How Destiny Changed My Life In The Last Ten Years

[Music] all right I'm back with another Destiny video the um last video we're going to make in the prefinal shape era as by the time you're watching this we're probably in the midst of the 25 hour downtime where you can preload the game if you have you know 300 free gigabytes on your computer um or uh just you know sit around anxiously waiting and uh I am trying to Masterwork on my Diablo armor that's what I'm I'm busy working on um ahead of the final shape a lot of talk is kind of going around given that this is the end of a a 10-year light and darkness Saga about like what kind of Destiny means to you and it is a 10-year Saga because that's when Destiny 1 existed and Bungie can say that the light and darkness Saga started at Shadow so they can kind of justify deleting older content that's wrong obviously it started uh at the very beginning here with the traveler with you know whatever the hell Destiny was at the very beginning there and I wanted to talk a little bit about my journey with Destiny which as you might imagine is different than a lot of peoples given my line of work and you know a destiny focused writing career and a destiny focused YouTube channel and all of this stuff um so we'll kind of start at the beginning here obviously when Destiny was announced everyone was pretty excited um Bungie was uh splitting from Microsoft and entering into this partnership with Activision which at the time seemed like an okay idea and they were leaving Halo behind Microsoft was was keeping Halo and and passing it off to 343 uh everyone was a little sad because most people really enjoy uh Bungie's Halo games but you know obviously we were going to be excited for whatever Bungie did next and no one really understood what they were doing um we we knew everyone kind of assumed it was like Halo adjacent like okay you'd have a campaign with some space things you would have uh some multiplayer PVP stuff but the more information came out the more confusing it kind of was and then we got into all this talk about how Destiny 2 or sorry I'm automatically saying Destiny 2 because it's been so long Destiny as a franchise was supposed to be this 10-year franchise that Activision was throwing at least half a billion dollars at and it just it seemed so ridiculous at the time for a brand new IP to be able to do something like this like totally untested totally improving even if it was Bungie even if it's a studio everyone really liked that it still felt sort of impossible and like a bit egotistical to make those kind of high-profile promises I think some of that was on Activision um because orig I mean I think Activision did have a vision of this being Activision's thing for a very long time and I remember kind of in the early days there was also talk from bun about uh you know we want this to be you know a video game equivalent of Star Wars or something and it's like okay come on um like let's let's calm down a little bit and yet you know for me and how many of you has this had more of an impact on your life than Star Wars or Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or whatever other big franchise you have um I would say it is the most influential piece of media on my life in the sense of the time I've devoted to it how integrated it's been into my life for a full decade you know like under a third of my life um but a very uh significant part of it and you know half the time I've been playing you know games as much as I've had at least and it's not like it's better than Star Wars or something it's just such a fascinating kind of experience that blends you know storytelling gamepl Community p PVP like things we had not seen before in the genre and over all this time I think we have you know those of us who have stuck with it since the beginning it has been part of a a a really significant aspect of our lives in terms of our media consumption like the people we've met through the game and in my case the career it's given me uh so when Destiny launched it was very strange um no one really understood what what it was it seemed like it was sort of trying to beat Borderlands with you know shooting and and gun Rarity and in classes and things which itself was you know an offshoot of Diablo those type of games arpg um but this had sort of The The bunge J sequa where uh the shooting felt really good and like even if the story was crazy and we didn't really have any idea what we were doing or what what the plot was per se and like the structure of the game pretty weird the shooting felt really good and that that was kind of the Baseline where everything else followed you may recall that Destiny reviewed bad at launch um it got a lot of six out of tens I don't remember what the final score is for it I think it was like a 70 or something and you know things got a little more condensed in the last 10 years where like a 70 for a major AAA game is pretty not great especially a game you know with that much investment sunk into it and a six as I've said can close down a studio uh that may not be fair but that is how things work in the current climate because chances are if your game is reviewing at a 6 out of 10 it's not really going to catch on and few games really get uh you know chances after that some do and we've seen some of those over the years but Destiny was one that really you know has been able to evolve over time in just ways that no one ever saw coming to the point where it became its own genre that so many other games tried to emulate because it did become that successful uh I waited a couple of weeks to do my review for it and um I gave it I think I think I gave it an eight or an eight and a half out of 10 and that was after Vault of Glass it was after sort of what we you know when we better understood the game as opposed to a lot of people giving it I don't think they ran copies because of the servers but a couple of people reviewing it in a couple of days a week like you get through the campaign really quickly and Bungie you know they they've said that they gave me credit you know when I've talked to them that for waiting a little bit to not be one of those six out of 10 but um obviously the game is a longer course of lifespan past that and I think we all know at this point that the taken King came along and it was a big sort of sea change moment for the game now we we refer to games needing a taken King moment or things like that to the point where that is what you know really accelerated Destiny into the stratosphere after kind of struggling to find its footing and for many people some people believe that was like the peak of Destiny and like it may have been the peak of like some amount of at least the community Vibes like the raid races and the you know how how popular it was and surging and it was like a really cool thing