One of the concerns that is often raised about “new” business models (at some point we're really going to have to stop calling F2P and online service “new”) is that they can put the business needs of the game in conflict with the requirements of good game design.
Like business models themselves, this is not a new problem. This conflict has existed since the developer came up with the idea of turning an unfinished piece of content into DLC rather than adding it to the base game.
Granted, this isn't the normal process by which DLC comes into being outside of the feverish minds of most conspiracy-minded gamers, but no one can say with a straight face that this is a conflict that never happens.
There are much clearer examples of how business models conflict with design principles. Paid items that provide a competitive advantage in multiplayer games – so-called “pay to win” models – are a particularly egregious example, so much so that they have generally tarnished F2P games (most of which are not paid) in the eyes of a large group of consumers.
A less talked about, but nonetheless very relevant example of this conflict was brought into the spotlight last week with the growing problems facing Destiny 2. Bungie's difficulties as a studio are well documented at this point and come to a head with the advent of departure of CEO Pete Parsons at the end of August – but in the background, it seems, there is also the name of the company’s main direction saw the number of players fall off a cliff.
The final depths that the game's figures will explore are truly dark and devoid of light. Player numbers on console platforms are not available, but on Steam, at least in recent weeks, the numbers have set new all-time lows, dipping well below what was previously considered crisis levels in early 2018, following a somewhat disappointing launch and poorly received first expansion, Curse of Osiris.
The reasons for the decline are many – in any number of articles or detailed forum threads you'll find a laundry list of questionable decisions Bungie has made regarding the game, including some rather unusual decisions involving the removal of old content (which made the registration process for new players completely impenetrable) and rendered much of the rest of the game meaningless to player progression.
However, many of these complaints are not new (or are recent repetitions of long-standing problems). On their own, they can't explain why Destiny 2's player count has dropped so dramatically.
The explanation is simple: Destiny 2 is over.
I mean this in a pretty literal sense. Destiny 2 had a story that was created in the original Destiny – a grand Manichaean epic of light versus dark that was built over the course of a decade and tied together most of the game's major factions and characters. Then, in the latest expansion – The Final Shape – the story has reached its climaxand most of the threads of history woven since 2014 have come to an end.
For many players, this was exactly the decision they had been waiting for. New threads that Bungie began to emerge in the narrative to allow them to continue telling the story after the resolution of their main plot did not require the same level of investment from these players; they played The Final Shape, saw the resolution of a story they'd been working on for ten years, and were able to leave the game feeling satisfied with the ending.
For most games this would be a great result: combining the landing with the ending is what you really want from your narrative. However, for a live service game, creating this kind of enjoyable off-ramp experience is the commercial disaster we're currently seeing.
This is exactly the kind of conflict that some players fear (with good reason) when they play a game that uses a live service or F2P business model. Any manager or decision-maker holding the helm of a live game and overseeing the fate of Destiny 2 must be thinking that the key lesson here is to never give a satisfying conclusion to major storylines. Every ending should be cliffhanger, every question answered should trigger three more, and nothing should ever feel neatly connected.
There are examples of games that manage to strike a more precise balance. Final Fantasy XIV is renowned among its players for having quite a bit of writing to it: the stories are generally considered to be some of the best in the franchise as a whole, and it released a number of expansions – most notably Shadowbringers and Endwalker – that had extremely satisfying narrative conclusions to their own stories, while also helping to advance the main narrative that ties everything together each of the major extensions.
Genshin Impact is another game whose players are deeply invested in its narrative and lore, and uses a similar structure – telling somewhat self-contained stories in each of the “nations” that players visit in the game's main expansions, all relying on a background narrative that is less important to the ongoing plot progression.
Destiny 2 did use a similar concept – each of its major expansions told its own story to some degree. It's just that, narratively speaking, the road has gotten out of control: at some point, the backstory has to be brought to the fore and provide some kind of conclusion. FFXIV and Genshin simply haven't reached that point yet; it's too early to tell whether they'll handle it better when they finally do. Many games don't even survive long enough to ever complete their main storyline, so examples of this being done well in a live service game are hard to come by.
This is not just a problem with games. Commercial success has allowed many series to go well beyond the point where writers could and should have given them satisfying conclusions or forced them to come up with increasingly implausible new challenges for protagonists who had long since completed their hero's journey.
However, rarely have there been cases where narrative design has been in such clear conflict with the business model. As the growing number of live-service games with strong story foundations become increasingly stale, this issue will come up again and again.
Most games, including Destiny, have a long-term story plan, but what happens when the end of that plan approaches and the game is still making money for the studio? Unfortunately, the example of Destiny 2 will likely lead to a lot of pressure to not let anything end with a bang – meaning we'll see many of these games go away with a whimper instead.
