Interest in Destiny 2 Reportedly at an All-Time Low

While I admire that Bungie are supporting Destiny 2 after all these years, they do need to have another game now. Preferably going back to something like halo, a single player campaign with multiplayer modes. Not this live service thing they got lined up.

It fills me with great confidence that Bungie are reviewing other PlayStation Studio games as experts when they seem to be in their own mess. /S

How layoffs have been handled as well is really poor.

Also part of retention issues will be due to many good games released recently. Destiny 2 is old

This is definitely Sony's worst acquisition just looking at the amount they overpaid for them. They have basically been on the same game for over a decade (which isn't even that great).

I'm sure whatever Naughty Dog was working on was miles better than Destiny 2 and far less scummy. Can Sony still ask for a refund and they just let these guys do their own thing in someone else's house?

I will never forgive Bungie for being one of the only developers to take paid content away from customers. But I think they are paying for there poor decisions. They needed to start fresh with Destiny 3 on a new engine instead of pumping out expansion after expansion. It would help to get new and returning players in as playing Destiny 2 is so impenatrable if you start new or return at the moment. It would also help making new content for it.

This whole situation is so sad, and so anger inducing. I havent really played since Lightfall, mainly because it was pretty dreadful and I was tired of all the grinding the game expects you to do, I've finally broken the habit, and this comes along and only re-inforces that choice.

I feel dreadful for all the people laid off, for all the people demanding changes but to go un-noticed and now kicked out because of the managements greed and ignorance, would have loved to have seen the game to its endpoint in Final Shape, but I just cant spend another pound or any of my time with it again, it feels grubby and it feels gross.

Their reputation and their game is now in the gutter, very hard to see how they come back from all of this.

I lost interest in Destiny before they left Activision and the game went Free to Play. I was already beginning to get seriously annoyed with the eververse store and putting the 'best' Cosmetics behind a ridiculously high paywall instead of 'earning' the best cosmetics from playing content I 'PAID' for, them making stuff I had grinded for 'obsolete/useless' to force you to 'grind' etc when the Content/Story never really seemed to have the same effort put into it as the Eververse store...

Buying bungie does not bode well for Sony. Money could have been spent on better things.

The biggest hurdle they have is onboarding new players. I think the Destiny universe looks super interesting, but after trying to get into it 3 seperate times now, I just find it way, way too daunting. Although, I'd imagine this is a similar issue for a lot of GAAS? Or maybe not?

And these our the people Sony bought for help in their live service titles lol. Really disappointed on the way they handled factions.

I wonder if bungie is the reason the deviation game (rumored) got cancelled?

Just turn Bunjie into another Single Player focussed dev, with their team size and expertise they could easily double the output of Sony's other big devs like Naughty Dog, Insonmiac and Guerilla.

The entire Halo to Destiny to Destiny 2 journey really is a textbook example of "How did it come to this?"

That said, I feel for those being laid off.

I think all trust has gone since the vaulted content everyone paid for has not been put back into cycle like they suggested. Never mind the fact that you need that vaulted content to make sense of the story. I don't know why they release story content now the continuity has gone and can only be read anoit

When stories like this come out, and the CEO is still in charge and making gross statements about firing staff, you know a studio is mismanaged.

Good thing Sony hasn't invested its future in the live service sector ....oh wait.

It's about time they switched it up a bit. Perhaps make a single player game in the same world as destiny or something.

Well, the majority of Sonys fans don’t want GaaS, so let this be a lesson to Sony to stick to what they know and keep with the single player ethos that has served them so well. I thought at the time that the Naughty Dog Factions 2 was probably far better than what Bungie was doing, but they were given too much power to close games down that they didn’t think met the levels expected. Look at them now…

@thechetearly I really agree. The difficulty with onboarding new players is a big oversight for Destiny (and other live service games). There will always be a natural dwindling of your early audience and the only way to maintain or grow a live-service game is by injecting fresh new players into the game to replace those leaving. Destiny 2 has done an abysmal job at this. The barrier to entry for those of us who haven’t been involved since the early days is just too high. I’m not sure why Bungie doesn’t recognize this.

