In the lead-up to “The Taken King”, Bungie went on a major promotional tour. Community manager DeeJ and game director Luke Smith spoke their promotional messages into every microphone they could find.
This went well as long as they only spoke into American microphones. The US press gave the advertisers a lot of room to shine.
They wanted to know why the expansion “The Taken King” would be as expensive as the base game, when it contained much less content.
Why everything in British pounds was so disproportionately expensive compared to the US dollar?
Why the collector’s edition for owners of the base game was so expensive too, as veterans were double buying things?
With these questions, they spoke from the heart of the fans. These were the topics of the time – the atmosphere was heated.
Smith was apparently unprepared for these questions. Ultimately, he said, if they could show players the new emotes that would accompany the expansion now, then they would “throw money at the monitor.”
This statement unleashed the frustration of the fans. A shitstorm broke out. Smith later said he sounded like an asshole.
