Destiny 2: A Rough Short Term, Now An Unclear Long Term

[@lionheartzcs2]

I think its absolutely fair for people to be refunding the preorders. There is now massive ambiguity of how good or complete TFS will be and considering how Bungie has treated the community and its workers not rewarding them with extra preorder sales and waiting to see what actually is given to us makes a lot of sense

[@hem9483]

people should continue to cancel pre-orders. buy products after they've been reviewed. it's very simple.

[@durk2392]

​@@hem9483agreed.

[@atomic_wait]

Digital pre-orders are a bizarre relic of the physical media days, and it's unhealthy for companies to rely on them for revenue. It made a degree of sense when there might be a limited supply of discs at a given storefront unless you preordered, but now it just serves simply as an interest-free loan to Bungie or whoever else, to be repaid whenever they feel like with a copy of the game regardless of quality.

[@TheStagswag]

Why is it a question of fairness for you if other players refund it? Their money, do what they want.

[@rhinochickenflakes9056]

Not pre-ordering is the best way period. You can't pre-order something your not sure about, and you should not. I am actually glad this happened, to be honest. In order to make changes, you have to rattle a few trees. If leaves are falling it wasn't meant to be. People need to stop being dramatic. If your laid off no one cares how you feel than your family. I empathize with the situation, but they will more than likely bounce back. KZbin needs to stop being dramatic.

[@SergioImbarlina]

Bungie did themselves a HUGE disservice by not rolling previous year content into current year content pass. This ruined their new player onboarding to the point that none of us could recommend the game to anyone else. Without bringing new players in, they were doomed to trying to milk their current player base for as much as possible.

[@suprflcn]

This makes so much sense. Everything they do is not to gain new players, but keep the ones drowning in sunk cost fallacy.

[@charlesstaples3054]

I would definitely love to bring friends in if the red war was still around, ATLEAST it would be a cohesive start. SHADOW KEEP EXPLAINS NOTHING, not the traveler (even just a basic explanationon what it is and how it relates to the pyramids, basicly nothing about the pyramid other then nightmares existing. Like without the content of the red war cutsene about the pyramids waking up and starting their crawl here. We would have no reason to fear them being close enough that it's in the moon

[@noxiebobo]

Holy shit this is so accurate

[@alejbr4]

i had a few friends try this game when lightfall came, they streamed the entire campaign and some pvp, and gambit, then they quit, and it was all the problems everyone has talked about for yrs

[@Xencam]

Not only is navigating expansion buying confusing, Just starting to play the game is confusing and lots of things aren't explained. As a new player (Season of Defiance) there's no way I would've figured some stuff out without being in my friend's clan. Not to mention the lore; literally Bungie could pay Byf at this point, because where else am I going to learn some of it with the sunset story content lol?

[@dz734875]

Re: the supposed employee retention $1.2 Billion- this wasn’t money set aside or paid to Bungie to fund keeping employees. It was a portion of the purchase price allocated to shares which were distributed to Bungie employees to induce them not to leave the company by requiring a vesting period. It was meant to protect the purchaser (Sony) from Bungie’s talent jumping ship, not protect the employees from layoffs. The article referenced in the Bungie Wikipedia page on the acquisition spells this out and the info Paul got regarding unvested shares people got from the Sony deal is consistent with this. The 1.2 billion was what Sony paid (to the existing Bungie shareholders like the rest of the purchase price) to induce Bungie’s talent to stay. It was a one way street.

[@Rance53]

It was def pretty scummy yet legal plan. Slick tbh.

[@UnlimitedFlyers]

And in the end, SONY got screwed because talent IS jumping ship because of the layoffs by Bungie. Bungie has screwed itself, its workforce and SONY. Isn't that what the financial term POISON PILL describes?

[@jackmarl3237]

If that was the goal, why did they fire 8% of the company?

[@loreseeker6604]

​@jackmarl3237 the 8% is mostly community interaction people and such the layoffs didn't include much programmers or skilled people who are much more valuable.

[@froggobonano]

@@loreseeker6604it included the composers though

[@Matt_10203]

Bungie just walks into every major blunder they have. How the management couldn’t have seen the public reception to this news causing more damage than just maintaining these employees every could is beyond me.

[@xVENDEADAx]

The people that made these decisions don’t think and feel the way most of us do.. they could never fathom the sympathy of a dedicated fan base voting with their wallets and simply not logging in.. I tried playing after the news broke and it felt soulless and empty.. no motivation and I cancelled

[@Genjinaro]

Right? This isn't some hindsight 20/20 moment. The timing, the scale and putting a damn legend on the axe list is nuts. This was a full on guide on how to kill any remaining confidence in the company as a whole, inside and out. If Micheal Salvatori wasn't safe, the guy (and the rest of the music team) carrying the highest quality aspect in the game, no one is.

[@fysean]

Honestly bungie management has been a mess since halo 2/3 times. I dunno how shareholders haven’t pushed for a management overhaul.

[@itshadouken]

I’m pretty sure they had to lay people off to stay in business. That’s why they did this, they did not want to lay people off but when you miss revenue by 45% that means you have 45% less money. Luckily they have enough money saved to not lay off more. All major tech companies have been laying people off over the last 18 months and way more than 8%. I personally feel this is a major overreaction. Some graphic artists, social media, marketing and audio team members. My company had to lay off 60% of the entire company about 200 people in September. It was sudden and our managers didn’t even know but we missed projections and the company would not be able to continue with everyone. The underpinning of any layoff is a spreadsheet that shows if we don’t cut x% of people we will run out of money on x date. If that date is sooner than 2 years then the shareholders and investors will demand an immediate layoff which is what Sony did.