it wasn't like oh you're still playing Destiny it was like a year old and everyone's like oh wow this Destiny game is really taking off um and what I discovered as I as I played over the course of that year I I wasn't like addicted to it per se there wasn't anything that was like oh my God I got to grind this a million hours a night but I just I never ran out of stuff to talk about like there were so many dimensions to the game and so many like kind of you know strange issues or weird controversies or like things people discovered that you know I was writing multiple Destiny articles a week and that eventually became essentially a destiny article a day and I write I don't know how many articles I've written over the years but I've probably written at least if I'm writing one a day and I've been doing this 14 years now and Destiny's 10 years old you do the math it's it's thousands of Articles at this point and obviously I have I hundreds of YouTube videos now too and there's just endless amounts to talk about because you know it it's not the only game like that certainly there are games that are big enough and long enough to have you know that level of coverage I don't think there's that many like you know what comes to mind when we say you know games that have this 10-year lifespan like World of Warcraft I don't know I can't name that many honestly and for me personally what this did was I became sort of the destiny guy not like the number one content creator but in the journalism writing space I sort of carved out this area for myself that both sort of conceptually like didn't really exist like it was a game that had this many updates that was sort of this ongoing process I I became to realize you sort of needed like an on the ground reporter for a game like that where people could dip in and out and and kind of see what's going on and like this still happens to this day there are definitely other people like me now who have sort of made Destiny their full-time beat like not YouTubers but like writers like there are you know a couple of us like this but at the time it really it really let me carve out a niche because when you were you know looking up information about Destiny back before Google sucked ass uh you would Google something and probably my article would come up maybe some videos or whatever but no one else was covering it like past launch or like when a DLC launched or something but I was writing about it every week you know eventually every day and for my business like what we really look for you know in my kind of writing is repeat visitors which is you know we really value readers that read your stuff and then keep coming back and I was you know my bosses really wanted us to engage with repeat visitors and back then to this day I have one of the most you know engaged repeat visitor audiences because of this like for instance if you're just writing about random stuff that's doing well on Google which I also do admittedly um that's you know someone who's gonna read your site and bounce off but if you have a community of people who are coming to your your stuff and reading it every day uh that is is very valuable and of course this guy has gotten me a lot of hate a lot of push back over the years because you know 50 60% of the time I'm probably complaining about something and I know that it's probably very annoying to many people it's annoying to some fans some journalists it's been annoying to Bungie certainly um in the past I I've known that uh but another thing is like i' I feel like I've had a a solid relationship with many people at Bungie all this time because eventually it wasn't just me you know like oh it's the guy who complains about Destiny like they recognized that I'm very passionate about the game and like I wouldn't have written 3,000 articles about Destiny or 2,000 whatever it is uh if I was not uh incredibly engaged with incredibly passionate about the game and and playing it like I am not the most you know I don't have all the raid belts and titles and uh you know everything that like hardest the hardest core players and hardest core um you know content creators do like I'm I'm more from a you know mid mid casual perspective I can't say I'm casual with you know 3,500 hours into the game and covering it every single day but like you know I'm not grinding as as as hard as everyone else is but I I want to engage enough to be able to cover the game in a way where people continually are like yeah he's playing he at least playing the game he knows what's going on um and I just I like it I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't like it if I wasn't you know fascinated with the long-term trajectory of the game and how we've gotten to this point where it's been this 10e Saga of like all these ups and downs and like even the past year it's been like a really Frau time because of lightfall and the you know the issues that follow bungee layoffs like where did things go from here but now we've kind of arrived at this point where people have been very hyped you know for the last two months people are extremely hyped for the final shape I think it's going to BL break uh player account records at least on platforms we can track like steam uh and then we know more stuff is coming episodes start but um you know this is going to be a a significant moment for the game maybe the most significant moment for the game that we've seen and the fact that people are the site the fact that like Destiny is a top 10 top five game in Steam right now after 10 years and it's not just like Counter Strike like it's this you know mostly PVE based ongoing live game that is extremely impressive and like how many time like how many would be Destiny competitors have come and gone some were more successful than others I'd consider the division games pretty successful um they're even still going with with some new content now there's always sort of been this adjacent through line with Warframe warframes you know still a really solid game even if it's not sometimes it does actually go higher than Destiny but like it's it do not not as high-profile as Destiny um but you know we have the famous failur of of things like Anthem and Marvel's Avengers and now Suicide Squad to the point where we're we're seeing a lot of people backing off of this concept because it is so expensive to maintain this level of you know content production to PVP is is one thing where it's like okay we need a battle pass maybe we need a new Battle Royale map we need some new multiplayer maps and like not that those people don't work hard but it's it's another level to deliver the amount of PV PVE content especially that Bungie gives us on a a seasonal basis and like you can go back in time and it used to be like it was a lot less like we had Seasons that were based around an entire public event season