Can't agree with this more. It was more about waiting for Bungie to get their heads out of their collective ass and get the game to where it needed to be then actually enjoying the game itself. Eventually, the frustrations of the game built up too much. I had "quite" the game before. But one day, during one of the missions in the lightfall campaign, i got so infuriated with some of the mechanics of the mission and the bugs/glitches that kept halting my progress. I had a moment of clarity where i thought, "why am I doing this? Why am i playing this? This isn't fun. This game is shit." I immediately exited the game, deleted every one of my characters, and uninstalled the game. And haven't looked back. Only in the time following that did i realize how manipulative this game is to keep you addicted. And it felt so good to be rid of it and start enjoying other games that actually made me laugh and have fun. To hell with destiny.
It’s really weird because imo if I was part of something I didn’t agree with I wouldn’t continue working there. At the very crux of every bungie worker a small piece of their heart is okay enough with how the game is going to let it slide. The people that made D1 aren’t there anymore and if they are the no longer making the game .
God how fucking true, that’s quite literally what’s kept me. I believed in it but now I’m just sick of the seasonal shit and now I just want to see how things end.
It’s not easy to recognize addiction let alone actually break it. I think there’s far too many players of Destiny who are addicted and can’t admit it. Mad props to you for this.
Took me till last December to learn it myself. Lethal Company made me realize that I was missing true fun and Destiny was just a habit. Now I'm down to a max 3 hours of D2 a week on average and I'm feeling great
I deleted it soon as they fixed the crafting glitch with busted guns.. I had never had that much fun in the game since d1, and when it was fixed I just thought to myself, I’m never going to have this much fun on the game again.. and deleted it.. it hurt bc I was a D1 alpha vet and it’s still prolly my top 2/3 game, but god it really was a addiction..
I was strongly addicted to destiny to the point where intervention needed to happen. Now that I've been gone from it for a long time now, I don't miss it at all. You don't realize how predatory or deep in their model you have fallen until you step outside of it. Destiny is really hard to get into and understand. And many parts of it are absolutely stunning, but it gets your hooks in you. There's never an end in sight or a goal you can truly reach. I strongly regret allowing it to come between me and my partner, but I am also very glad that she ripped me away from the game in the end. I was so addicted to the game that when I was told, it is either me, or your stupid game. I had second thoughts if leaving the game was the right decision. I'm glad to see I am not alone. All of those destiny raid friends were not real friends.
Fantastic video. I've been slowly falling out of all my previous addictions lately, and I've been playing Destiny less and less. I used to be able to no life this game for hours on end, but lately, mainly due to story problems and a stale sandbox, I've been playing, 2, maybe 3 hours a week if that. Sure this lets me spend more time doing other stuff, but not having something to fall back on is a strange feeling.
same, it's like now you have to find something to do in your free time where as before there was no question you just play D2. I think a lot of people would have similar experiences with Destiny if they stopped playing it exclusively for a month.
@@gizmo2445 I'm kinda in that boat right now. I'm not as motivated to play games I even know I would love, but dismiss them because they wouldn't give me the same "high" that Destiny gave me.
@@ado_fritos I know that exact lost feeling or like you’re growing out of gaming and are just a Destiny player now. Elden Ring was what pulled me out of that but I think you just gotta find the game that pulls you out or get fed up enough with Destiny
I doubt that you would know me at all, but I was one of the "big three" in the lore space back in Rise of Iron and Destiny 2's tumultuous starts. I tried my best to stick with the game for the sake of the community I had been building, but in the end it just wasn't worth the mental toll for myself. I moved on, have since found Warframe and a few other titles (trust me when I say it's actually a better model all around and Bungie's model is a joke comparatively) to fill in the gaps, and I don't miss it at all. The universe that those at Bungie were creating, most of which have moved on or were fired, is far from the same I was interested in when I started creating content. The stewards of a universe and a company need to be filled with passion for it. Bungie's heads lack that passion, and frankly we don't need much more information nor evidence to suggest that. The community lied to itself, and by doing so made itself sick and simply awful. It's ability to twist narratives and make everything into a war was a showcase of just how toxic things had been and still are. Destiny deserves to be put to rest, and the devs deserve to be given a chance at a new project, one that they actively are able to control and be vested in from here on out. While your personal story is actually not dissimilar from mine, albeit many years apart, (I played Halo when it came out on the original Xbox so Bungie is a BIG relation for me) it's terribly clear that the influence of social media can grip people differently with gaming addiction in their adolescence. I say this to simply highlight I hope you keep on track for yourself, your sanity and your personal development and growth. You CAN allow yourself to be addicted to something. Just remember that addiction and passion, however, usually have to go hand in hand. That and getting done the gym, meals and so on is just the step to getting back to the addiction. Anyway, too long of a comment. Your story just rang with me and my terribly cynical, old self. I wish you luck.
