I believe that both parties here, Bungie and Activision, want the game to succeed. However, it's plainly obvious now that Activision has been and will always want to milk out every cent they can get. They are a business, but that doesn't excuse the direction and decisions they made or will.
[b] ACTIVISION DISAPPOINTED ARTICLE[/b]
https://kotaku.com/activision-says-its-not-happy-with-destinys-sales-1830322804
This doesn't make sense to me at all. For starters, people can take this as Forsaken was a bust, another failure, when in reality it is arguably the best state the Destiny franchise has ever been in. Secondly, making this public saying they are looking to speed up processes and find more opportunities to add microtransactions is EXACTLY WHY DESTINY 2 YEAR 1 FAILED. You push out an incomplete product, and monetize things that should be earned through playtime. Monetization is fine in some instances. Stuff like exclusive ornaments, the Temporal Surge that still values players that had the original versions. When you have little things like that, it is fine. Having ALOT of little things paywalled is a problem. D2Y1 The Dawning Event is an example to this.
[b] DATTO'S THOUGHTS[/b]
https://youtu.be/6NzYSh5fSXw
[b]FIRETEAM CHAT[/b]
https://youtu.be/AaLt0_UFaEg
I would recommend Forsaken to anyone that has been skeptical, but I can't recommend the Annual Pass now after seeing all this. I can't promise what comes next now, not that I could before, but now I'm not as confident that the additions after Forsaken will continue to add onto the experience in a positive way. Even if it does, will be as good as it could've been after Activision implements what they want?
I will say though, it has been nice to see Luke Smith, the director, come out of nowhere in awhile and address this. To reassure they, Bungie, want to stay on track with what they've done in Forsaken.
[b] LINK TO LUKE SMITH'S TWEET[/b]
https://twitter.com/thislukesmith/status/1061317979881656320?s=19
I believe Activision is to blame for The Dawning, EXP Throttling, almost everything that has taken a hit at Destiny 2 and the franchise between Launch-Forsaken. Bungie is at fault for D2 launch and the direction they went, though. However, they were listening to "our" (divided) feedback while being pressed by Activision to get Destiny 2 released ASAP. I believe in Bungie, not Activision. I look forward to the future of Destiny, but especially the new project they have in the future without Activision.
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What are your thoughts on all this?
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Well, if Activision think about it all, they'd see that PvP (and now gambit too) is expected to keep the game going between expansions after the hardcore crowd have finished everything. You know what doesn't help PvP? Well for one thing a lack of dedicated servers. Idk who makes the decision on that but if you want more people to play regularly I'm sure that less lag would help make the game more enjoyable. Maybe forsaken didn't sell as well as Activision wanted because some people, even hardcore fans of destiny decided to move on at the beginning of the year and even the promise of a heap of issues being fixed and more lore, etc wasn't enough to bring them back. Even loyalty has its limits and when those limits have been tested pretty frequently over the last few years by the festival of the cost, the dawning, curse of Osiris, etc, it's really not hard to see why some stuck to their guns and decided, no more. Activision don't like that they can put the bare minimum into making the game enjoyable and try to maximize profits and that makes players decide to leave and never come back. I thought this may be a wake up call for them but more microtransactions is going backwards. Maybe their plan now is just to squeeze the rest of the life from D2 and force out D3 early just to see if they can keep up the hype and keep us fooled, maybe they... Won't? I dunno anymore.