In my opinion, a live-service game has to not only maintain engagement from the core audience, but also allow for easy entry of new players.

I find it interesting that a live service company in a straight downwards trajectory still got itself in a position to decide whether other teams' live service projects (like Factions) are viable or not.

That doesn't surprise me, I loved destiny but had to take a break from it for health reasons, I came back, half the content had been vaulted and was super hard to get back into it, had no idea what was going on, so gave up... I should imagine the same thing makes it pretty inaccessible to new players.

Oh no! A GaaS running out of gas? Yes, very sad/s.

D2 is a good game but Destiny 3 or a new IP should have happened by now. I bet Sony regret overpaying for them now.

@UltimateOtaku91 now there’s a thought 🤔

Great business decision Sony

Should've put that dough towards a more valuable asset like SEGA. Would have netted you Sonic, a series that is trending upwards, Like A Dragon, a series that has never been stronger, Atlus, which will eventually trot out Persona 6, and a massive backlog of old arcade games that would finally give PS Plus Premium subscribers something of value.

But no. You had to get Bungie. Who have Destiny. And.... uh....

If you gotta beg players to play your game, that’s desperate lol

I played a lot of Destiny, and initially enjoyed it. Was stoked to grab D2, and thoroughly enjoyed it, also. Mechanically, it felt great and very fluid, but after a while, my friends and I fell off it, and I just don't feel the GaaS model works for the majority of players. You have (I'm sure a high) percentage of people who have their few ongoing titles, and probably stick valiantly to the few they subscribe to, and Destiny never struck me as one of the more prevalent of those titles. Great to jump into every now and then with a few mates, but nothing to keep you there in the long term. I felt it could have benefited from a more robust rpg skill tree and doing away with the live service stuff: just give us a meaty campaign we can play with friends and an online, open world to explore between missions, with other players, a la Diablo 4.

Is Bungie Sony's worst purchase?

The reason I dipped and never went back was how aggressivley monetized Destiny 2 was. I loved it as a game because the shooting felt amazing, but I loathed its business model.

Not sure what they mean by low player engagement b/c they never say, is it down 3%, 5%, 15%, 30%, but I always thought it was a bad idea to sell a $100 purchase for a $60 game, or even a free to play game. I know that $100 covers a full year but it’s still $100. Make fun of FTP Fortnite or Roblox all you want b/c of the paid dlc micro transactions stuff but they aren’t hitting you up for $100 all at once. For a years old game you’ve probably already spent money on. 🤑

My kid got the $100 pass w/ holiday gift cards and I don’t think they’ve played it much since February so even though I don’t play the game myself, I tried playing with my kid but first person and jumping on platforms is a stupid combination, I do follow the news.

Industry should choose between FTP or full price games, asking for both they deserve to fail. Unless you’re CoD or sports games, those people are addicted.

Destiny 2 started out great because it massively streamlined a lot of game mechanics and added in an action packed, focussed campaign.

Fast forward a few years and they're back to square one with a game collapsing under the weight of its own lore and mechanics.

What is needed is a reset. I still think Destiny can be salvaged as a property but remade as a single player RPG like Starfield. Set it across the whole solar system, allow us to fly the ships and tell a new story. Heck, send us back in time to when the traveller just prior to the collapse when the human race is at its zenith to prevent the Darkness from ever winning.

I’m sure that Bungie have been screwing over the other studios at PlayStation that we’re making Live Service games. When they were given the powers to stop other developers, who’s to say that they saw the other teams as direct competitors with superior ideas when they probably knew their product was failing..

With the rumors that Sony is now backing off the live service/GaaS plans, the expensive Bungie purchase looks even a worse deal.

One criticism that gets lobbed at PlayStation a lot is that all the first- party titles are third-person adventure games. Bungie and their FPS background could fix this.

Like, say, a Bungie-developed Killzone?