[@highkergaymer8301]

@@itshadoukenshill harder dude

[@RedShadowOfSaturn]

The player drop off was a long time coming. The lack of innovation, the lack of major seismic changes and improvements for PvP, the extremely stale seasonal model, both the original batch of content vaulting AND the continuing seasonal content removal eliminating any narrative to really fall back on and tell people about, the lack of coherent connective tissue between your resurrection at the beginning through each expansion to properly on-board the player through the story as a whole...ALL of these things were bound to make players lose their care, lose their focus, and eventually hemorrhage players. It was GUARANTEED, and people like me tried to tell people this was happening, but Destiny players continued to dissuade the issues and think everything was fine because "player count is good" and "money is coming in." Keep in mind...when the "light and dark saga" ends, and the game focus moves to the Episodes as the most current, relevant content...what does that do to the paid expansions that form the foundation of "Destiny 2"? If this were a box product, we'd be on Destiny 4 by now, Destiny 5..."loot permanence" wouldn't even be a thing, and players could play ANY chapter of Destiny as if it were the Halo franchise. But no, "Destiny 2" is this Frankenstein that makes no sense as it exists, and once Final Shape is out, it'll make even LESS sense. And they have to figure out the way forward with fewer staff, and only get a 4 month extension to rework and execute that plan. I weep for people still invested in Bungie and Destiny at this point, but...everyone needs to make their peace with this. Bungie could very well implode under the weight of heir own hubris, it'll be a sad day...but it's very likely.

[@ThatManWasRightThereISwear]

What it boils down to is that fans and devs alike have been screaming for change. Execs say nope. Things go south. Execs fire devs and blame fans.

[@lorenzorodriguez9481]

I remember when the destiny community often times say the devs are lazy and now we find out the devs are the ones trying to right the ship while management are the ones sinking it.

[@ThirstyThurman]

​@@lorenzorodriguez9481which is wild to me because this is actually the case almost 100% of the time.

[@lorenzorodriguez9481]

@@Mottbox We didn't say any devs were laid off. We meant the devs are the ones begging for changes to earn back player's trust, but the upper management ignores it and don't approve of it

[@VTRDC27]

​@@Mottboxyes they were

[@stephennelson4954]

@@VTRDC27cuts hit all departments. Including tech support for Bungie’s engine. No one was spared.

[@samuelquintanilla6338]

Bungie has failed me for the last time. Amazing 1400 hours, cheers.

[@momomichael2262]

be free, my friend

[@WholeHolyHole]

Bungie, let my people go 🙅‍♂️🌬️🌊

[@mayhem8264]

Nah they failed to deliver too many times

[@too_lowkey]

About 1600 for me. Haven’t played the last 3 seasons. Be free my friend

[@jayblack3345]

Rookie numbers.

[@Forcer69]

One thing I noticed was how Marathon was originally planned for a 2024 release, meaning it would have released before the end of the episode model (at the latest the beginning of Episode 3, which would’ve been November) I’m assuming they’re now going to keep a somewhat similar plan where Marathon will be February 2025, with the next saga of Destiny beginning June 2025.

[@kryppo4245]

thats assuming that theres gonna be enough revenue post TFS to fund another saga

[@ThePackman627]

@@kryppo4245 its Bungies only game that is making money, they are going to stick with it

[@crusaderofthemoistening9096]

If they do another saga that is not light vs dark, will we still be the guardians of the light do you think? Do you think we will keep the traveler?

[@Saint_Wolf_]

A new Saga so close to release of Marathon sounds insane and with a trimmed down staff, unless Sony does an injection of staff and capital into Bungie or new teams are added for each game, such schedule could be too chaotic, specially if you wanna funnel D2 players and specially PVP'ers into Marathon for longer than a 3 month span.

[@sillysiji5257]

That literally makes no sense

[@Sticman58]

Thank you for your continued reporting in this Paul! Love you and your content

[@daMillenialTrucker]

Your welcome, that'll be $4.99 please

[@daMillenialTrucker]

If you want you can pay in eververse silver too

[@culguyvegeta]

Lol. What has he reported ? All he keeps saying is what now ? I don't know, I don't know if bungie will stick to the same model etc. All he keeps saying is I don't know. What he is doing for over 10 minutes is speculating and monetizing his own video for idiots like you 😂

[@humanactivated1017]

@@daMillenialTruckeryour not Paul and don’t deserve 4.99 for Paul’s content .

[@trickyBasterd]

@@humanactivated1017Paul Trashy should be paying you

[@Mike_Viola]

If you look at Jason Schreier's old reporting from the D1 and D2 launches, its very clear that Bungie are no able to meet deadlines and plan releases effectively. Been that way since 2015. I think this is just yet another example of this, except this time the playerbase are not willing to put up with the output anymore. Add the monetisation to all this, and it really explains why we are here. Sadly, I fully expect TFS to underdeliver, with that impacting Marathon further.

[@scull0919]

That's one of the "positives" that Bungie spinned when they split from Activision, that they were always pressed and rushed at deadlines by Activision. They seem to have got complacent with putting out the content they have, and not stressed about meeting deadlines.

[@RedShadowOfSaturn]

Exactly. Their delivery has only gotten worse over time. Yes, they have stuck to a schedule, but most of what they deliver has been cookie cutter, assembly line seasonal stuff with some flavor lore sprinkled on top. Expansions have largely been hit or miss, with most (outside of TTK, Forsaken and Witch Queen) being misses. And yeah, their entire motto of "we can't overdeliver because then we set precedents," like...I know people hate seeing that meme, but it's THEIR words, THEIR truth. Any thought that Final Shape is going to be a banger level of passionate overdelivery is heavy duty cope. Best people can hope for is a wrapped up in a bow conclusion to the light and dark saga, but even that...likely needs to provide interest for the coming episodes, so do they tie it up with a bow and let the episodes speak for themselves, or heavily "sequel bait" the episodes and not conclude light vs dark enough? SO much work to be done, and nowhere near enough time to do it.

