A Return to Destiny

                       A Return to Destiny 

This past week, the console game Destiny officially kicked off its “Year 3” with the release of the game’s newest expansion, Rise of Iron. For game developer Bungie, RoI is a bit of a return to form after a Year 2 that was far from successful, although also far from a failure. For myself and many others like me, the newest expansion presents a tangible reason to return to a game that had grown tiresome in various ways. With RoI, Bungie has graced fans with new content across the board, a revised enemy force to reckon with and, as is their specialty, new toys to shoot to our heart's content and interesting secrets to uncover. In returning to the game, however, I've learned a few things about both myself and the game that only now make sense after leaving Destiny for a lengthy 9 months.

To clear up any confusions, this is not a piece reviewing whether Rise of Iron is a success or a failure. There are plenty of writers doing just that. What is interesting about Destiny in Year 3, and the experiences many players are having with it thus far, is the fact that a fair number of us are returning to the game after “quitting” for some time. Wondering why “quitting” in quotation marks here? I promise, there’s a very good reason. Destiny, and community-based games like it, are not easy to quit. I and other writers have written about the addictive elements to loot-based games. Like any addiction, it’s hard to really “quit”. The desire for that next piece of missing gear nags at you, even if you’re not actively pursuing it. Destiny is just one of many games that place that hunt as a core game element. Yet there’s more to Destiny than just that. The game presents a rather fundamental shift in gaming that has been occurring for well over two decades, but which has primarily been the realm of PC gamers.

I was wrong several months ago when I emphasized the idea that the only reason people have a hard time quitting Destiny is an addiction over loot acquisition. I wrote that piece 3 months after I’d stopped playing. I had been playing Destiny since the beta, and by the time I took a break 9 months ago, had logged over 50 days in playtime. You could say I was a bit of a fan. But those first three months away gave me a bit of perspective. I do still believe that the addictive elements to loot acquisition a core reason why many players, some of whom may be just as bored with the game as I was, are still playing. Yet there was something I couldn't quite understand about the game and why I played so intensely that only now makes sense now after finally returning to it 9 months later. The search for loot aside, Destiny's community is just as important, and in many cases more important, than the loot acquisition in keeping players around.

A Shift Toward Community Development

PC gaming has trended more toward the importance of community in the past few decades. This is an area where console games have lagged, primarily due to technological differences. It has always been harder to connect console gamers into a community. And most console games simply have not been designed to encourage or build that aspect. But console gaming has been shifting more toward distance multiplayer. Nintendo’s strict adherence to in-home multiplayer games aside, most console developers and game developers have simply dropped local multiplayer altogether. Console games like Destiny, which rely heavily on a thriving, external community to both exist and thrive, seem to be appearing in increasingly greater numbers.

Destiny was not my first community-based game. My first foray into this area started in college after I became heavily hooked on the Gravity game Ragnarok Online. I put thousands of hours into the game over the course of several years. I joined a clan. I made international friends, one who even visited me on a trip from his native Australia, and who, more than a decade later, I am still friends with despite the game being many years behind the both of us. But Ragnarok grew stale for me a long time before I quit it. And I realize, with years of perspective, that I only stayed because I had people to play the game with. People I liked and cared about, who I otherwise never would have met in any other circumstance. But when I left Ragnarok, I left for good. More importantly, I left a community of friends, something I still somewhat regret and many of whom I sorely miss.

Destiny is the first game community-based game I’ve actually returned to. Rise of Iron gave me a reason to return, but upon coming back I realized I had missed the community more than the game itself. As caustic and as it can sometimes be, Destiny’s active, interesting, thriving community is as addictive as the game’s loot and gear. And admittedly, despite the fact that I stopped playing the game for 9 months, I never stopped checking into the community. I found myself at the game’s largest community hub, /r/DestinytheGame, at least once a week, even just to scan the main page to see if there was anything interesting. When I loaded up RoI for the first time, I felt a piece of something I had lost returning to me. Roaming through a now altered Cosmodrome gave me the same feeling one gets when returning to an old hometown they grew up in as a kid, but have finally returned to after many years. So much has changed, you think, but everyone’s still somehow the same.

That one can take a break from a game and then return at a later date says a lot about the game itself. But also speaks to the fundamental shift that’s occurring within gaming. Games are no longer about simply beating the game. There’s certainly still many games made with that as the end goal. But games, as evidenced by Destiny, are increasingly crafted around the idea that there game's missions and story are not the end in and of themselves. In realizing that, one realizes why anime like Sword Art Online, for all of its many faults, are so popular. Why so many people still play World of Warcraft. Why competitive gaming is starting to get recognized as a legitimate sport. Gaming has long been a lifestyle. But individual games as a lifestyle? That’s something new.

Community Thoughts of Returning to Destiny

I asked the /r/DestinytheGame community if any others shared my story, about leaving and coming back. Unsurprisingly, many of them did. Here are some snippets of why some players left and subsequently chose to return (minor edits for grammar only):

hecppshows1: “I always love destiny I never really hated it except on launch when I was pretty ignorant to the actual fun of the game. The community has always been great, especially Reddit.”

KourRage : “Now about the community, it grew A LOT, but I mean most people and clans I have been in or ran into have been very kind and open to help!"

Thee_Ph3noM: “I had a few buddies return as well and from that they had friends that still played and it eventually led us to having the raid group we have today.”

xOkazaki : “Coming back to Destiny just feels really familiar yet new. I felt nostalgic being back in the tower and the ambiance felt like being home. It felt like no matter how long I was gone, there would still be a community of people running around and it just felt like the world was alive.”

lRefused: “I've moved over to PS4, started a brand new account, and now I have the whole game to enjoy again, and with many new people as most people I know have PS4's now. Other than controls, everything feels about the same, and this new DLC is amazing, so I will probably stay with Destiny for a while longer.”

thehonorablechad: “Playing the game again was like riding a bike - you never really forget what to do. The good thing about coming back for a new expansion is that everyone is basically in the same boat. You aren't really at a knowledge disadvantage just because you haven't been playing. And I have been keeping semi-regular tabs on this subreddit so I had a good understanding of what I was in for.”

I felt a lot of camaraderie with many of the players who had similarly left and returned. Most pointed to the pull of the community as a large reason, as well as the general fun experience of the game. Not all players pointed to the game and the community as positive, however. One user explained that he returned because he enjoys the game and the loot. But, in his words, the community is “still toxic as ever.” Another feels slighted by Bungie’s decision to leave out last generation systems (PS3, XBox 360), a move that he felt essentially forces Bungie to prove that the game is worthy of buying a new system for. At the money, he felt, RoI has not proven that.
Whether viewed negatively or positively, the heart of Destiny is in its community. Addictive elements to the game exist that do keep players playing. But those addictive elements can only carry the game so far, especially if and when a formidable competitor hits the market. But Bungie has hit the right note in both keeping players active, and in encouraging players to return. That centers around its vast and direct involvement in the player community. Should that community falter, so too will the game. And in all likelihood, mine and many others’ interesting in coming back after long breaks away.
Sources:
https://www.bungie.net/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/09/20/destiny-rise-of-iron-dlc-review-in-progress-the-call-of-the-wild/#778828c13991
https://www.bungie.net/en-us/Forums/Post/187183792?sort=0&page=0
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/09/09/the-good-and-the-bad-of-destiny-year-two-day-one/#4ccecbca61db
http://blog.gamesoft.com/how-to-break-the-destiny-addiction/
http://www.gravity.co.kr/en/
https://www.reddit.com/r/destinythegame
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Art_Online
https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/19/world-of-warcraft-legion-release-date/

Share this post