Following the reveal of the experience throttle system and the cancellation of the 3rd Livestream for Curse of Osiris the Bungie community seem to retaliate in outrage. I want to say that while this isn't unwarranted, it's a little late. The fact is that the Endgame of Destiny 2 and its content was ruined from the start because of a trend that began with the April Update in Destiny 1. For those who don't remember the April Update, it was done by Bungie's Live Team, the group that subsequently worked on the Age of Triumph. The April Update stands out in my mind because it represented a huge shift in the game balance through the introduction of Eververse content. Eververse represents a practice that is the bane of many players, commonly known as Real Money Trading. I want to draw a link between delays in content and the expansion of Eververse and real money trading. The April Update was originally the projected date for Destiny 2. As we know we actually witnessed 2 whole expansions following the April Update, the Rise of Iron and Age of Triumph, so clearly there was something that was preventing Destiny 2 content from being produced (that is up for debate, but the fact we never got Destiny 2 within the subsequent year was evidence that content was being delayed). Herein lies a trend I noticed for the next several expansions. The April Update saw several interesting new changes, including a massive expansion of the Eververse store. What was a source of Emotes and a few sparrows quickly became the source of legendary armor sets, decorative ornaments, Fireteam boosters, and more. Nothing was inherently wrong with this, but with each passing expansion the store grew and grew, including items from Holiday Events that had passed as well as Chroma, another decorative system. Up until this point, the game balance wasn't altered by these Eververse Items, but players who refused to shell out real world currency for these items had their access to the fun severely limited by a "once a week" limiter. For example Treasure Boxes might be awarded for the first completion of strikes, daily heroics and crucible, but you had to wait for the reset after that. A fix for that in Destiny 2 was to make Bright Engrams, a participation based Eververse Engram that gave players who didn't want to shell out for décor or niceties a chance at Ramen Emotes and cool sparrows. But it also included something it shouldn't have. In Destiny 1, armor sets had specific perks, that not only were customizable with Chroma, Ornaments, and Shaders, but also changed the way you played and gave different benefits. That perk system was replaced and reduced to what we now use: the Modification System. The fact that Bright Engrams can reward players with Modifications that increase your power and game relevant perks means that we are no longer trading real world cash for niceties and cool cosmetics; we are now paying for power. The fact is that Bungie is monetizing systems that made this game great in Destiny 1. The expansive equipment library was something many Guardians took pride in (and I make that statement as a fact because we reacted poorly to losing our Vaults from D1 after being told previously that there would be carryover). But now, every armor set is just decorative, with the exception of Armor, Resilience and Mobility, stats that were previously customizable outside the armor set. Bungie has now taken to monetizing game balancing items such as Modifications in order to offset the content release and how often it is able to charge individuals for that content. As an experiment in week 1 of Destiny 2, I purchased 20 Bright Engrams. The result was more Modifications than anyone in my clan, and my power grew faster than theirs giving me the advantage. That means that my use of real world currency gave me an edge over other players. This transition to Microtransactions isn't something gamers haven't seen before. The existence of "pay to play" in games like Assassin's Creed Unity killed the franchise player base. So the question is: Why was the Bungie community so shocked when we discovered experience throttling? Bungie has been progressing towards a pay to play system for several expansions now. Destiny 2 just represented a chance to capitalize on game aspects that were previously free to play because sequels represent a new beginning. The idea that Bungie is throttling the experience towards bright engrams not only speaks volumes about its intent, but also reflects poorly on the upcoming expansion. The "continuation" of a raid rather than the release of an expansion relevant raid is disappointing. The "two tokens" fiasco during the livestream where the reward of a rare titan mark and two tokens was described as "the most rewarding event in the expansion" drew criticism. But none of these are actual problems, but symptoms of a larger issue. The biggest problem is Bungie is out of content, and it needs to justify a business model. Rather than creating rich and rewarding expansions, it reskins and rewrites existing assets in order to create "pseudo-new experiences". Imagine if you will that Destiny 1 is a piece of Toast. The size of the Toast represents how large the game world is, and the butter and jelly on the toast are actual content in the game world. Destiny 2 was a huge slice of Toast, an expansive and immersive, more open world experience. The raid itself is staggeringly large in scale. However Bungie didn't have enough content to fill that world. Public events became the focus of gameplay instead of Strikes and Adventures. The raid while large in scale, only featured one actual boss, and it lacked perk specific armor and even throttled raid rewards through the token and key system. It used less butter and jelly than the previous game, and as a result we were all left with dry Toast. To compensate for this phenomenon, Bungie began monetizing in game content that was not only cosmetic, but game relevant. In addition it failed to expand the endgame, after touting a "whole new experience for Endgame Players". Bungie, you've failed to produce results before, but your heart was in the right place. You genuinely had something to offer the community and responded to their needs. The Taken King might be the best example of that. But once you had community support you turned on them, by taking advantage little by little. I paid for Destiny 2, I pay for online services, but I refuse to pay you to play your game after you've already extracted your penny. Finally Bungie's commentary on being caught showed a real failing on their part. DeeJ's comments on how Bungie is dissatisfied with the experience scaling is like a politician who has committed sexual harassment claiming that "that behavior is unacceptable. I'm dedicating myself to preventing this kind of atrocity". Your chance is shot. You can't play the perpetrator and the victim in the same breath. You instituted the experience throttle knowing its effect, and you hid it because you didn't want it to be noticed. When it was noticed, rather than owning up to the mistake and admitting it was wrong, you spoke about the mistake as if some other studio had performed the throttle and you were here to make it all better. I recommend you take a hard look at the content flow, and figure out why you rely so heavily on Eververse to subsidize your lack of creativity and content generation when charging loyal Destiny players for expansions that add little to the game outside of reskins and cutscenes.