[@chaoschaoforever]

This is what happens when you go from box product to live service. It's clear Bungie wasn't ready to do a live service model. Even though they may have started it, they clearly weren't ready for it.

[@Blind_Smithy]

I remembver when games seasons didnt cost money, it was expected value the devs would give you for original game cost. Destiny doesnt even have all its good content anymore they sunset it. I cant even play the game I payed for now. I have to but new content or live with the crap bungie deem is good, which when i last played D2 near a year ago it was god awful.

[@chaoschaoforever]

@@Blind_Smithy It sucks to know that the devs tried to prevent this and tried to fix this but the people at the top essentially told them to go fuck themselves.

[@Lifendz]

You don’t know how to feel about people cancelling their pre-orders? It’s consumers finally speaking with the only real power they have: their wallet. I didn’t pre order because I thought lightfall was terrible and, as a pvp main, I was already going to take a wait and see approach before I commit and buy TFS for full price, if I buy it at all. The recent developments at Bungie have only strengthened my belief that waiting is the best approach.

[@sublimemime183]

I agree with you 100%. Destiny’s focus was never on pvp though, so unsurprised they don’t give it any love. And I say this as someone who likes pvp.

[@bystandertim]

Had a little discussion with my clan on this, even with a skeleton team, this is probably the time for a "season of health" moment, which is lay out achievable things and changes to the core playlists, either shipping them following S23 in the gap, or atleast talk about what's in final shape. The biggest thing is showcasing that the core game is still their focus, rather than filling and cycling out content.

[@havocthecrow8742]

So you're asking for bungie to do an operation health, lmao. Not actually a bad idea if they were to skip a content release in favour of game balancing and fixing all the problems that have added up so far.

[@bystandertim]

@@havocthecrow8742 this is the most I expect out of the current delay, is that it needs to be more than arrivals going dormant for 3 months, but it won’t be a genuine content drop.

[@havocthecrow8742]

​@@bystandertim i have no expectation of anything being released in the dead months between the end of the planned content from season 23 and TFS drop.

[@noseriouslyimserious4073]

@@havocthecrow8742lol, lmao even.

[@johnsmithson4479]

They’re not going to revamp/refresh the core playlists right before the last expansion. There have been many times where Bungie has been in a better position to do that, they’re not going to when running with less staff and tighter deadlines than ever.

[@F1ackm0nk3y]

I think Aztecross is right and there was no plan for a Destiny 3. I think they put all their eggs into the basket of Marathon and when no one from the Tarkov community wanted to play it, management shit a brick. They probably then scheduled out how much cash they needed to stay afloat until Marathon arrives. Then they laid people off

[@stephennelson4954]

Someone talked to Cross btw. He’s now denying he ever made the video that said that and he deleted all the tweets he had made along those lines. Could have been Bungie giving one of the top D2 creators a friendly warning about potential corporate espionage. Could have been someone else with even more ironclad credentials than the person who told cross, countermanding everything Cross had been told.

[@deriznohappehquite]

Bungie has Marathon and Gummy Bears in the pocket.

[@mrgrod25]

Are extraction shooters even this popular?? I don't hear anyone clamoring for one

[@madsines5301]

@@mrgrod25 There hasn't really been any big enough Extraction shooters released to gauge if it's popular or not. The main one is Tarkov but that's a paid game and is PC only so limited audience there. I think Bungie are betting on extraction shooters being the next 'thing' just like battle royale was, and for Marathon to be the game that really makes it mainstream like Fortnite and Apex did. Who knows if it'll pan out or not. Personally I really like the extraction idea and Tarkov doesn't really appeal to me so I'm still waiting for a new game to do it well.

[@saltybulldog3241]

That's not what corporate espionage is...@@stephennelson4954

[@ROFLWAFFLELAWL4]

My worry is definitely more for post Final Shape . I assume a lot of work has already been done for FS and might still be fine. It's just everything afterwards is what worries me the most. I really hope this wont be the case but I can see Final Shape being the last piece of content for Destiny people really get into before going away from it.

[@WhiteDireWolf_217]

After reading the TWID, I cant believe that the Dev team were apologising. They had no business apologising to us. They didn't fail us! I want upper management to take some accountability those cowards!

[@haydenw7981]

I want Pete parsons head for this

[@AlexLuthore]

I want heads. Preferably on pointy sticks.

[@TDR-0484]

Why would they apologize to you? That's not their job. Their job is to make money.

[@WhiteDireWolf_217]

@@TDR-0484 True. Corporate pigs care about one thing!

[@lazor-bladez9899]

Well they fire and blame the wrong ppl. Employees know the difference between fun and grind. Things won't change until management is.

[@slipinoy]

Now that I think about it, if they delivered TFS in the place of lightfall I would have been more satisfied. The locations and gameplay from lightfall were nice but overall, its continuing McGuffin hunt could've been cut entirely from the narrative with little effect, and merged with lightfall. The end of season of seraph was so good that it could've kept the momentum to the sagas end.

[@schuka1]

Marathon is Bungie's downfall. Taking assets from a proven model to jump into a extraction shooter. It's just a bonehead move.

[@Arkyth0]

Extraction shooters were cool for like a year but now they’re all dead. Marathon is just a complete waste of time and money

[@durk2392]

​@Arkyth0 they aren't all dead. They're blooming right now. Tarkov aside, Hunt is growing and the experience there is majority positive. The Finals and xDefiant are coming up with the Finals being a FANTASTIC new spin on the extraction genre.

