The latest patch for Destiny introduces microtransactions in the form of Silver, a new in-game currency that cannot be acquired in the game itself and must be purchased through either PSN or Xbox Live.
The exchange rate of Silver is one-to-one at this point with 500 Silver costing $4.99, though players can collect bonus Silver at higher tiers (1100 Silver for $9.99 and 2300 Silver for $19.99). All Guardians will get 400 silver for free just to try it out.
So far, Silver can only be spent to redeem one of the eighteen available emotes from Tess Everis, a returning vendor at the Eververse Trading Company in the Tower. All emotes are available to the three classes and come at different prices depending on their rather randomly assigned rarity.
Legendary emotes like Enthusiastic Dance and Slow Clap cost 500 Silver whereas Rare emotes cost 200 Silver. If you don't like a particular emote, though, you can get a quick refund within 15 minutes if you don't like the way the taunt looks.
Still, that's a quite a pretty penny for optional dances in a primarily first-person shooter. As microtransactions go, this is rather innocuous. The only question is whether Silver will be used for more nefarious microtransactions down the road since Silver can ostensibly be used to purchase, well, anything else.