Destiny 2’s FOMO was the greatest choke hold I’ve felt from a video game. And even though I enjoyed the core mechanics and lore, playing the game felt like a chore. Like something I HAD to do. Ironically, another MMO was what pulled the veil away from my eyes: Final Fantasy XIV. It was there I realized what a GOOD MMO was like. 99% of the content that came to the game was there to stay. And if you missed it, it always came back eventually. Even on the rare case where a cosmetic was available for a short amount of time, the way you’d get it was through one or two five minute long quests, and that was it. You had weeks to get it done. Naoki Yoshida, the director of the game, even said, “I don’t want players to feel forced to log in every day. I want them to play other games, work on personal skills, or talk with their family.” Playing with that mindset broke the illusion Destiny had put in front of me. I still love Destiny and its world, even though I’m not playing it as much. It’s a game my brother plays a lot, so it gives me time to talk with him every week when he lives a long way away. I look forward to The Final Shape and the new raid. I’m going to kill the Witness, but when I do, I’m putting Destiny down. I’ve been with it since launch. Even though I’m tired, I’m seeing the Light and Dark saga to its end.
Thanks very much for this, a shocking and somewhat disturbing amount of points really hit home for me. I am playing through the end of TFS to see the conclusion of the series and plan to step away completely from what I know to be an unhealthy addiction. Thank you for being so brave and putting your personal thoughts and feelings out there, it helps.
Girl, Please for the love of god don't read this entire comment unless you really have the time, because this is about to become a 20 page essay, but holy shit. Literally everything you described in this video is basically exactly what I went through the last decade. I came across Destiny around the time House of Wolves had launched and the marketing for The Taken King had begun. At this point I had never really played multiplayer games before, let alone an MMO, because the only console I really used was a Wii. My dad had an Xbox which I played on very occasionally, but I never really had any games on it that I found interesting, until Destiny came around. The trailers I was seeing and the music I was hearing instantly captured me, and I could not stop thinking about getting this game. Finally, just a few weeks before TTK launched, I got the game and I don't think I left my room for the next 2 weeks. I was still very new to shooters and I was very much still a solo player, so things took me a long time to beat (I remember struggling on one of the random bosses in the House of Wolves campaign for like 3 hours straight), but I was having a good time. Now I didn't yet know the concept of a live service game, and I also didn't really understand a lot of the game's deeper mechanics and activities. I remember launching into the vault of glass raid at some point trying to figure out what it was, but after running around venus for an hour, I gave up. Then The Taken King released. I absolutely lost my mind at everything, and if I wasn't already in love with the game before, I definitely was now. However, I was still a solo player and never ran activities with others, until one day when I saw that people were talking about this new activity called "King's Fall" releasing soon, and that there was a race to beat it going on. Now I didn't know what this was, but I figured out a lot of people would stream this race on places like Twitch, so I made an account and waited for the race to start. Watching that raid race is probably one of the fondest memories I have ever made with this franchise, as it showed me something I had never seen in a game before. From then on, I wanted to learn how to do exactly what I saw on that stream, so I started trying to find ways to connect to other players and eventually beat my first raid, which was King's Fall (bad idea, really shouldn't have picked THAT to start with, but I digress). From then on I was just about as into the game as you described you were at this time. I wouldn't say I was addicted, but I was definitely playing a lot. Forsaken for me too was where I went from a mere enjoyer of the game, to obsessively and addictively playing and consuming everything about the game I could find. This turns out that for me was also a massive coping mechanism. I was struggling in high school. I had probably the exact opposite of an IRL social life. Destiny was my escape. It was something I got super invested in and could visibly see myself getting better and better, which was a feeling I couldn't get from school, and I played with other people almost every day, which was a substitute for me being the quiet antisocial kid during the day. However, just like you, after Shadowkeep's launch, specifically when the pandemic hit, things changed. My finals were cancelled in the wake of lockdown, and suddenly my high school was over and I had a 3.5 month vacation before I would get to start at uni. I had literally nothing else to do, but Destiny was all that was on my mind, so I tried my best to fill as many parts of my day with activities related to it, which eventually turned to me making music. I started playing the game's music on piano, trying to recreate it (badly), and I started engaging with the other people who enjoyed the game's music too. Eventually this resulted in a video of mine blowing up after getting a MOTW, and I was hit with the same dopamine rush as you. For the next while, if the game was ever not fully satisfying my needs for an escape, I would turn to making music instead, and this cycle would continue for a good while. It was around this time that 2 things happened in my life that forever changed me. Firstly, my dad unexpectedly passed away while we were out on a trip with our family, and secondly I started questioning my gender identity. My entire life was being turned upside down in