[@RedShadowOfSaturn]

It's a major risk, but I think it's a risk because the studio couldn't handle splitting their attention to this amount. Crucible PvP has been SO horrifically unbalanced and intolerable for so long, due primarily to Bungie's vision of "bringing the PvE power fantasy to PvP"...which LITERALLY can't and shouldn't happen, if you want PvP to be generally enjoyable. Extraction Shooters may not be Arena Shooters...but they're better in just about every way than whatever Crucible has tried to be. Why is it that Digital Extremes, the Warframe people, can take some of their high level creatives and split them off safely to develop Soulframe at a reasonable pace, and that isn't hurting Warframe's development...yet Bungie can't seem to get a sister game developed alongside Destiny with nearly 3x the staff? I just don't get it.

[@Arkyth0]

@@durk2392 yeah my friend begs me to get hunt. Didn’t know that was extraction based or the finals or xDefiant. Maybe I’m wrong here 😂

[@soulward6334]

​@@durk2392problem is that's not the issue. Destiny players do not equal Marathon players. Pvp games have historically been different player bases. What happens to all the casual players who don't care about pvp? Pvp is a much smaller player number in destiny. Who is marathon for?

[@tank_dempsey]

It would take a lot for me to get the expansion at this point. I preordered after the reveal and got a refund bc I just can’t personally. More than anything I want them to just treat their team better, and give proper severance and everything to the people they let go. Execs need to take a pay cut instead of laying off the people who make them their money

[@melanieb1139]

Thank you for keeping us up to date on all of this. Really appreciate your reporting and opinions on this matter. We love you Paul!

[@MrGeoghagan]

I will never understand nor agree with preordering in this age of almost exclusively digital gaming. Giving a company your money, an essentially interest free loan, for a product that literally doesnt exist yet is baffling to me.

[@GrayvesX]

One big thing that would really help them is to make shadowkeep, Beyond Light and Witch queen free in February. This wouldnt massively help the existing players but would help some existing players and help loads of new players get into it before TFS. This would also make Stasis free for all players. Would be a big morale win at least

[@sarcasticseva6973]

For reference Paul, we've actually NEVER had a period this long with nothing interesting happening. Season of the Lost had the 30th Anniversary yes, but you forget that Season of the Arrivals was so huge. Not only did the Beyond Light trailer attract a lot of people due to Stasis (I myself started playing the game again) but it also was right before sunsetting. Arrivals was all about playing with the guns and farming the content that was going away. If you consider that we had months to finish farming Menagerie, Reckoning, all the Raids, etc. its not so bad. On the contrary, here we will have.. Four seasons worth of content. And that's it really..

[@catalan500_8]

I think the only chance Destiny has left of surviving is if they do something similar to the “April update” and it will probably have to happen in March otherwise it would be too late

[@DarkBladeicus]

I just don’t think I can support Bungie from a moral standpoint after this, let alone my already unenthusiastic attitude towards D2’s future.

[@scull0919]

How about supporting Amazon after the thousands of people they have just laid off?

[@agusmarchettini5934]

Something that could help them to make me come back, is to be able to select any own season pass and be able to complete it

[@GeremyG]

Thanks for your coverage on this Paul!

[@A57-0mona]

The big thing from this that has to be pointed out, is that players are in a lose lose situation. Thanks to the community bungie has built we as player love everyone working at their studio which is one of the reasons this has caused a major upset. And now we have two roads to follow neither of which feel good. The first is that we keep playing like nothing happened and let bungies management think they made a great decision questioning if and when anyone else will be cut when times get lean. And write off the 100 people who used to work at the studio that bungie screwed over. or we do what we were already doing, voting with our wallets not preordering final shape, not buying event cards or seasons or silver and watch bungie's management with Pete Parsons at the helm, command a ship they're working on sinking. As players this really does feel like the end of bungies mentality of pulling ahead when shit hits the fan. I don't want to support a studio with execs at the helm who are willing to regardless of seniority or status drop talent for the sake of profits.

[@milkycannon444]

the only loss for the consumer is continuing to invest your time or money into this game, i wont pay out of pity for peoples jobs when people are laid of every single day and because it isnt a gaming company no one gives a shit.

[@exonux]

@@milkycannon444 don't confuse your lack of empathy for everybody elses', buddy

[@thedarkgenious7967]

just because the execs are holding our friendly devs hostage doesn't mean you just let the bastards win.

[@iponce2]

​@milkycannon444 "you weren't mad about Davie day job getting laid off last week so you're not allowed to be mad about all these people who we pretty regularly interacted with also getting laid off." Fuckin anime villain logic.

[@havocthecrow8742]

Dont feel responsible for these lay offs, feel empathic yes. By voting with our wallets we are speaking clearly that we do not accept this kind of practice from bungies management. Sources say the devs were trying to fix a lot with what we hated but kept getting shut down by management. The management hear money falling out their pockets and will probably backtrack but we cant feel guilt if they dont. THEY chose to lay off hundreds of people, not us, what we should do is support anyone who lost their jobs over this nonsense corporate greed and if bungies execs are so delusional that they keep cutting staff because we arent happy then they eventually wont have anything left. I loved destiny but I cant bare to finish the saga, not after this.

[@aricrepp3253]

As players, the only power we have is to speak with our wallets. With many AAA games released this year already polished and able to satisfy player engagement, Bungie needs to realise that this Destiny ship might have already sailed for the greater population of players. It's a 'Fool me once' kind of attitude we have now. The economy is already rough as it is, many people have to decide between buying a D2 expansion or an entirely new game that hasn't already let them down multiple times. I hope Bungie makes it out from this, but they're just making so many wrong calls it's difficult to say.

[@Yeetus_Skaleetus]

We both know damn well that people are gonna keep spending money on this game. I should know, i am one. I enjoy the game still, layoffs happen, it's business, doesn't change much for me.

[@amorfati4927]

In all aspects of your life… vote with your wallet.