Hardly surprising. Even as a member of the 1,000+ hour Destiny club its plain to see they're pretty much out of ideas. We still enjoy it from time to time and i'm excited about the final shape whenever it releases, but I doubt the game will have much of a following in the next few years. Been a great ride but the end is definitely in sight.

People are bored of playing the same niche game over and over again? I am shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Not surprised

It always was you could come back after missing a few DLCs and pick up where you left off (like FF14)

But last time I came back I had no idea what was happening. Past Season and expansion story content were gone.

I ended up in the middle of a season, with content I could not play even after buying the DLC. And a bunch of items in my safe from seasons I could have played but no longer available.

They need a hard reset.

I was playing Destiny 2 for hours daily up to Rise of Iron coming out. Then the mtx and nonsense got out of hand.

It was added to ps plus a while back with one of the later expansions (beyond light? Light fall? They all seem to have similar names now), and I couldn't play for five mins without popups begging me to buy more add ons, currency, skins, and other nonsense. I gave it a few hours then just uninstalled.

If this is how it's become then I'm sorry but they've brought it on themselves and the more these business practices continue the more failure they'll see.

Marathon is dead on arrival and it looks like they've managed to kill D2, not to mention TLOU Factions as well.

Sorry folks, but you are very much in the "find out" part of the deal from the way you have treated your loyal fans.

Maybe they should add a battle royale mode to the game, that seems to be the most popular genre at the moment for live services.

Couldn't sony have just hired them as consultants rather than buying them? I guess this was all part of the acquisition fever, what's mine is not yours. I can't pretend to understand the inner workings of studio management or game development, but deal seems a bit of a dud to me? Even Marathon is set to be multiplatform and they've said future games will be the same.

Personally always felt like Sony acquiring Bungie was done out of spite or retaliation for Microsoft acquiring Zenimax (id, Bethesda, etc.) and Ninja Theory, not because they loved Destiny.

That being said, as someone who deals with upper management not listening to employees saying "this is a bad idea" pretty regularly, when it turns out to, in fact, be a bad idea, this part especially resonated with me:

Sources speaking to the outlet claim this issue had been flagged to management months before this week's layoffs, with employees begging for positive changes.

Hoping for a smooth transition to new opportunities for those affected by the layoffs.

Music to my ears. I have a feeling the purchase of Bungie is going to be the biggest waste of money for Sony. They bought Bungie on the tail end of the live service genre slowly dying.

I tried a few times to get into it, but just couldn't, despite it sounding like it was right up my alley.

I was unaware ppl don't have access to stuff they paid for, that's upsetting. And apparently some of it's necessary stuff to make sense of the story?...so it craps on the dedicated players, and new players don't know what's going on. Idk, probably not the strategy I'd pick, and I'm a dummy lol.

Legendary levels of failure from Jim Ryan & Sony on buying Bungie. Destiny 2 has become one of the most lazy, low/reused content, over monetized, FOMO baiting "games" ever created. The worst part is that the people who have no control of that crap take the fall when players get sick of it and finally move on.
So many players questioned how sustainable it was to constantly reuse content, go all in on microtransactions & milk a dwindling pool of whales, and we've got our answer.
This should be the final wake up call for Sony, GET OUT of this live service garbage right now while you still can! (and tea leaves suggest they are already doing it)

@Ken_Kaniff I'm no fan of destiny or live service games but to say the genre is dying is a gross exaggeration. Just look at the monthly stats for the most played game on both PS and Xbox, the majority of games on both are live service.

So the company responsible for putting Factions 2 on ice because the game doesn't live up to their standards is suffering major losses because their game didn't live up to their standards. Nice! There's some real expertise here!

So should we expect a class action law suit seeing as there could be grounds for unfair dismissal if the staff who were asking for improvements are the majority of those fired?

@Kevw2006 let me clarify. Besides the top dogs, entry into the genre seems to be paper thin. Then you have outliners like Destiny that's also losing there audience. It may not be dying, but the genre is stagnant. Everyone that wants to play those type of games are on one of the ones you mention and any new GaaS that releases generally dies within 6 months to a year.

Big Jimbo leaves just in time to avoid the mess when the Live Service house of cards will have been collapsed.