real time, but I just tried to escape it by doing the things I was already doing. Just like it was for you, I'm still really conflicted about this time of my life. I met some of my best friends of all time through all this, and even got to work with a bunch of other musicians from the community. People embraced me when I eventually came out to them as trans and I never felt as loved in my life as I did during this time. Some of my fondest memories of my entire existence were during these years. Completing day 1 raids with my friends, getting very personal messages from people telling me how my music made them feel something, Destiny developers telling me that they listened to my music while working on the game, so many good things happened during this, and yet.... A growing feeling started inside of me. I later realized that this feeling had started way before I first noticed it, but when I finally did, I collapsed. Probably the biggest burnout I have ever felt hit me around the start of last year, and I simply couldn't continue anymore. All of my feelings that I had been burying underneath this obsession with the franchise and all of the complex emotions I needed to sort through started flooding all over me, and I broke down. It was just a few short weeks later that we got Lightfall, which was finally the snap back to reality that I needed to start breaking down my addiction. First it started with the game itself. I just couldn't bring myself to log on as frequently as I did anymore, and I even started skipping weekly resets itself, which is something I NEVER did unless I had something else planned, which was almost never the case because I planned my entire life around the weekly cycle of this game, making sure to always keep Tuesdays free. So naturally, even though I was already in a burnout and just hadn't admitted it to myself yet, I tried making music to fill the time, and for some reason....I couldn't. I had zero inspiration, zero creativity, zero motivation. Now this wasn't because Lightfall's music was bad. Hell, some of my favorite tracks in the franchise's history came from this expansion. I was extremely happy with the music of the game. It was all purely personal. The years of running away from my feelings had finally caught up to me. This is where I went through a very similar reflection as you did, finally realizing what the past few years of my life had been. I'd been neglecting everything that wasn't Destiny related. The only purpose I felt like I really had was being a Destiny player and musician. I even chose a game development uni course rather than anything else, because the only real long-term life goal I had was to work at Bungie to help make this game, or to somehow find my own way into Destiny's music team. This franchise had consumed my entire life, and I needed to get out. This has taken me basically the entire year to do, and I'm still very much not entirely free yet, but Destiny has instead turned into one of the many things I do every so often just as any other game is. I first spent multiple months in a state that looking back, I'm very much not proud of, but being forced to actually handle these emotions and feelings, and having now built up a group of friends and a partner that are there to help me through, I started seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I decided to drop out of Uni since the work around it was consuming me, and having lost the passion for Destiny, I also lost a lot of my drive to continue to pursue a career in this (all of the gaming related layoffs and horror stories from the past few years also definitely didn't help here). All of this freed up a lot of my time, which for the first few months I just spent relaxing. I needed a moment to just lay down and process everything. Eventually, I started feeling better. I got my passion for music back and started work on projects that weren't destiny related, even learning entirely new things that I had never done with music before. I began taking flights to see my partner more and more regularly and I'm currently working on getting all the paperwork sorted so I can immigrate to where they live and move in with them permanently. Finally, I chose to rebrand my online existence, away from Destiny, and into something that I actually feel represents me, rather than the game I was obsessed with. Pkmt1234 The Destiny Lo-Fi Queen is no more. Instead, I now feel so much more comfortable and at home with what I'm doing, and my life seems to be heading in the right direction again. I cannot thank you enough for making this video. If you've somehow made it to the end of this comment, it's really reassuring to know that I wasn't the only one who went through all of these complicated feelings over the last decade, and it brings me joy knowing that you came out of it as strong as you did. I'm definitely not as far improved as I want to be, but seeing the progress you made makes me feel like I can do all of that too. Thank you Ty
I'm so glad you found so much to relate to, I really appreciate you taking so much time to write out your own experience with it. It's wonderful to hear that you're on a better path now, and that you've been able to get back into making music separate from just Destiny related pieces. That's certainly something I've also had to work on with my own 3D art, it's so easy to get hung up on one particular thing that it feels daunting exploring art based on other things. But it's been getting better for me too. Thanks so much for the wonderful comment. :)
At work for the time being, but this is something I want to read later. It's really rare that someone goes in depth with something like this, and I would wager most who otherwise would never do because most ostracize people who do. Then again, they typically have the brain power of a potato.....ask me how I how I know about later if you like. Hell as much as I like this series for its lore and stuff, this game has also brought out the inner A-hole in me that I have usually kept buried for a very long time.
