Destiny, as a franchise, has been going for 10 years now. It's been a major part of my life for a little over 8 of those years. The last release of this enormous storyline released this past June, along with a content bundle lasting a few months after to tie up some loose ends, and open up others.

Shortly after this release, Bungie announced their plans for the future of the franchise following the conclusion of this saga. After what feels like an interlude year containing 3 independent stories, the future is - Codename Frontiers.

Just a name. That's all we have to work with.

If you don't play MMO's, this probably sounds pretty inconsequential. Whatever, right, if we don't know what a game company is doing a year from now? That's super normal.

But for an MMO player, it's a major deal. These are live games that take a lot of time, effort, and coordination with other players to engage with. Most players have that one MMO that's "their game" for this very reason. Whether you play Destiny, World of Warcraft, Warframe, or others, a major part of the experience is community. When you know just how much of your life goes into a game like this, it's no wonder that these communities are places where friendships and lifetime partnerships are forged, strategies are developed with scientific precision, and countless content creators can all make a living just reporting on the tuning updates, tutorials, and story lore.

Community is the lifeblood of an MMO. And for a community around a game to flourish, there needs to be longevity of content. When a storyline that took 10 years to tell wraps up, players NEED to know what's coming around the corner. People really do plan their lives around events like this.

It Gets Worse

In the midst of this uncertainty, we heard news last week that Bungie was laying off hundreds of its staff. This makes the second such announcement in the last year.

The mood in the community after the last announcement was the lowest it had ever been - and the Destiny community has been through a lot of low points, usually right before a fantastic release that magically fixed many many problems. And after that last layoff announcement, we held on to the only hope the game had - that The Final Shape (the next, last expansion) would be absolutely amazing. Even with the subsequent announcement of the release date being delayed, again, that hope held out.

And The Final Shape was really, really good. Many people, including me, consider it the best release in the company's history.

Two months later, it turns out it wasn't enough. Last week's post from CEO Pete Parsons confirmed another 375 people being displaced - most of them losing their jobs entirely, the rest handed over to Sony, Bungie's main stakeholder.

When buying the game, you can get the expansion by itself, and the little story drops throughout the year separately, or you can buy one deluxe edition and get a whole year of content in one go. In the past I usually got the yearly package. This past year, after the first round of layoffs, I debated pre-ordering the expansion at all. Eventually, I did end up getting it, though I only got the expansion, not the whole year's worth. I had two reasons: 1) the decade-long story was wrapping up, I wanted to see it through and 2) I wanted to support the developers who it seemed were obviously going through a hard time, who had made one of my favorite, most inspiring sci-fi stories ever.

Then last week's layoffs happen, where the CEO cites financial issues, even though "we did everything we could to avoid today's outcome" according to the post. Meanwhile Pete seems to have accumulated millions of dollars worth of vintage vehicles in the past couple of years.

Obviously, any financial support I provide is not going to the developers who need it.

Bungie will not get any money from me without a major reformation happening. My personal wishlist, however unlikely, includes 1) Pete Parsons stepping down from leadership at Bungie and 2) the boots-on-the-ground developers unionizing AND securing decent agreements.

It's a shame, because I was excited about Marathon coming out next year too.

What is a Dream Job?

This past year is an extra kick in the gut to me personally, not just as a player, but as a programming professional as well, who's had my eye on the game development space for a long time.

Just a few years back, I had a nice list of several companies and places where if I had the opportunity, I'd drop everything to work there. My dream job shopping list. I even interviewed at a couple of those places too!

Now, it seems like every month comes with it some press release that totally changes my perspective of these places. Nowadays, that dream job list is very short indeed.

I suppose that the logical alternative is to create your own dream job. If there isn't a company that meets your needs, make it yourself, right?

Right?

I'm still figuring that part out.