Dear Bungie,
I write to you on behalf of all the gamers out there with mental health issues. I myself suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder as well as several depressive disorders. There's also a lot of other mental health problems out there that are relevant to what I'm about to say, too many to list.
The point is this. We use games as a type of therapy. In a life that feels like it has no purpose, no real goals and very little hope, games can give us these things.
When a game promises so much of this we get very hyped up about it. "It's the game we've been waiting for". We look forward so much to something that makes us interact with other people in a positive way, working towards shared goals and giving us a sense of purpose that it becomes all we think about.
When a game then comes out and we spend our money on it, which usually is not earned because we are too ill to work. And when that game fails to deliver, we end up feeling more than just a bit let down. It's like the one bit of hope we had gets shattered and leaves us feeling empty, isolated and with no reason to do anything.
I bought Destiny a week after it was released. I would have pre ordered and bought it sooner but money was an issue. On first impressions this game was more than everything I hoped, but it didn't take me long to realise that this was not the case.
I'm not gonna rant about how this is the case, you have already probably read thousands of threads telling you. And it does seem like you are trying to sort some of these things and I would like to give you some credit for that. But not delivering on the expectations you yourselves gave us on this game is hard to forgive.
I actually looked at trading my copy of destiny today to find out that I would not even get a third of what I paid for it in the first place which is not enough to get another game I would like. It is actually quite shocking that its value has plummeted so quickly when other games hold there value for sometimes years! So why was I looking at trading it and not waiting for the dlc? Because yourselves at Bungie are not making some of us feel positive enough about the efforts you are putting in and this is especially dis-heartning to those of us with depressive disorders etc.
I don't expect you to magically fix Destiny and make it everything you perhaps wanted and hoped it would be yourselves. I accept this is probably not possible. But I do ask this of you, please address the issues I see posted on hear day after day after day, not just the ones you feel are relevant. Look at what is being most asked for and deal with that first. Please, prioritise your work based on the negative feedback you receive. I see a lot of complaints about the lack of variety in the game, and all though the dlc will give new maps, character, weapons and armor, the 'grind' is still going to be exactly the same and still lack the variety people are asking for. Obviously you can't please everyone, and a lot of people are happy with this game, although those people tend to be new to the experience or simply haven't had a great deal of time to put into it since launch, or simply got all the raid gear within there first couple of completions of the vault - speaking of which, I have 3 level 29 characters, One has completed vault 6 or 7 times on normal, 3 times on hard, the second has done one of each and I've yet to try with my third. In all of this I managed to obtain only 2 pieces of raid armor for my first character and only one piece on the other and really feel like any more completions would just be futile. I totally agree with armor dictating your level being a really bad idea, especially when this armor is only awarded based on a roll at the end.
Ok I just realised I said I was not going to detail faults and here I am doing it, hard not to when it feels so important to you.
Back to the point I wanted to make.
In future, when you release a game, please be careful what you release about it in advance, never say something 'will' be part of a game and then take it out without telling us. Be honest with your customers and fans, stick to your guns and make the games you want to make, not what Activision dictates to you.
For a lot of people this has not been an issue, there's plenty else in their lives to keep them busy and plenty of other games they can afford to buy to play instead. I am not one of those people and there are hundreds of thousands of people out there like me who put our all into getting a game and getting good at it. I had a lot of hope in Destiny from the very first trailer but this hope that is so important to me has been shattered. I have been a gamer for 25 years now, they are a massive part of my life and will continue to be in the future, but only if developers stick to their roots and not sell out for a bigger income every time they make one good game and a company like Activision steps in to 'help' make the next.
I would like to say I have high hopes for Destiny 2 but i have nothing to really go on. And am so annoyed with this that my chances of getting a Destiny 2 have been destroyed before you've even started making it.
This probably all sounds like just another rant, well, it is a rant of sorts, it's a rant from people that are strongly influenced by the gaming world, a big part of our lives that helps us just to get through each day, to simply have some purpose, goals and reason to interact with others when normally we can't. Also we are probably the biggest majority of gamers that are most influenced by games companies 'ethics and principles' in game design and quality of product. This means that if we hear a game is bad because of the company behind it not the team that made it, we won't buy anymore games from that company in the future.
So to wrap all of this up before I rant anymore. Please realise just how much your game development decisions effect those of us that play them. I'm not saying its a responsibility you have to us, just a big consideration that you need to give. I know someone who ended his life because of a game, stupid I know, but it wasn't the game that killed him, it was the fact that his last bit of hope was destroyed and with nothing else to seemingly live for he took his life in his own hands.
You've made some brilliant games over the years guys and I don't think you realise just how truly important they are to some of us. Now that you know this, I hope it influences your decisions for the future of Destiny and it's sequel.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you did lol.
If you would like more information on mental illness and its impact on peoples lives, go to mind.org.uk
Thanks again,
Jay Parkins.
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Actually thought a piece written from the heart like this might have got at least a bit of attention Good or bad.