That is the LORE. Absolutely it was a journey, Rosa! I got into Destiny because of its concept and art that brought my attention to it. It was really something else back then! I spent a LOT of hours into the game, too. I didn't bougt all of the expansions and when i got the chance to play them for free I didn't waste any time on anything else but grinding most of it. Seasons? I had only bought two in total that looked interesting for me. From my perspective, the game I used to know, lost its concept and direction; it evolved into... something I didn't appreciate anymore -it became "too alien" for me-. I only came back when they got something interesting going on like Season of the Haunted or some F2P missions but then everything else became "meh". Everything was behind paywall and I try to spend my money smartly. I just wish everybody give themselves some time to rest from it and to focus on other things rather than grinding Destiny, even the developers! Its like eating the same thing or thinking the same thing all day, over and over and over. It will drive you crazy! To reward ourselves with health, care and knowledge. I wish you all the best and success! 👍
Watching the video and reading this are both making me very glad that my only creative interest is writing. I don't want to think about how much worse off I'd have been if I'd started making art also revolving around Destiny - like there's no escaping it. Burnout and collapse is definitely accurate. I know I've been grappling with a lot of things, not just since breaking off from constantly playing Destiny a couple years ago, but slowing down on video games in general more recently too. It was an uncomfortable emptiness that suddenly brought a lot of space for thoughts I'd been trying to ignore. I'm doing a lot better now and I'm glad for the changes I've made in my life (I even started reading again for the first time in years!), but god it was rough for a time. Still, I got through it. It sounds like Ty's getting through it, and you will too! Also the casual gamer kid -> Destiny player -> trans pipeline is real huh
*Soon comes the exodus.* *When then we will see the dust that has settled around us.* *And the healing will begin.* I have a lot to process over my time with Destiny so brace yourself for a long read. I am grateful and bitter. Hope and despair has been the duality of my experience, and I think the conversation of stepping away is something we really need to have as a community. I remember it seeming like a problem for the first time when Aztecross mentioned us being addicted to Destiny once and it really began to hit home. So I definitely want to participate and unpack this. Before Destiny, I used to play games with endings, and in their wake, I returned to life, had experiences, made tangible, palpable memories. But I've been struggling... with a gap in time that I can't make sense of. I'm 34 now. My body has aged. I barely have any friends left. I lost a good job because I couldn't handle the gravity of reality. I don't know what's happened in the last 10 years. I used to travel, go outside and feel- REALLY FEEL the sun. I had people that I would see and invite over to hang out, eat, and commune. Now, I'm surrounded by literal bird shit because my comfort animals have become more than I can maintain. The trash is piled up. The sink is full. My bedroom is full of boxes I haven't unpacked after moving almost two years ago. My girlfriend and I have stopped our physical relationship almost entirely. All my big life goals... they're in the wind. Worst of all, I... can't remember the feeling of ambition. I really feel like I need help, like I need saving. I used to dream so heavily about becoming a comic book artist ("graphic novelist" I used to tell people). I was so driven to learn new skills from ground zero all in the name of accomplishing that dream (how to draw, how write, how to design, how to speak new languages in case I thought to sell my stories abroad, etc). I had such a charge within to take on the world that it felt like I held a star in my chest and radiated my dream onto everyone... and now, a fact that haunts me in reflection, I could tell in their faces and voices, they believed I one day would be all that I set out to be. Destiny has been the blackhole that took everything away from me. Sure, I am ultimately responsible for this, which is why I feel immense shame, but the moment Destiny embraced the live-service model and sought to ensnare every moment of my attention and pleasure, I felt I was completely unprepared for what extremely powerful psychological tactics they had at their disposal. I don't think anything good can also be addicting. I