[@DeLawrence97]

I feel like the issue lies with the fact that they're trying to develop 3 or 4 AAA games at the same time while using the revenue from just ONE. That is beyond idiotic IMO, no matter what studio you're under. Yes, it's "BUNGIE" they guys that made Halo yada yada, but from a business standpoint, even Sony basically gambled with them. It's the same thing that plagues Warframe and also keeps that game from reaching its full potential. The studio is too damn ambitious and cannot manage that ambition properly. But with Warframe players are more lenient because the game IS 100% free to play and has premium currency trading. Destiny isn't that...Destiny asks us for 100$/year and now double/triple dips with Event Cards, exclusive sets unavailable for BD and so on. So our expectations are going to be high. And as you said, with so many bangers coming out, it's hard to justify giving money to Bungie for Destiny. I mean for god's sake Cyberpunk 2.0 and Phantom Liberty gave me a feeling I though lost (due to the amount of LS games I juggle) of "My god I had forgotten how it is to sink 100hrs into a game that has a beginning and an end, no MTX, no battle pass, no events, nothing...just a good package(story, gameplay, visuals) and the joy of playing it at my leisure without the slightest inch of FOMO. The comparison may be invalid at a scope level, but in the end, it's my time and my entertainment, so anything goes.

[@skeletor8951]

Nobody's choosing between a Season or a brand new game, buying all 4 seasons wasn't even the price of a full release before this year's first party price hikes and the seasonal price bump. Your comment holds true if you replace "season" with "expansion".

[@stifflersmom4490]

Almost sounds like an internal power struggle was taking place. These older Devs could of been gaining support amongst other Devs and that threatened upper management

[@piggymaster3209]

Unionizing…? Devs should've done that tbh

[@UnlimitedFlyers]

@@piggymaster3209 Indeed. A Union would've stepped in before this Ebenezer Scrooge of a management decision screwed everyone up.

[@LeatherneckJedi]

I blame the Veil. That thing is sus AF!

[@bob_obba]

My problem with The Final Shape is that I was so excited to see what was inside the Traveller for a decade. In the reveal trailer though it seems like a _"greatest hits"_ of all the places we visited over the last ten years. They've just been remixed and smooshed together haphazardly like an AI generated nightmare. I know part of the intent is to evoke emotion and memory of the long journey, but it also seems like a _great_ excuse to lazily re-use the whole franchises environments.

[@slightlyafk2320]

I personally dropped off because I was mainly in it for PvP. I’m hoping to return when that new team has revamped everything. I tune into your videos to keep my finger on the pulse. Your coverage has been fantastic, thank you.

[@ICEMAN-]

They should bring back all the campaigns

[@Jon0387]

I was thinking we’d get an explanation in 2025 after Final Shape, but now I’m thinking we will probably get an episode pack that year or smaller content for a while longer than we thought.

[@Ultimaverse]

So much you can do with the story after the witness like eramis , siva and other enemies left untouched after a season for them. We can dwelle into the rogue guardians. You have does exo vaults and the vex honestly im interest in the vex and who is at the top of their leadership

[@AlexLuthore]

If I had pre-ordered TFS I'd be refunding purely on the principle of how Bungie treated their employees. That was such a horse shit dirty way to treat people. So wildly utterly disgusting. For that reason alone I would refund my preorder. Bungie doesn't deserve my money if they won't treat their employees with dignity and respect.

[@SurosNova]

its gonna take them making final shape free to get me back. bought every dlc since d1 alpha and i hit my breaking point finally after lightfall was released.

[@RedShadowOfSaturn]

I mean, what you're asking for is far fetched, but even though they won't do that per se...it's likely going to take some financial hits for them to regain player faith.

[@deriznohappehquite]

That’s the real reason they fired 100 people.

[@koncorde]

I think we all know that much of the cut scenes and content since Witch Queen is completely restructured and rebuilt material. It feels like they had one narrative, ran into issues, and decided to write additional content - which then caused a cascade of content being thrown around the filler seasons (and I can't be alone in thinking that the blue glow seen immediately after Ana is comforted by Elsie was originally intended to be Rasputin being brought back in "the light" as a Guardian because it makes little sense in context). They're desperately repurposing content for seasonal novelty rather than building cohesive, progressive, seasonal content. Like if you log in right now you can do Defiance stuff, or Deep stuff, or Witch stuff - none of which has a strong narrative thread. No real links between them, and once the grind of "unlocking" weapon frames is done, they lose all relevance. I have like 80 Defiance Engrams and neither time nor inclination to do anything with them right now.

[@vi-vii-xcix496]

Dude getting through season of the lost was brutal cause it was 6 months to witch queen even with the anniversary content pack. I have no idea how the next is going to go past the half way point with no planned mid season content drop.

[@cowsaysmoo51]

I think it would be cool if they did a special thing during the down time where all playlist activities had double XP and double rewards. They've done that in the past for bungie day I believe, so it's certainly not unthinkable.

[@rushboardtechuk]

@paul_tassi one of the biggest complaints since Seasons began is users really don't know what they're getting, which has led to frequent community flaming. As I understand, a good portion of the playtesters were dismissed during this recent ordeal... however, I remember being involved in global Stress Tests, prior to its launch at retail. Even if Bungie has paid playtesters in their "Labs" team, I think they need to return international, unpaid testing as well, to gauge how the larger community reacts. This would then enable the studio to actually get feedback from players before new content ships, which has been a longstanding issue.

[@johnboe3073]

I'm dropping D2 Cold Turkey - took off my Pre-Order for Final Shape too.

[@myp3tmonster]

Did the same about a week into season of the Deep, having so many other games helped, Destiny is one of those games that the longer you spend away from it, the clearer you can see it's shortcomings, it's sad really this close to the ending of all this but have little desire to play again even for Final Shape

[@SymbioteMullet]

I haven't completed the story of any of the seasons this year. I haven't played in a month. The will for it has clearly drained out of me. It's such a shame, the core base of the game is so good, but "missed potential" is probably the a best description for all of Destiny...

