This is the fastest drop in engagement Destiny has ever seen. For a game with this many screwups in its history, that actually means something.
They gutted a solid system just to force more engagement metrics for the cash shop, and it’s blown up in their faces. This isn’t game design anymore. It’s punishment-based retention, and players aren’t sticking around for it.
Who could’ve seen this coming?
Multiplying the grind ten or twenty times?
Killing off earned gear and forcing featured items and exotics?
Hiding former BIS loot behind a maze of hoops?
Adding near-permanent power disadvantages in PvP?
Throttling dopamine so hard that the cash shop is the only real hit?
Yeah. People bailed. What a surprise.
The devs probably saw this coming too, but let’s be honest. This has "maintenance-mode executive" written all over it. They’ve already decided Destiny’s on the way out. Now it’s just about squeezing what’s left from whoever hasn’t walked yet.
And with numbers like these, the end is already in motion. This is what it looks like when short-term thinking kills a franchise.
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I hope Borderlands 4 is good.