@Ken_Kaniff Appreciate the clarification. You're right, the success rate for GaaS is very low. Most will be virtually dead on arrival, some will have moderate success for a period and then fade away but the rare ones that do get big get really big.
I suspect Sony were fully aware that the majority of those 10 planned GaaS releases they intended would be doomed to failure, with the hope being that two or three of them might hit some sort of reasonable success. Hopefully those plans are now under review but I feel that some of them will still release.

Having not played Destiny 2 for a very very long time (played Destiny one a lot), I assumed it was still popular, and therefore thought Sony made a wise purchase (if a little overpriced).

In hindsight, it looks like to be have been a very bad purchase for Sony.

@Kevw2006 I read the other day that they are supposedly scaling back those plans, but who knows. We can only hope they are.

I'm sure you're right that some will release, but the two they announce look bad from there announcement trailers. Fairgame$ looks like a cringy Ubisoft live service game and Concord showed absolutely nothing. Not a particular strong showing out the gate for this initiative.

@Bamila They've got some stiff competition amongst Haven, Firewalk and Media Molecule as the worst purchase.

Sony overlaid massively for bungie imo, especially when compared to the bargain insomniac.

This Bungie situation, as it comes more into focus sounds like scumbag cold calculated greed driven investment banking like actions. Turns out Sony was involved via demanding spending cuts.

The fallout from this will be significant behind the scenes for the platform and bungie for some time. This was the worst acquisition decion Sony has made.

This is going to be one hell of a stale period of nothing while Sony quietly tries to rebounded from their own mismanagement. They allowed hardware sales and greed to drive a level of complacency that has had serious implications for them internally and publicly.

Now they have to try and right the ship, not for us the gamers, but for the greed driven shareholders whom are likely dumbfounded on how to see a positive return on investment from a greatly overvalued 3 and half billion dollar mistake based on greatly overstated revenue projections.

Just a mess

I gave Destiny 2 some hours (2 or 3) a few months ago and it was fun, but in the end I hit the wall of boredom and didn't even start it again next day.

Globally I think that whole era of FtP, GaaS, MMO and Battle Royale multiplayer sh*tstorm started to implode. Opposite to singleplayer, where you finish game, put on shelf and maybe in a few years you return, multiplayer requires constant attention and that simply cannot be given.

I still compare games to books or movies. You can love some so much that you can read/watch them a few times, but can't do it for a long time. You need a rest or it will just fulfill your need and you put it away for good.

Yes, multiplayer boom, especially FtP and GaaS, was made by gamers itslef by buying additional (crappy) content. And it is logical that companies offer something that normally thinking person would avoid by miles, because there are unfortunately lot of lunatics who buy it (one example for all is Costumes). So it isn't fault of producers, it's fault of customers.

I still miss old Destiny 1. Even with the monotone Dinklage. It was essentially a small MMO. Complete with farming for mats. D2 is...fine. I guess. I put a rough 500 hours into D1, but barely 100 in Destiny 2. The ever verse nonsense and the complete lack of need to keep up with my gear score prevent me from giving a crap. Don't worry, I'll still have a decent baseline score next expansion. Let alone the nonsense story.

Sony paid 229 for insomniac, just about 6.4% the price of Bungie. Insomniac is now the most productive and maybe lucrative Sony studio, besides being the authors of some of the best games in this generation. For me, Sony should sell Bungie because this was the worst mistake of Ryan and Hulst era.

No *****! It's a game that has outstayed its welcome and everyone is ready for Bungie to move on. Honestly I'm not looking forward to whatever live service they have coming next. SELL Bungie

I pulled out the moment they started sunsetting old content, to me that didn't make sense for new players to then end up reading what happened via lore.

The in game lore was already annoying to have to read it in the first game anyway, I bought Forsaken cheap on PS4 but by the time I did it was near the end for new content to come out and Forsaken was then sunsetted to the vault and I was done with it.

I think buying Bungie has to be one of the worst decisions they have ever done especially for the price it was way over, most likely based on Bungies projections