[@robertbogusch7251]

We are assuming that Marathon will actually be compete enough to hit in 2025. I gave up on Destiny with Lightfall. Plus I have Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield to play, now. I got tired of the same old, same old with Destiny, once we were past the story content. I got tired of constantly chasing the new loot when what I have has been sufficient. This made the grind of going through each season harder and harder. I finally hit the point where it was time to stop and, this time, I have no desire to go back again.

[@myp3tmonster]

They're going to do the bare minimum to keep the lights on for the game, nothing about it is exciting anymore, the big reboot is so needed now but after this week's revelations I'd be less surprised if they just announced Final Shape is canned completely.

[@russellthechamp9236]

An easy solution for the s23 time gap, or just content drought in general. Add the DCV content back to the game. Give us back the leviathan raids, old campaigns. Even if it's temporarily until TFS release. It would give new players a mountain of content.

[@piggymaster3209]

Yes pls!!

[@LayneR1]

Imo I think a big problem is that there’s too many weapons, you never need to farm for the best of the best because it ends up being an older weapon you’ve just held on to for a while.

[@mdfwndmx3146]

Now is the time to beat the addiction and walk away from this game

[@AvatarSnake]

Did everyone forget the dark days of CoO and Warmind? When they literally had to throw together roadmaps to prevent everybody from quitting? I don't think playing feedback is literally the worst it's been. Here's the thing too: Curse of Osiris was bad. I knew Destiny would continue. Warmind was mid. I knew Destiny would continue. Season of Drifter was mid. I knew Destiny would continue. Shadowkeep was bad. I knew Destiny would continue. Season of the Worthy was bad. I knew Destiny would continue. Season of Plunder was below average. I knew Destiny would continue. Lightfall was bad. I now don't know if Destiny can ultimately continue beyond this saga. How long until these compounding problems affect the game directly?

[@kaly8329]

And yet they said Forsaken was an overdeliver. When they actually needed to dish out an actual content.

[@entysing6780]

I sure as hell refunded my pre order. I also Uninstalled the game and don't intend on coming back unless Bungie really, REALLY delivers and a bunch of things change. Which I doubt. It's a damn crying shame too, because this is one of favorite franchises of all time. I have around 3000 hours in this universe between console and PC. I LOVE Destiny. But I have grown a disdain and almost complete hatred for Bungie, or I should probably say their management. They are liars who have been stringing us through the mud for years. "Oh, it will be better next year!" Just for every year some things to get better and some to get worse. Then over the last year with them adding those disgusting "Event Passes," them increasing the season pass price so at the very minimum you have to buy 15 dollars worth of silver just to get the pass. Them flooding the shop with more and more microtransactions while releasing less and less armor you can just earn in game. The way that management treats the employees like disposable trash when they are the ones putting in all of the real work and losing their livelihoods because of bad upper management. Twice before this Bungie and their community blamed Activision and Microsoft for being the "Corporate Overlords" that cause all the problems, just for them to re sell out to Sony and show us all that THEY are the problem, not their publishers. I could go on and on and on with all the reasons I don't trust Bungie, but I've realized I need to speak with my wallet. Because it's the only thing these corporate ass hats understand.

[@Gibbo263]

The mid season update (or possibly season 34) will be the PvP update, with the new maps and modes discussed a few months back

[@YoshisSupport]

the weirdest thing to me on this is its like the company seemed to forget how involved the community feels with bungie itself

[@Hitman-316]

I think they're fine to just let this game fade off... Or just be a mediocre money maker on auto pilot just to give them some extra change for their other new babies

[@saltybulldog3241]

They've fired all their composers they've had for decades. That means no future new music after Final Shape is planned. AKA No future DLCs. Think about it. RIP Destiny 2 2024

[@andrewcampbell9277]

If they want their easy revenue, take the Infinite route and bring old season passes back. At the very least it will: Appease new players that missed out Generate revenue with minimal effort Allow vets that may have missed out a chance to finish them

[@daneger3210]

Not just a bungie issue. we maybe close to a recession. Welcome to the real world all you streamers.

[@trashjash]

We're already in a recession, judging by my paycheck and the price of basic housing and cost of living.

[@ChemistyStudent]

Never mind the 30% real inflation... It's a rock and a hard place for everyone, but bungie management really is screwing the pooch by ignoring their audience.

[@weebster4778]

Can we get this man 100k

[@arthanor9631]

Refunding a preorder is not a move to change the situation, it's a move to _react_ to a situation. It's about losing faith in the product. With the layoffs and delays, why wouldn't people not want to give their money for 7 months+ to Bungie for.. hopes that it'll be good? Makes sense to hold onto your money for now, wait to see how it goes, buy a bit before if you're hyped or on release if it turns out to be good. I haven't pre-ordered and this is *not* tempting me to do so at all.

[@Marcanine]

Sony is going to take from the Xbox/Microsoft playbook, release/dissolve Bungie, take Destiny and give it to a new “Vanguard Studios” under SIE and rebuild the franchise in UE5/6 a la 343 and Halo. /s

[@Rance53]

The employee rentention 1bill etc was surely the 50% at close of sony deal and 50 vested after a couple years. It was all employee shares.

[@caczech]

"10 million games that are not Destiny..." is something they should not forget. With bangers like Mario Wonder and Alan Wake II, and now Robocop around the bend, Bungie should be afraid of now living with now have seen themselves become the villain.

[@connorlake44]

10 years from now destiny is gonna make a crazy case study. What the final learnings are, I'm not sure. It's starting to seem like it might be a cautionary tale though...

[@matthewmayton1845]

My prediction for content Destiny will receive if there is a 4 month delay: Obviously Season 23 and a new dungeon, probably Garden of Salvation getting craftable weapons and a perk refresh, probably Vault of Glass getting craftable weapons and a perk refresh in February, possibly a reprised raid in February (Wrath of the Machine) instead of May, the last.mission of the season a week before Final Shape (like the season right before Witch Queen), possibly some PvP maps (would love a forge-like system for custom maps).

