Thar be whales in them tharr hills (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, November 04, 2019, 09:39 (1643 days ago) @ narcogen

The optimistic interpretation of that is that because since Destiny is such a socially dependent game, you need populations around playing activities so that people have other people to play with.

A couple thoughts on this.

The first is that many games can maintain a decent population for multiplayer modes without resorting to the design practices we are talking about. If your multiplayer is fun and reasonably deep / complex, and if you can match people up according to their skills most of the time, it shouldn't be a problem for the life of the game.

The second point is that just because a game is socially dependent doesn't mean it has to be manipulative. D&D is impossible to play alone, requiring a social aspect, and yet not an ounce of that game is exploitative. Every design decision Bungie has made could have been made differently. Social games don't NEED to manipulate or pressure you to play.