Videogames are growing (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, September 08, 2014, 09:31 (3549 days ago) @ ShadowOfTheVoid

I respectfully disagree. Games have been "growing" for years and, yes, they will continue to do so, but there is no tipping point that necessitates them all becoming online-only and changing from goods (like a Blu-ray disc) to services (like a movie ticket). There's still room for games that can be played offline. Also, MMOs aren't anything new. They have been around since at least the time of EverQuest (though Neverwinter Nights could be considered an MMO precursor), but those games are PC games, and theoretically there could be player-hosted servers to keep these games running indefinitely. But Destiny is neither a "true" MMO nor is it a PC game. Much of Destiny could still function and be entirely playable and enjoyable without an online connection, but with the game being entirely dependent on the servers owned by Bungie and services ran by Sony and MS, there's no chance that it will survive the inevitable shutdown of support for eighth-gen consoles unless it's given some kind of update prior to shutdown that allows it to be played offline.

Destiny is the first and likely also the last online-only game that I will ever buy. I'm making a one-time exception for it because it's a Bungie title. But I also want to keep enjoying it for the rest of my life, and as I'm still relatively young I hope to have at least another 50 good years in me. My older games will still in principle be able to be enjoyed until then, and even the rest of my PS4 games will be as well. Destiny shouldn't be any different.

I submit that you'll have to have a certain population playing for Destiny to be Destiny. Also, I suspect Bungie will be making changes on the fly in the game. I'm not saying that all games will be this way or need to be this way, but I suspect Destiny does. The trade-off for these dependencies is that we'll have a different experience than we had playing Halo solo. It's a different paradigm from how we think about the single-player games on your shelf. More reason to savor the coming years.