I think this is an industry-wide problem with AAA games. (Destiny)

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Monday, July 07, 2014, 17:47 (3795 days ago) @ petetheduck

We have put Bungie on a mantle and expected them to act differently from every other big studio developer out there, so much that we forget the type of entity that they are. :)

And while I still believe they are bursting at the seams with creativity and craftsmanship, it is important to remember that they are still a well-funded, popular developer and also a business that keeps its employees alive and kicking, and have been one for a while. That comes at a cost. Those costs are especially apparent when you go cross-platform. (If 343i and Halo were not Microsoft-owned hypothetically, I would imagine similar issues arising as have occurred with Destiny and many other "AAA" games.)

I'm not attempting to excuse it. I think a lot of folks who were tired of these marketing ploys, myself included, were hoping Bungie, because we like them so much, might try to stand apart from it, or at least only dabble in it with some horse armor...but it's not looking so. If it was another developer and another game, I don't think some of us would have been surprised by any of this.

But I'm not upset with Bungie in particular - or upset at all (that was all used up on my Cintiq not turning on this morning). I've simply become exhausted with the AAA blockbuster industry as a whole the last few years. That's why I hardly buy any of them anymore, and usually never new. With all these DLCs, exclusives, and other gimmicks constantly bombarding me, how am I supposed to stay interested in the industry that at one time, not so long ago, I was trying to break into?

To fix this issue (if you think it is an issue in the first place), I think we have to not support it across the board, across the industry. It's not a personal or angry thing - it's simply communication through sales. If I have the money for a new copy of Destiny (which sounds impossible at the moment), I'll likely just buy a standard edition, and try to buy it from an outlet that does not offer an exclusive, like I'd currently do with any other game that piqued me interest. I still think Destiny looks great, and I'm a big supporter of Bungie, but we need to let the industry know how we want our games, and to do so we have to move beyond message board rants and act on it, even if that means sacrificing some of the cool nuggets we want. :)

That's my two cents at the moment, but my opinions fluctuate with every new piece of data. Perspective's got to always be on the move, y'know.