Developer and publisher Bungie said its popular sci-fi MMO Destiny is struggling to attract new players.
Conversation with IGNgame director Tyson Green said the MMO audience has “hardened”, saying that while there is no shortage of interested users, fewer and fewer of them are new to the shooter.
“Over the years, Destiny has continually strengthened its core. [audience]Green said.
“More and more core players are staying and playing the game, but relatively few [new] people come to the game. Tightening and shrinking is happening, and that creates problems for the game you're trying to support as a live service, especially if you want to continue to serve core players with great, compelling expansions.”
More recently, Bungie has struggled to please its core audience. The decade-long saga of Light and Darkness culminated with The Final Shape expansion, and the studio launched a new Fate saga with The Edge of Fate expansion, which launched in July. Although Bungie tried to present content that could appeal to its core players, fans weren't happy with it. As a result, the studio says it has redoubled its focus on what its audience wants.
“We have looked at the problem we are facing [after The Final Shape]and we said, 'We think there's a path here,' which relies on more pursuit systems, getting new gear levels, armor sets, power progression, and things like setting up challenges,” Greene explained.
“These are things that can allow a core audience of gamers to really say, 'I'm actually going to pick up this game and experience it and get good rewards for it.'
He continued: “It sounds great on paper, but it didn't work. I think we've been taught a bunch of hard lessons about what our players want, and there are really two types of live games: the ones that listen to players and react, and the ones that don't. And we don't want to be a dead live game, we want to continue to build Destiny. So, we listen to our players, and our players tell us that they don't want to chase a prime number that grows, they want real rewards.”
Destiny was released back in 2014, and a sequel followed in 2017. In 2022, developer Bungie was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment. who recently said that Destiny 2 didn't live up to his expectations. Player numbers have dropped sharply since The Final Shape launched, prompting our own Rob Fahey to wonder whether studios are working on live-service games. risks closing the narrative in the future.
