Bungie has just announced that after a brief period of absence, Tess Everis will return to Destiny with a new set of wares. On Tuesday the 13th, a merchant group dubbed “Eververse Trading Company” will entrust Tess with selling guardians a variety of new wares, starting out with 18 brand new emotes.
How does one purchase these items? Well, a new in-game currency called “silver” (which must be bought with real-life currency*) will be added into the game along with this new storefront.
As of yet, it is hard to know how to feel. Yes, there is a stigma around microtransactions, but Bungie seems rather aware of this, stating:
“If you’re not interested in what Tess has to offer, you won’t ever be forced to pluck an item off of her shelf. You’ll still receive updates to the game, and you won’t lose a Crucible encounter or fail to clear a Raid because you didn’t have the right Eververse Trading Company emote equipped”.
Moreover, they say that funds accrued from this venture will go right back into funding future content (as opposed to being a play for extra profit as one might assume). Now; this could all be hype and comforting words to soften the harsh taste of microtransactions, but I would like to think their intentions are pure enough given their openness about the topic. If nothing else; according to Bungie, users will get a free share of silver in order to test this system out for themselves without risk.
Other than that, we’ll just have to hope that this storefront doesn’t deviate from the purely cosmetic nature of the items they will sell at launch.
*Silver prices to be unveiled at launch on Tuesday October 13
Source: Bungie