roll my eyes whenever I hear someone say something is so good that it's addicting. Addicting implies imprisonment, and I want freedom. I cherish it. I yearn for it now. So too do I yearn for closure from this ride. I want a place I can step off from and say "hey, this is my stop so now's time for the nostalgia to form." I personally don't think I can feel nostalgic for something if I'm still experiencing it, and that fact makes me so incredibly sad. Why? Because I've found that it is in nostalgia that meaning, joy, and pleasure exalt into nourishing warmth and fondness. I can't tell you how richly I look back at other franchises I enjoyed in the past, experiences that are so outdated that I can't imagine how I ever enjoyed them. Final Fantasy 7 is a game that holds a spot like that in my mind. So is the first season of Pokemon, when that first dropped. I remember running home from school as fast as I could just to watch the next episode of Dragonball Z in similar fashion. Now, I go back to experience those things and think, "man, I've grown since then, I can't believe I didn't see all these issues before". With Destiny however, I can't do that properly. Don't get me wrong, I can do it a little, maybe because Destiny 1 is a thing of the past (let me tell you how fondly I remember my first raid experience in the Vault of Glass, with all my irl friends in the raid team, man... good times, those days are over). But because I don't feel separated from the Destiny experience, I don't feel the intensity of nostalgia. I can't exactly figure out why that's important to me, but something about it bothers me. Maybe because I'm ready to move onto something else. Maybe I feel I need to leave it behind so I can go and experience some nurturing newness. Maybe that's it. You know, I recently learn how damaging long term excessive gaming is on the brain. I started watching a TH-cam psychologist named Dr. K (@HealthyGamerGG) and he had a video on the effects excessive gaming long-term has on the brain, and it's not good. Atrophy of vital brain centers occurs due to too much dopamine and not enough serotonin and that causes severe issues down the line. The findings terrified me when I found out, but knowing also gave me insight into what's been wrong with me this whole time. That insight I hold dear and it may be what started breaking me away from Destiny (he also made me wonder if I have ADHD and if that made me more susceptible to gaming addiction). Then again, I gave up Destiny for a whole year when Shadowkeep was annouced. So maybe I was feeling the fatigue before. Anyone else identify with the Snap that happened in Avengers Infinity War and the 5 year gap in Endgame? I certainly draw parallels between that and my experience. Especially with the pandemic, not to mention my big break up at the time. I was supposed to get married back then… God... Some much time wasted. I should've had a family by now. All my other friends do. I feel so left behind. But I also feel so glued to this Destiny ride that I can't get out before it's over. The Final Shape is so close now. So close. But hey, I'm not one to focus only on negativity. Destiny mesmerizes me. Going in, I felt so enamored by anything and everything about it. I truly believed that I could learn so much about writing simply by being exposed to Destiny. I felt so firmly in my heart that there was something vital to be gained from playing Destiny that I had to be there. So many things were given to me over the years of playing. I've freaking learned things, a ton of things from experiencing Destiny, and I am ever grateful for that. I remember back in 2014 going in and being so eager to walk on the various planets and moons of our solar system. Be it the moon, Mars, Mercury or Venus, I was so excited to see what these places might be like (Venus was my favorite 🤩). When I actually got there, the satisfaction was physical. I loved it all so much. But now... I want life. I want to walk the forests, climb mountains, ford the rivers, and bathe in the sun and shadows of the day and night. I want to experience the real. I want a place that is my own where I can sow the seeds of my life and grow a family that will give me purpose. I want to see it all, breathe it all, feel it all. So desperately. I want to feel the dreams again. I want my zest back. I want my age to make sense. This game... maybe all gaming... maybe all screen time.. hell, maybe all forms of escapism, is troublesome in large, endless doses. Be wary, my friends. I don't think we're supposed to escape our lives more than we face them. Thank you to those who read to the end. I really needed to get this out after watching the video.
