Periodically checking on the state of the game it's easy to see why everyone hates on Destiny 2. I played both avidly, and was a huge fan of the first game. The true losers in this situation are the players and the game developers (the actual programmers and artists, not managers). Bungie started making Destiny in the best possible position. In his book, Jason Schreier describes a scrappy game developer who sought freedom from the evil overlord mega-corporation Microsoft, that rented a small theater in 2007 to celebrate their independence. Leaving Microsoft Bungie had a sweet deal. For most game studios, finding a new project to work on and keeping cash flowing into the business is a constant concern. In Bungie's spin-out agreement with Microsoft the following details were laid out: 1. Bungie would make two final Halo games for Microsoft (this meant work for the developers moving forward as they planned their next game and a safety net of cash flow) 2. Bungie would retain any technology they developed while working on the Halo franchise, but he Intellectual Property of Halo would stay with Microsoft. The employees were so ecstatic that they actually drafted a "Declaration of Independence" in defiance of Microsoft. The liaison between Microsoft and Bungie would later wonder what tech-giant had done to offend the small studio so much, but for Bungie, creative freedom was the ultimate goal. Bungie was forced to run design choices and game direction through the Microsoft chain of command when working on Halo. They also didn't retain the Intellectual Property, so the franchise wasn't technically Bungie's. The studios best game designers, sound directors, programmers, and artists would now take the lead on a new project. That was in 2007, and I honestly believe it was the worst mistake that Bungie could possibly have made. Bungie has since failed to self manage in almost every way. If not for the spin-out security net of two Halo games promised to Microsoft, the company would have crashed and burned financially under the development cycle of the first Destiny. The ironic part of Bungie's "Declaration of Independence" is that many of the minds that made games like Halo possible signed it. In 2007 they celebrated their creative freedom, and by 2014 many of them would either be fired or resign because of management issues within the company during the production of Destiny. Bugnie management has put off the repercussions and penalties of bad decisions for years by sacrificing. When Destiny 1 was rebooted, the team that redesigned the entire game was working with the assets and groundwork of superior designers. Those designers would leave and the company would continue to cannibalize the game long after the talent that made such designs possible departed. This is evident as the major plot arc of Destiny 1 was supposed to be what we came to know as The Taken King expansion. This lauded expansion would have been part of the Vanilla experience, and was designed by departed employees, then published by the same management that cannibalized their work. Bungie continued to publish incomplete games. They established a precedent with the first Destiny. If a studio had published a bad game before this, it was just that: a bad game. Because this game was live, the DLC already scheduled, Bungie decided that it could simply relegate the rest of the game to DLC and nobody would care. Since this decision, Bungie has not shipped a fully play tested, bug tested, and balance tested expansion or game. Instead it has decided to fire and forget, and save fixes for later. Bungie used an engine that isn't good for a live game. Editing and compiling changes in game takes a lot of time, and represent a significant investment for the company. Thus any changes are relegated to paid expansions. Because the investment of time is so steep just to edit the game, any game that ships incomplete (which we've established is every game and expansion they publish) is subject to severe delays in bug fixes or patch updates. Bungie transitioned from a company that made content to be enjoyed, to a company that created content to make profits. This transition put the company on the defensive. The company couldn't prioritize fun, because if it did it would fail. They spend all their time "turning in late homework" as it were. The company openly acknowledged that it was out of its depth around the time it renegotiated its contract with Activision once again. Recent news from Jason Schreier about the planned content creation going forward exposed this. Bungie stated that creating content was too difficult, and they would rather just use micro-transactions and drip-feed content rather than manage a live game. This was a plan produced by Bungie, not the "evil publisher" Activision. Bungie would then follow up all of these issues by creating two separate narratives: an internal realistic narrative and an external marketing narrative. By the end of Destiny 1, the game had enough content and rewarding activities to justify a full price game and then some. The in game economy had been balanced and they gameplay was tightly tuned. In addition the studio had introduced several live events that added depth and fun to the game without strings attached and had drawn in more players. Bungie would start an internal dialogue which exposed its intent to shrink the amount of work put into the game and its difficulties, while simultaneously advertising to players and future buyers of their next game that Destiny 2 would be everything Destiny 1 was and more. Bungie knew it wasn't creating a superior game, it knew it was still suffering the same development issues that plagued its first effort. Bungie had approached Activision about scaling back content generation, and using micro-transactions to supplement income loss due to this decision. Yet from what we know about the timeline on Destiny 2's production, even after the game was rebooted 16 months out from release, the Bungie kept the marketing narrative going, stating that the game was on track and a huge success. It advertised more to do, and huge amounts of content and story to keep players engaged. Now we're here. Bungie has had a rough 4 months since the launch of Destiny 2. The game has had so many scandals that describing them here would be pointless. Instead: 1. End Game content generation was replaced with the Eververse 2. Deceptive experience point throttling while selling experience boosters for real money 3. Game breaking glitches (nova bomb and Prometheus Lens) 4. Faction Rally scandals and time released new weapons 5. Content lockout based on expansion purchases 6. Micro-transaction focused live events There are more but this is the highlight reel. So why haven't any of these issues been addressed? Why is it that Bungie's plan to repair its relationship with the community isn't immediate, but slated for the end of the 2018? It's because this studio doesn't have the ability to cope with the bad decisions of not only Destiny 2, but Destiny 1. At each opportunity to stop, take a loss, and repair the game so that they could proceed forward without a backlog of repairs piling up, Bungie put off its chores and kept up the positive marketing campaign. This was done with Destiny 1, but with far less backlog and one key difference: there was no competition. 2018 is gong to be a severe year for an already downtrodden studio. Developers and programmers at Bungie are being held to the standards of the Halo years despite many of them not being legacy programmers. The studio that brought players Halo and the creative managers that helped its development are gone. It isn't the same studio. Imagine coming to work everyday to see extremely critical and berating reviews of your game, trying to carry the jockstrap of employees from the glory days only to fail in the end. It has to be difficult. Crunch and tedious work are common in the development world but Bungie has put off so many chores and back logged fixes that it would need a year or two of just fixing problems with Destiny 2. That means the studio works on JUST DESTINY 2. Currently the live team has been assigned Destiny 2 content and the studio is working on future expansions and Destiny 3. This company is living so far in a future that isn't guaranteed that it isn't paying attention to the writing on the wall. Bungie cannibalized the original design of Destiny 1 when it rebooted the first game. It continued to milk that until the Rise of Iron, an unplanned expansion meant to buy time for Destiny 2. The managers at Bungie realized making original content was hard, and that shows in the new game. Reselling the same content (strike scoring, old exotics, private matches, sparrow racing, crucible game modes, etc.) is part of a plan to re-brand and re-sell the same content because they don't have the ability to publish a game like Destiny while simultaneously managing a community and repairing the mistakes of the past. We're at a crossroads now. Bungie has entered a new year with lots of long term solutions to immediate problems and it has to maintain a player base to keep the lights on in the studio. It's been 4 years since the first Destiny launched, and many game studios have not only studied the new genre of looter-shooter massive multiplayer role playing game, they've studied what Bungie has done wrong and developed their own games. Typical game development takes 4-5 years for a game this size. We're reaching the gestation year of Bungie's competition. Titles like Anthem and a new Borderlands are on the rise to fill what was previously a Destiny exclusive genre. Warframe and The Division have rebooted their games with updates that bring new life by learning from their mistakes, an act Bungie has refused to do. Bungie is now in a race against actual competition, and it's looking grim.