by destiny 2
Like much of the Destiny 2 community, I remain deeply confused as to what’s going on with Bungie’s marketing strategy this year, as there’s pretty much none when it comes to the seasons it’s supposed to sustain between major expansion releases .
For the third season in a row, Haunted, Plunder and now another so mysterious it still doesn’t have a name a day before launch, Bungie has decided to share virtually no information ahead of launch, aside from broader changes like Sandbox tweaks and gear nerfs and buffs. There was absolutely no marketing, nothing pertaining to the story itself. No trailers, no teaser images, nothing. The tiniest scraps, if any. People are currently trying to extract clues to the story from rogue patch notes.
It’s…deeply confusing, both as an avid Destiny player, where myself and the other committed parts of the community are looking for a reason to get hyped for next season, and from an outside perspective, where non-hardcore players probably absolutely would have been No idea, tomorrow starts a new Destiny season. How do you have a live service game that just…doesn’t advertise ahead of its new releases?
Some theories to explain here:
history mysteries – The idea is that Bungie wants to surprise us with story elements as a “fun surprise” at the start of the season, and anything before that would “spoil it”. I could have bought that explanation for when they brought back the Leviathan for Season of the Haunted, but there was little reason to keep the pirate-themed Season of Plunder under wraps, and I don’t know what they might be hiding next season worth this cone of silence. Theories suggest it’s Rasputin season, but if so… promote it? Get people excited about it? Why not?
destiny 2
“You asked for it” – The other theory here is that Bungie was previously accused of giving something too a lot of gone, stuck in roadmaps too much, show too much in trailers. But I would argue that this is a massive overcorrection since “maybe not include the secret puzzle quest reward in the roadmap” doesn’t really translate to “say literally nothing about a season until the hour it starts” . It’s pretty clear that community sentiment isn’t behind this decision, and it seems like an odd move when the game’s morale and player count have never been this low.
cost cutting – I don’t really believe in the idea that this is about saving because “marketing” doesn’t necessarily mean releasing a trailer in 20 languages. It could literally look like a Rasputin logo tweet, and that would be 500% more information than we have right now. And no, I can’t imagine Bungie being in “cash hunger” mode right now after being acquired by Sony for a multi-billion dollar deal. They will also market the season after it starts anyway, the issue here is the timing.
destiny 2
All that matters is the incidence of light – Oddly enough, Bungie is Marketing for Lightfall, its next expansion, which started with a reveal six months (!) before release, which is the polar opposite of seasons starting from nothing until the day. The idea here is that Lightfall and pre-orders for the full year pack, which includes all of next year’s seasons, is really the only thing Bungie is actively taking care of, and many fans have pre-ordered pre-existing seasons through the deluxe edition of The Witch Queen last year. But that undermines other points, like huge story elements that were given away early based on what we know about Lightfall (Osiris Awakens, for example, which was last season’s “surprise” ending).
You just don’t see that in the media. Other games, TV shows, and movies don’t launch out of the blue without prior promotion, except in exceptionally rare cases. That’s weird. Very strange, and I don’t understand what Bungie is up to as none of the reasons I’ve listed here make complete sense.
In any case, see you tomorrow I think.
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