I'm not as well written as you are, but this seems to be the ongoing theme of video game addiction, rather any addiction, that is the missing out on life for a much cheaper alternative. Whether it be games, movies, cornography 🌽 or drugs including alcohol, these are the phony things that will never compare to the real deal of living life. Let me humble myself by saying that I am the worst of these addicts, but the only thing that has delivered me from the worst of these addictions is Jesus Christ. WAIT! ⚠please keep reading even if you're not a believer yet. This historical One is indeed real and He really did die on the cross for us so that we may be saved from our sins and live a life for Him, not ourselves. Which I think is really the main issue for any addiction. Jesus can in fact save you from all if you believe in Him and ask in His name. God bless you, and anyone reading this. I'll be praying for you! God set this on my heart to tell you this! Love you! “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16
Oh god I hate how much I relate to this, all the way down to the timeline of Reach into D1 (though I started with Halo 2) and using Destiny to escape my dysphoria. Playing every day, doing all endgame activities on all 3 characters every week, doing every quest and getting every item, reading every update and spending all my time away from the game on the subreddits. I had a lot of free time in high school that I think led to this, and while I was probably addicted at that point too, it wasn't really an obvious problem until university and working full time. Destiny ate up all my free time, I barely engaged with people or my responsibilities unless I was forced out of the house by school or work, and the worst part is that I don't think I was even really having fun. It was like it was a job unto itself. Then the pandemic hit and that certainly didn't help, either. I'm happy to say I'm doing a LOT better now. I think things like actually getting hobbies outside of gaming (D&D has been a godsend for my social life), getting into Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, Stellaris, and other games that don't try to demand my attention every week, and just plain boredom and frustration with FOMO, seasonal models, and the power grind are what finally broke me out of it. Having friends drop the game, connecting with people in real life and, of course, going to therapy (even though it wasn't specifically for addiction) helped a lot too. And, in part due to that therapy and actual connection with people, I've finally been able to sort out the gender stuff and start my transition properly. I don't know if I'd have done that if I'd remained buried under addiction. Weird side note, now that I'm on estrogen it's like a switch has been flipped: where I used to play 8+ hours of video games a day in general, not just Destiny, I barely even WANT to play them, and do maybe a few hours a week at most. I guess I should have started years ago 'cause it forcibly broke any addiction I might have. Nowadays I'll play on and off for maybe a couple weeks, with month long breaks and it's sooo much better for me. I no longer bother maintaining 3 characters and don't really do endgame stuff. Basically do the seasonal story, mess around getting some gear, and that's it. Started that pattern just before Shadowkeep, but Lightfall solidified it. I'm really of the opinion now that live service games are not a good thing - as much as some parts of the community complained about content droughts, I really miss the D1 model of single, giant yearly expansions with little between them. I could play those as much as I wanted and when I had done everything, I could just do other stuff without fear of missing out. Anyways, this has been really long and all over the place, but my point is that this was a great video. I know I've had issues with Destiny and while I think I've resolved them now, it's really been good to hear someone with a similar experience actually sit down and put it all into words, something I never did and it's made me actually stop and think. It's good to have some retrospection. It's also fun (?) to hear about another trans person with an experience so similar to my own. Ironically, I found this because the algorithm has decided start feeding me Destiny videos. I just hope our corporate overlords allow the game, the devs, and us to take a break after The Final Shape. Let it all breathe, take a step back, and reflect like you've done. PS how do I get a girlfriend through Destiny? Asking for a friend
I'm glad you enjoyed the video and found some space to reflect for yourself! It's certainly been very cathartic seeing everyone sharing similar stories. Thank you for your wonderful comment and sharing your experience as well, as a fellow trans person I wish you all the best ❤
ill always cherish destiny for helping me come to terms with my gender identity, but damn yeah was i using it as a crutch to not think about shit. i definitely feel you on the whole "24/7, spending all my time on the game or looking at the subreddits and stuff". glad you were able to distance yourself and focus on yourself first.
I’ll never get over how the Joe Staten Destiny was taken from us. Destiny has had ups and downs but it never lived up to its full potential. The game they were hyping up in 2013 is not the game we got. Still I’ve had the most fun playing Destiny than any other game.
Could not have said this better. I went thru something similar with Destiny 2. One day I said the same thing, "what is the point of me playing?" I'd already stopped having fun and was just going thru the motions. There was no story, no real narrative as we received bits of a short story each week and you had to grind to get even that. Difference is that I did quit cold turkey. Since then, I've played the Witcher 3, Detroit Become Human a couple times, Cyberpunk (a lot), and other games. D2 was made to be addictive. The 1st step is acknowledging that fact and then you can move on. Thanks for the great vid!