[@MajorazWrath]

One positive here, Season 16 being extra long was the reason I came back to Destiny at all. Maybe a longer season is a good thing for new players.

[@WolffBachner]

Paul, The one thing that hasn't been addressed in this situation is why isn't Sony backing Marathon financially if Bungie is in trouble? Why would Sony spend $3.6 billion for Bungie and then allow Marathon to completely depend of Destiny to finance the development of Marathon. This also would hurt Sony's bottom line if Bungie has a financial collapse, and Sony certainly has the money to get Marathon and other new Bungie games out the door.

[@jasonkeely7269]

A huge problem is going to be the morale of the left brained creative roles at the company being able to create anything above reusing old assets. You can't fuck with artists work chi and expect them to perform

[@thatonesquidguy5114]

I just can't be a part of a company that does such a scummy thing to it's loyal workers. They fired all those people a day before their benefits expired for the month. Not only this, but they fired the music guy before he was able to rightfully retire. Total scumbags and I won't have a part of their game anymore unless Sony fixes this since they own Bungie.

[@velar25]

Be a Bungie employee atm really has to suck. Losing a bunch of new/old colleagues and now with the fear of being the next one on the chopping block. This is truly the Lightfall era for that company.

[@NPractitioner]

I think that with Salavatori now finished with D2, i wonder if that's a clue that D2 will stop after TFS, with a 'transition' Destiny' before a full Destiny 3 is released. Sequels are very good for business revenues...

[@brettrandall5520]

In order to really make a D3 work would be a rework of how the loot works. For seven years of D2 we've consistently heard about bring back assets of D1. D3 cant just be bringing back ALL the stuff now. We'll have been paying for things we've payed for after already paying for it. D3 needs a new loot system in order to make what ever guns and armor it brings as more appealing and interesting then our current loot.

[@v0id19]

the final shape reveal extravaganza was the most whelmed i've ever felt for an expansion, and the lightfall reveal fell flat for me

[@ps5426]

If they have to push back lightfall I'd probably rework some dungeon / location weapons and make them craftable and the refocus on dungeons and Raids maybe bring back wrath of the machine or one of the first destiny 2 Raids. And the for seasonal weapons bring back some world drop weapons from maybe Osiris and Forsaken as seasonal craftable weapons.

[@BSUxFAN29]

I swear all they would need to do for a temp fix is add back the forever 29 light system from d1 but improved... and a ranking system like the one 343 just added to halo..

[@nurdsmith]

idk how important marathon is, but I can say that I have zero interest in an extraction shooter. Wasn't the original single player?

[@fysean]

Destiny should’ve been spun into its own studio subsidiary a long time ago. Have a dedicated destiny team who know what they’re doing, being led from a bottom up management style to promote the health of destiny, the thing that keeps the company afloat, and allow bungie to work on new games without cannibalising destiny. They’ve had a decade of plenty and not once did they try to diversify their offerings - diversification is a core principle of not only growth but just basic business. It’s why companies invest in other companies and it provides other revenue streams so you aren’t tied to one product that could see a loss of demand overnight. Every successful company, that’s how they’ve remained successful.

[@deriznohappehquite]

Darkness Industries?

[@JizzyNinja]

I have hardly played season on the witch - it felt somehow more repetitive than usual and cards were really not executed well, but maybe Destiny has weighed me down at this point.

[@JubeiSenpai]

Management needs to roll back their monetary expectations. Game devs constantly being set up to fail by their Management all across the board not just at bungie. This is a industry issue. Live service games are a cancer on the industry.

[@Cunch]

I’m sure they’ll sell us the option to do old season passes on top of buying old season passes you never had. It’s too easy to skip that much monetization

[@elani]

If Bungie wants to start regaining trust during the content drought add some sort of event where we can finally get ornaments and cosmetics for free by playing the game, maybe double bright engram drops and remove repeated legendary garbage from them, maybe some reprised seasonal content in a rotator playlist like strikes so that we can get those weapons again. And even more importantly allow players to grind all season passes if you have that expansion, add a way to choose what season's pass you want to grind, not only would this incentivize a bit to some players to buy old expansions but it would allow everyone to get cool ornaments and get rid of great chunk of FOMO

[@MaoPinzon]

The employee retention money went to retain the C suite Executives at Bungie

[@michaelinsc9724]

IF bungie survives this and marathon and IF they do a Destiny 3, it should be a prequel. Lots of opportunities there for good stories and no need to try to explain away lost vault items.

[@plococotcu13]

Damn good reporting of late, Paul. One thing that you have continually jumped is the new player onboarding experience. It’s been debated to death, but I think the sunsetting, in particular sunsetting of new player engagement features like Red War, is really coming back to bite Bungie in the ass. I’d love to see a comparison of cost saved during that time to projected revenue increases from new players

[@vegardstrom4269]

I’m scared for the future but I see no way they can save Destiny after TFS tbh

[@MegaMo93]

It’s a mature product, for sure. My hope is that maybe 2-3 years from now we’ll see a destiny 3 that continues the story in a major way, but between now and then it doesn’t seem like episodes are going to be all that interesting or bring in all that many players

[@Donut-o]

@@MegaMo93that’s my hope. Just wanna hear in a couple years that D3 is in the works to just start clean

[@UnlimitedFlyers]

The Final Shape is the Nail of a Coffin and that is UNEMPLOYMENT. Destiny 2 was already long dead. People are realizing now what has been going for a whole year, and the community are still acting in denial. Understandable, given the shock. But don't be fooled: D2 ain't gonna recover from this. And I would state, that neither will Bungie.

[@deriznohappehquite]

@@MegaMo93 What story is there to continue?