of the what whatever whatever the first RB in season was like it was just a public event and where we've ascended to now is is pretty nuts both in terms of uh the amount of content we get but also storytelling like we can go back to managerie managerie was the best activity ever in season of opulence storytelling in in those seasons was like a lore book and a half or like 12 lines of dialogue in a raid like storytelling um you may not agree with every twist and turn or whatever but it has really evolved um at the same time and it's just been such a compelling Journey for me and like I owe a ton to this game I don't know if I would be here without it like yes I cover many many things yes 80% of my content 85 whatever is about other stuff but I I don't know if I would have had this kind of f this kind of platform in the industry without Destiny I I don't think I would I think more than half easily of my Twitter followers are Destiny based people I think um you know I've gotten millions of repeat visitors over the years from from Destiny content like this has not just not just paid my bills like this is you know bought my house this is um you know provided for my family like allowed my wife to bounce all around the country like for for Medical Training and and you know allow me to be as flexible as I can because I can you know play Destiny and cover Destiny from anywhere and it's allowed me to be very flexible and now it is allowing me to provide for my son who I do hope to play Destiny with someday as as uh how old can kids play Destiny at I don't know let's say like five it'll be around him five years right or no he's two now three years so it's just been a really amazing time I I think it's been a it's been a fantastic decade of of Destiny and I have never been engaged with another piece of media like this ever like individually like sure I've played some amazing 15 20 hour story games that you know the last of us is better story than 10 years of Destiny sure but like in terms of My overall commitment to a game and engagement with it I i' put this in a separate category of something like Diablo I or Diablo I that I got like just addicted to it like was just addicted to like as I'm currently grinding like crazy Diablo 4 I enjoyed those games but it's like it was a compulsion that I don't really feel the same way of Destiny like yes I'll I'll spend a long time grinding out God rolls or or whatever but it's not the same thing like I can pick it up I can put it down I I can I'm not engaging with it if I'm not enjoying it to some extent and I enjoy kind of examining its problems and talking about Solutions and a lot of those Solutions end up being implement it not I'm not that I'm taking credit for it because a lot of things I say is usually are usually kind of widespread problems or or things that other people in the community are saying or things that I've just stolen from Reddit uh I don't steal things from reddit reddit is the most popular uh Community forum for the game obviously I'm going to read the Reddit but I always try to bring my own take to Everything I Do I I don't I try to inject my opinion in in everything but I because I think that is often more interesting to read than just flat news articles um and I I also recognize that I am not you know the leader in in this field of like every possible thing you can cover in Destiny I think all the YouTubers are doing a much better job of of guides and like weapon you know things you should get and you know what should you do for you know this encounter like here's a full Rick kekus raid walkth through 30 minutes after it I was like I don't know how anyone does that stuff and those guys you know even if they're not writing five articles a day or whatever like me those they work incredibly hard and um you know they they get a lot of [ __ ] too like all of us who are you know these public facing figures with with platforms will get [ __ ] and we just sort of have to understand that and acknowledge it but I don't think we can Overlook the amount of support we've had and I really want to thank all of you like for for reading my writing for watching me After All These Years cuz it's like I I can't just credit Destiny I have to credit all the people that have supported this content and have been interested in this content and like even if you're hate reading it and want to debate me that's still valuable to some extent like I'm not trying to provoke you but I I am fine with having debates about this or that issue with the game and I I recognize people are a lot more likely to get mad at you about things and tell you that than say positive things but I've had many people say so many positive things over the years that have really encouraged me um and even even Bungie itself like IND not you know Bungie leadership these days but like individual employees of Bungie have really in the last few years especially have have really reached out to me and um you know I've gotten to form some relationships with them and it just it feels a lot less maybe adversarial than it was at the start where I was complaining and everyone was like annoyed by that but I I think I've reached a point where it feels good to be able to offer you know what I hope is constructive feedback and I think maybe i' I've tone things down a little bit over the to be like less of an [ __ ] hopefully but uh it it's these are the lessons you kind of learn along the way and I'll end this by saying like I'll be covering Destiny indefinitely um you know at least as long as I have this job like I'm not gonna as long as Destiny exists and as long as I'm I'm doing this kind of writing for a living I will continue writing it I can't guarantee that with Marathon because uh I'm not really a PVP extraction guy but Destiny itself I believe it's going to survive I I do I I know Bungie has some some serious issues and you know whatever's going on with Sony is a little tricky but I believe that this is a franchise that people are going to want to continue to invest in for uh the foreseeable future it may change it may change what that looks like maybe it gets less Support over time like that seems not impossible for a game that's heading into its second decade of life but kind of no matter what I will be there and hopefully you'll be there to with me but we'll see anyway thank you as ever for watching and I will see you tomorrow as the final shape content uh Rush begins and I have to balance actually playing it with writing and making videos and all that stuff which is a fun time but sort of chaotic and exhausting but I'm looking forward to it yeah thank you and I'll talk to you soon take care

Channel: Paul Tassi

Views: 40,475

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Id: 9QniRDY4QZw

Length: 20min 24sec (1224 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024