I had a similar revelation - it’s really all about balance. I still love hopping on and playing with friends or when I have extra free time (like breaks from college), but destiny doesn’t control my life like it used to. Destiny will always hold a place in my heart, but I plan to quit after TFS. Thank you for sharing your experience, wishing you all the best!
This game may have single-handedly killed my interest in any game that asks me to devote a boat load of my time to it. If I didnt log in and run strikes, crucible, gambit, bounties, etc etc etc. Then I would be behind, and so I grinded mindlessly. I wasnt having fun most of the time but I did it anyway to do the one thing I did enjoy. The Raids. Eventually even my love of doing raids couldn't keep me around. I was spending so much time being unhappy playing the game but I didn't want to stop because my friends played and we would raid together. I logged off one last time after Lightfall and after a few months of debate I uninstalled Destiny 2. I am free of it and I won't go back. I drained so much time in there just to keep up, not because I was enjoying it.
it sucks because you know every time someone tries to bring these things up the d2 goblins show up and are just like "It's not that deep bro, just stop playing" as if the concept of psychology doesn't exist. Destiny 2 is a game that is MADE to steal your attention. they want you to spend every waking moment you have pouring your life into this game so that they can keep making money. Games that are made like this have actual psychological effects on people, some more than others. Videogames are an escape from reality, not an entirely new reality to live in, and vulnerable people, like kids, teens, those with ADHD, Autism, etc etc, can be extremely vulnerable to this. The fact some people can see these games doing exactly as they are intended to, that being absorbing you completely, and they can just be like "So just stop" is comically uneducated. It works like any other addiction, just because it's a game doesn't make it's effects any less real
@@FennKitFox Yeah, it can definitely be frustrating seeing people say shit without really understanding how harmful games like these can be for people. Anonymity gives people the confidence to say some real gross, dumbass shit. And yeah, Aztecross reacting and shuffling viewership away from this video kinda sucks, but I'm just happy so many people have gotten the chance to watch it through them at least.
Watching this, I feel solace knowing I'm not the only one who feels like this about Destiny. This franchise has been monumental in creating the individual I am today, my opinions on games, my taste of games, how I interact with people around me. Half of my life has been spent playing this game (granted on an off again because of lows, but that's literally every fan of any game ever). I got into destiny in elementary school, 5th grade. I remember the exact moment I first learned about the game. I was in the cafeteria talking about playing Garden Warfare with my friends that night but they said "oh we are gunna play Destiny", I asked them what it was, watched a video on it and the next day I asked my dad if I could get it. I immediately fell in love with it and it was really the first game I played that made me obsessed with games as something more than a hobby. One of my favorite moments was playing Cerberus Vae III with my friends and just running each other over with Interceptors, simple things like that were really funny. I bought and replayed every story mission, vanilla, Dark Below, House of Wolves, even deleting and making new characters because I couldn't really do endgame content. I remember even trying to get my dad into the game by letting him make a character and trying to play, he couldn't since he had arthritis but it was something I wanted to do to feel connected to him through a media I loved. When Taken King came out, I was completely attached to this game. The slew of new exotics (Zhalo Supercell my beloved) and the dreadnaught had me in awe. The two new strikes, Sunless Cell and Shield Brothers, were my favorite to ever be added to the game and still are (both also had the coolest titan exclusive armor pieces that I still have). I was largely a solo player so my enjoyment of the game was pretty limited, I did one raid with my friends but they never invited me again since I did suck admittedly, but I still loved the game all the same with strikes, weekly story missions, crucible, even a nightfall or two. I did almost everything I could do as a solo player and didn't get bored after the fact. Once Rise of Iron came out and Destiny 2 was announced I was so excited and had so many ideas rushing through my mind about what they would add or could add. One of my favorite ideas was having Light and Dark guardians, a real sort of faction system that I thought would be awesome since the faction wars they had in the game already were pretty disappointing. There are so many things I wished they had done differently in the story now that I look back, overall it feels so chaotic the many different directions Destiny has gone in and just barely at the finish line did they have something stable, and people are already sick of it. Especially now the story feels predictable and I have no connection to it anymore, it feels like a poor imitation of a marvel show, not to say that characters in the past weren't bland or easy to understand they very much were, but nothing about the seasons feel