke (and by extension, Bungie) the benefit of the doubt - all for the sake of starting a different discussion. One about reactions to bad news, the dissonance between Bungie's impression of value and ours, and how confirmation bias lets us hear exactly what we want to. The community has a legitimate grievance, but we're acting like children to get it ironed out.
I really hope that we turn away from the "means justifying the ends" ethos that is starting to take hold. There are too many awesome people here for the sub to somehow become worse than the sum of its parts.