A Thought About Destiny's Reception (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, September 15, 2014, 13:51 (3740 days ago) @ car15

Point taken. I'll try to post less.

Although frankly... and I know this is going to start some shit, but I'll go crazy if I don't say it... I think the fact that this is a fan site means that a lot of you are willing to give Bungie a pass, or the benefit of the doubt, on some shit that you'd never tolerate from other developers. Case in point, the story. We're told to be patient because the story will expand with time, but if a game from any other developer shipped with a story this poorly presented, would you give them that same benefit of the doubt.

I don't know. I'm probably being unfair, and I apologize for that. I've said this before, but I have realized that I'm not exactly a Bungie supporter so much as I am just a big fan of their games. Frankly, the company itself kind of pisses me off. This is going to be an angry mini-rant, so skip past it if you don't want to read that sort of thing. Recent behind-the-scenes drama notwithstanding, what kind of hubris does it take to declare that your game will be "bigger than Halo" when you haven't backed that up at all with a competent demonstration of the game? They're so hyperbolic in the way they talk about themselevs and their work that it actually harms the reception of their games upon release. People expected so much from Destiny because they wouldn't shut up about how big and revolutionary it was, but they also wouldn't provide any solid information on the game. Maybe they should have fucking toned it down a notch and talked about things like the importance of loot/grinding or the basic flow of the game? You know, to actually give people an idea of what the game is actually like? And then the hubris it takes to go on about how amazing your game is when every mission in a given mode follows the exact same pattern...

Destiny isn't for me. I know that and I've said that many, many, many times. (Sorry for that. Like I said, I'll try to tone it down.) But I think Bungie isn't for me either.

Either that or they're just really, phenomenally bad at marketing. Destiny is a hard game to describe, but nobody had any idea what the hell it was before the beta, and that could have been remedied with more demonstrations of the orbit UI and the general flow of the game.

I think this perception that Bungie is arrogant is behind the blowback that I perceive in some of the reviews. (I also predict a reformation or "comeback" at some point down the line.) From my point of view they have ambition, which is something different, but that ambition can come across as arrogance if that's all you know about them. Some pull-quotes from the vidocs can be hyperbolic. That said, when you say they declared the game would be bigger than Halo, are you talking about CJ Cowen's quote from the Pathways vid?

We didn't even know how big Halo was going to be, and how can anything be bigger than Halo? Well, we'll find out.

Maybe that's a straight-up declaration in your book, but it's something less to my ears. Perhaps my perceptions are tempered by the humility I see them display over and over. They admitted their failures in Halo 2 in the making of doc! It's not the same Bungie now, some might say, but I was struck by this line in the Patch update last week:

We want to improve, grow and evolve Destiny in the coming weeks, months and - hopefully - years. [emphasis mine]

I've been lucky enough to have a few conversations with some Bungie people, and they strike me as their own harshest critics. Did you see the Bungie panel at PAX? Not the least bit slick or stuffed with bullet-point marketing speak (which is why I loved it!). The work they do sounded like a struggle, and their internal mantra--"we're not the best" is the antithesis of hubris. Launch day I played a game with a Bungie employee, and he kept repeating, "We've got a lot of work to do."

You have your perceptions and I have mine. I am a Bungie fan because their games have brought me fun and friendships, and I've always liked their relationship with their fans, and their attitude. I remember when their world domination plan was humorous in part because they were underdogs. Perhaps many believe they no longer see themselves this way, but I think with each game they've set difficult challenges for themselves so that odds would be against them. I think that's how they work. Destiny might be a failure by some measures, but I hope they'll adapt and make good. For instance, ODST, to my mind, was a love letter to all of us who wanted the urban combat that was cut from Halo 2.

We'll see. In the meantime, I certainly haven't stopped having fun yet.