Recently, God of War and Twisted Metal creator, David Jaffe had some pretty scalding things to say about those complaining about Destiny. Specifically he was annoyed with articles complaining about being bored with Destiny after 100-plus hours of playtime. Making the argument that if it took all that time for you to get bored of it, then it must have been “a great fucking game.”
To be clear, he isn’t saying that you’re wrong for feeling bored after 100 (or whatever is a long time for you) hours of Destiny. In fact, he admitted that he too felt it got repetitive and stale after a while. However, according to Jaffe, it’s ridiculous to hold it against a game that after 100-plus hours of gameplay it fails to remain fresh and exciting.
Jaffe is absolutely right on about that. Especially if you’re of the mind that Destiny isn’t a MMO.
Shortly after Destiny’s release, I wrote an article claiming that people who weren’t sucked into Destiny probably weren’t into it because they didn’t enjoy MMOs. There were many that disagreed, saying that Destiny never claimed to be a MMO and shouldn’t be labeled as such.
Yet, how many games are deep enough to keep you around for 100-plus hours that aren’t MMOs? Not many. Thus, why should we hold Destiny to the same standard when there are so few games that actually can keep you legitimately entertained for so many hours. Content rich games such as The Elder Scrolls eclipse 100-plus hours easily for sure. Some lengthy JRPGs can demand a lot of time if you’re going for a 100% perfectionist run; still though, Destiny doesn’t fall into either of those categories, same goes for most other games.
So if you really don’t think Destiny is a MMO, then well you beat the game, you perfected your character and cleared all of the post-game content. Sure, DLC might add some more missions for you to do later, but you did everything there is to do and it’s probably time to put the game away. The conversation could just end here right?
If that’s the case though, then why are so many people still disappointed? Well hype certainly is a factor, but after nearly half a year in, that’s not really a valid excuse anymore for people that have been playing since launch.
No, the reason why long time players are so disappointed is because whether they want to admit it or not, they were sucked in by addictive MMO gameplay elements (which you can read about here) but weren’t offered enough content to keep them playing. In other words, the demand is high for more things to do in Destiny, but the supply isn’t meeting that demand.
Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku recently wrote about many of the major reasons why Destiny players are frustrated. One reason worth mentioning here is the issue of “not enough carrots.” Hamilton quotes several players from a thread on the Destiny Subreddit where many discuss wanting to take a break until the next “expansion”, House of Wolves, because after doing everything there is to do in Destiny and getting almost every item, many players have reached the “carrot on a stick” that Bungie has been dangling since Destiny launched back in Sep. 2014. This is the conclusion that Hamilton reached which echoes the sentiment of many other Destiny players:
The carrots those players are talking about are the rewards Destiny offers players for completing missions, raids, strikes, and crucible matches. Dedicated players have easily put in at least three or four hundred hours with the game, and that’s enough time to get almost every gun, upgrade, and piece of armor you could want. –Kotaku
What’s worse is that Destiny lacks any kind of climatic conclusion to at least send players off happily. In Destiny’s current state, once you’ve completed Crota’s End Hard Mode and received your favorite raid and exotic equipment, your time with the game is just sort of over whether you want it to be or not.
What do players do about it? Releasing another expansion isn’t going to change anything. We’ll just be having this same conversation once players run through the House of Wolves new content and raid.
Destiny probably isn’t going to change its identity anytime soon. It’s time to take Jaffe’s advice and just be satisfied. If you want a little more to do, wait until House of Wolves comes out and enjoy the new raid and equipment while it lasts. Otherwise, step back, appreciate the amount of entertainment you got from the $60-$100 you paid for Destiny and move on…
Unless… there’s a way to fix Destiny… if only we had more carrots…
