Thar be whales in them tharr hills (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Monday, November 04, 2019, 09:44 (1644 days ago) @ Cody Miller

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.

I'm not saying I find any of these practices justifiable for any of those reasons, I'm just speculating on the reasons that might be used by an entity that clearly does find some justifiable reason for doing them, since they are clearly doing them.