A Thought About Destiny's Reception (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, September 15, 2014, 15:27 (3733 days ago) @ car15

I think this perception that Bungie is arrogant is behind the blowback that I perceive in some of the reviews.

Hubristic, not arrogant. They seem like pretty grounded guys and gals internally, but they don't communicate very well with the public, and that's their hubris.

I don't want to come off like I'm attacking Bungie personally, but structurally they have some fundamental problems as a studio. It's nobody's fault.

As far as reviewers go, they're just evaluating the game as it exists now. They aren't being unfair to Bungie. Yes, Bungie has made promises to the effect that the game will be continuously updated, but they are only promises. As fans, those promises hold more weight here than they do to Joe Schmo at Polygon or GameSpot.

In my dictionary hubris and arrogance are synonyms, but okay.

Many journalists are being fair, but the fact that several reviews I've read include misconceptions about what the game is in the lede tells me they don't understand it or didn't pay attention to how Bungie actually described it. They thought the game was going to be something it's not, in part because they were part of the echo chamber perpetuating half-truths about the game before launch.

Sure, Bungie could have done a better job, but Destiny is unique. Game descriptors have come to mean certain things. I think that's why Bungie came up with "shared world shooter," but that begs the question, what is that? It's a tough question to answer without giving the wrong idea.