A P E X
If you've looked at the gaming side of YouTube, you'll most likely have heard the news that Bungie has divorced itself from Activision. And, praise be to the Traveler, it is taking full rights to Destiny with it. According to some reports, Bungie employees were celebrating the news by literally popping bottles and cheering - and the Destiny community has been ecstatic over the change.
I find myself cautiously optimistic.
Destiny 2 is not Witcher 3. So while Bungie is embarking on a journey to become the next CD Projekt Red, their end product requires far more capital to maintain. Witcher 3 is a single player experience where maintenance doesn't need to occur on a regular basis. Destiny 2 is a diet MMO, which means servers, balance passes, tweaks, buffs, etc. all the time. We just don't know how much of the bill Activision was footing - so if Bungie is stepping out on its own, how is it going to pay for these things? Has it managed to secure enough capital through the latest DLCs to keep the game alive without cramming micro transactions everywhere? Or are we going to see practices that make Activision look saintlike?
I think most of the community is happy because we put the blame on Activision. We saw how they injected loot boxes into everything that moves and blamed every problem on them. But we just don't know who really was responsible - and we soon will.
But microtransactions aside, the next item of concern is content releases. As far as I can tell, Bungie has been struggling to keep up with Activision's demands for releases. They want regular DLCs - which has allowed travesties such as The Dark Below or Curse of Osiris to see the light of day. While I'm delighted to know Bungie can work at their own pace, I'm curious to see what sort of content releases we will be getting moving forward. Will we get the larger, Taken King/Forsaken releases annually? Will we get the current Annual Pass release? Will we be handed two garbage tier, tiny expansions like we did earlier this year?
All in all, I'm happy that Bungie is happy about the change. And I think that, more than likely, this is a positive turn of events more than anything. But it's the unknown that concerns me - will Bungie be the hero I remember from childhood or turn into a typical, AAA villain? Who knows?
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
I find myself cautiously optimistic.
Destiny 2 is not Witcher 3. So while Bungie is embarking on a journey to become the next CD Projekt Red, their end product requires far more capital to maintain. Witcher 3 is a single player experience where maintenance doesn't need to occur on a regular basis. Destiny 2 is a diet MMO, which means servers, balance passes, tweaks, buffs, etc. all the time. We just don't know how much of the bill Activision was footing - so if Bungie is stepping out on its own, how is it going to pay for these things? Has it managed to secure enough capital through the latest DLCs to keep the game alive without cramming micro transactions everywhere? Or are we going to see practices that make Activision look saintlike?
I think most of the community is happy because we put the blame on Activision. We saw how they injected loot boxes into everything that moves and blamed every problem on them. But we just don't know who really was responsible - and we soon will.
But microtransactions aside, the next item of concern is content releases. As far as I can tell, Bungie has been struggling to keep up with Activision's demands for releases. They want regular DLCs - which has allowed travesties such as The Dark Below or Curse of Osiris to see the light of day. While I'm delighted to know Bungie can work at their own pace, I'm curious to see what sort of content releases we will be getting moving forward. Will we get the larger, Taken King/Forsaken releases annually? Will we get the current Annual Pass release? Will we be handed two garbage tier, tiny expansions like we did earlier this year?
All in all, I'm happy that Bungie is happy about the change. And I think that, more than likely, this is a positive turn of events more than anything. But it's the unknown that concerns me - will Bungie be the hero I remember from childhood or turn into a typical, AAA villain? Who knows?
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.