Community engagement. (Gaming)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, March 22, 2018, 12:05 (2235 days ago) @ cheapLEY

It hit me just a bit ago.

What I want the Bungie streams to be is basically the Bungie Podcast. The Bungie Podcast is the one thing they do that feels like real communication. And I don't mean real in the sense of it being responding to fans or community concerns or anything. I mean real in the sense that it doesn't feel scripted. It feels like some dudes sitting around talking about something they're excited about without an agenda.

That's exactly right. There is, however, 1 extra layer (at least for me).

One of the reasons I loved the Bungie podcasts so much back in the Halo 3/ODST/Reach days is that I'd listen to these guys talking about something they were excited about, and then a few weeks or months later I'd get to play the game and experience the specific thing they'd talked about, and it would be awesome. I loved the games in their own right, and that fed into my enthusiasm for the podcast because I got to hear the devs talking about the game they'd just made or the one they were making next, and I'd gain insight into the thing I already loved. I know this is super subjective, and only part of the equation, but some of that does get lost for me when I listed to a whole podcast about the new D2 weapon system and how great it is because it promotes player freedom and flexibility, and then I play the game and find it actually does the exact opposite and I don't find it nearly as fun as the system it replaced (I know that's a super specific example of a particular issue I have with the game, and I'm not trying to say its anything above or beyond that). So even though I love and appreciate the effort to create that podcast, and I love hearing the thought process behind the design of the game, my inner fanboy kinda checks out when the stuff I'm hearing just doesn't at all map on to my experience playing the game for myself.