[@drsaddomia]

Seems like the employee retention money was for the exces, and not the devs, artists, cms, or composers.

[@blue_shadow8803]

id assume the thing they’re working on for mid season is, like, the pvp map pack and similar small things to keep some people playing, not a whole additional dungeon 30th anniversary style

[@Panhammer64]

they've already told us several times that expecting new pvp map packs is "too much" because it "requires too much"

[@dr.z806]

Why would I preorder the episodes if I don't know what the next "saga" is about? I need more info on the long term trajectory of destiny before I buy in.

[@cordovalark5295]

I'm old enough to remember Bungie's promise and unveiled "Crucible Labs"...

[@nacho7007]

I hate what happened at the studio but I still love destiny so I'm going to keep my preorder and we'll see how this all plays out.

[@rev-bx6pk]

Im a solo player since all my friends are done with the game i tried to go back to it i don't know i just didn't feel like spending so much for what im getting out of it specially since i can't old campaigns that got vaulted

[@Eman47111]

I would argue that it's a somewhat clear long term. It's a pattern we've seen time and time again, upper management makes a huge mistake, players and developers pay for it, then they bank on nostalgia to win us all back.

[@Swoop4loop]

It sounds like they oversold their forecasted revenue for whatever reason, maybe pressure from Sony, maybe they wanted to impress Sony, maybe it was an expectation set in order for the purchase of the company, idk. Bungie management is the common thread in all those 'what ifs'. My concern is that people refunding their pre-orders actually does more harm than good. People can do it and be upset, that's their decision, but it could actually make it easier for Sony or Bungie management to dissolve more and more of Bungie and it's employees.

[@thealaskanpiper]

I quit when they started charging for Dungeons. I hated the cash shop and battlepass enough as it was but that was the final straw for me. I do miss the good old days of Destiny 1 still from time to time but don't miss D2 at all.

[@jamieharper1051]

Bungie was a rare company developer where it had poor decision making Revenue projections ability. That stuff is by the executives. Bungie was aways strong enough to sur6rhe weakness with its actual game development talent. Unfortunately it caught up to then

[@Jazzman4824]

As my microeconomics course taught us. Destiny probably has a pretty rigid price elasticity. That number is probably in the ballpark of like 150 bucks a year total between expansion/seasons and eververse. If onboarding new players cant, in total, match roughly that number, you will not gain new players. Its that simple. If expansion plus eververse costs cant come in around that value, things wont sell. By introducing the dungeon keys, and keeping old content as priced, and raising seasonal cost to the point that you have to overpurchase silver to obtain the season. If you dont buy the annual and season's in one go, you end up dropping around 30-50 dollars more than just getting it all in the deluxe at 100. If you exceed the price elasticity of your product, sales will decline. And bungie has been behaving as though their product is inelastic and can just keep going up

[@robertmc05]

Im still playing it. Didn't pre-order yet. Going wait to spring.

[@nitefyre2032]

Player Retention and New player On boarding. Bungie HAS to focus on those two things . All this feels like Management is scrambling because they know they messed up big time. 1.2 Billion for employee Retention and a year later laying off 8% of the workforce. Someone screwed up.

[@stephenwilcockson3498]

As a destiny 2 player I really dont care about marathon. and I see it as just "resources taken away from destiny". I am a relatively new light because I started playing in beyond light. So for me if they are giving us an extended season before the final shape: Give us back original and forsaken campaigns. Lets us play the whole story before final shape drops. I know longer time veterans wont care but I would like to play original campaign - plus gives us something to do while we wait!

[@KamonTB]

Destiny 3, a new engine, a new guardian, not our old guardian continuing forward. And going out to encounter and defeat other great enemies named in Destiny Lore, but never seen in D1 or D2. Parsons' tweet translates to "I'm too greedy to give myself a pay-cut so I can keep employees at the company."

[@subject_changed4690]

Boycott bungie and cancel your preorders. Dont spend a dime on them.

[@Marc-pu1wm]

It's not impossible to just stop Destiny, they aren't independent anymore. And actually, my guess is that's exactly what will happen after Final Shape. Almost all game studios have down time in between games. Any studio that makes single player games with no dlc has time in between games where not a lot of money is coming in except for the continuing sales of what they already put out to the market. Most game studios don't have a live service game that performs so well that it completely funds itself and other game production on top of it at the same time. D2 has a famously high "burn rate" and if there's no other big money making expansions to offer after Final Shape then maybe they will just not produce any more content and let the sales of the expansions they already put out continue to come in while they get all hands on deck to push Marathon out as soon as possible so they have the next big revenue stream. We already know that no other big expansions are planned, they haven't committed to doing any raids afterwards, and probably no dungeons too; so, I completely doubt they will pay industry premiums to top notch voice actors on top of dev time to make story-driven episodes if all they're getting is $12 season passes when they missed their annual target by 45% this year and just had layoffs as a result, especially considering they missed their target by that much when they were selling all that other crap. The game has been monetized more than it's ever been this past year and it's still not enough. It's over! They probably delayed Final Shape because they want it to be good enough that it'll sell well enough to keep them covered until Marathon comes out. The word is that the music for Final Shape is already done which is why the composers were able to be let go, so is the new content just going to have no music at all??? Or will they recycle old music??? They let the community team go which tells me that they don't think they will need people to engage with the community after Final Shape, probably because there's nothing to communicate to the community afterwards. The fact that the marketing team was laid off tells me that they have nothing to market after the Final Shape. The game is done after Final Shape, that's it. Sony doesn't need D2 to stay active in order to make other games, and if Bungie people decide that it costs too much keep D2 active without any big expansions (which I think is most likely) then it's probably better to just focus on Marathon at that point. D2 content creators are having the hardest time accepting this because it supports their income, but it's over. D2 is done after Final Shape, accept it! It's done!