interesting at all anymore. I'm an idiot at story telling but this is just what I feel. Going back to the D2 launch, I was excited to start, that little call back to all the things I did in D1 made me feel almost proud of everything I did and that I was really about to start a new journey or have a new experience. Once I finished Red War I was still connected to the game but it was starting to wane. That love and devotion to this game was morphing to confusion and hatred, and I feel like an idiot for ever letting myself feel that way for something, especially as stupid as a game. Eververse was extremely predatory, there was hardly anything to do as a mostly solo player (amplified with no randomly rolls on guns), and the game just felt so boring to play. I remember being so completely angry and I had an hour long rant to myself and how I felt betrayed by Bungie, which was silly in retrospect because who really cares. I can't remember exactly what it was that set me off, I'm sure part of it was taking in the opinions of the community at the time and part of it was genuine frustration I felt myself, whatever it was I just quit playing completely. I played other games, Overwatch mostly (what a shit show that turned out to be), Rainbow Six Siege (another shit show), For Honor (a shit show that I genuinely love, still play it and highly recommend) and Titanfall (just absolute heat) to name a few. It was around new years 2018 that I built my PC, at that point I just played TF2 almost exclusively and dropped Overwatch (boring ahh game), I had watched TF2 vids since I was 12 but played on my laptop a handful of times but getting my computer changed everything. After having my PC for a while my new friends told me about how Destiny 2 was on PC and was free, I downloaded it for shits and gigs and was enjoying how the game felt faster than launch, the return of random rolls and the kinetic/especial/heavy weapon system, and the massive amount of time I took away from the game meant there was so much content to partake in. I wasn't completely invested again at this point but I enjoyed just playing the game casually, picking it up on and off again. I think something I always enjoyed in this game was role-playing admittedly, I really like feeling like a protector of humanity, it's kind of cringey but I loved feeling like a powerhouse who could just destroy every ad in front of me. Undying was fun and helped me feel like this, just killing hordes of vex in Vex Offensive was the thing I enjoyed in the game (something I like in the game currently, the enemy density is fantastic). It was around Arrivals that I become passionate about the game again, in large part because my friend group enjoyed raiding making us all have a game to play and work together in, It was also when the pandemic and lockdown was starting to take full effect and I had nothing but time. Beyond Light came out and I was feeling a similar sense of excitement I did for Taken King with the introduction of Stasis, I was feeling like they were doing all the things I wanted them to do with having Dark Guardians. Well it wasn't amazing, I still really enjoyed it though, it was the first time I ever did a day one raid and we got so close too. That will probably be one of my favorite memories of all time, getting through Atraks and screaming in joy (which pissed my parents off immensely, rightfully so). Some of my friends slowly lost interest while I still played religiously, even though they hated Hunt I still played it. Chosen was absolutely amazing, I completely adored the story, I loved that the guardians were making alliances with the Cabal, I really like Caitil I think she's cool and interesting character. It was around this time that my dad passed away and I felt very lost, angry, confused, depressed, remorseful, every feeling you get when someone close to you passes away, the immense pain of it. Destiny was an escape that distracted me, but it wasn't healthy, the lack of social interaction made things worse and I completely dropped school which caused more problems for my family and for my own future. None of it was important to me since I just had Destiny, I was a complete mess with no ambition or motivation to do anything but play Destiny. Around Lost I dropped the game completely due to immense burn out and boredom with the content in the game which was for the best as I finally started getting myself back together and focus on school (somehow I graduated with my peers). I don't remember exactly what else happened but something inside me clicked and I started to hate Destiny again, it wasn't just the burnout but something else. I had no intention on playing Destiny again but my friends told me how Witch Queen was a phenomenal expansion so I bought it and loved it, I wasn't exactly devoted to the game but I enjoyed it since I had no really games of interest. I bought the deluxe and played every season, Haunted and Plunder was awesome, thoroughly enjoyed those two seasons and played the game heavily. Seraph I had a waning interest again but still played enough. When Lightfall was announced I was fairly excited but not ecstatic, but when it came out I was very disappointed in the story. I have barely touched this game since Defiance, the live service model has made FOMO an actual thing for me and I hate it, Destiny isn't fun anymore for me, I have gear that works fine still and no reason to grind for new god rolls nor do I intend on doing it, I have more time to play other games that make me happy. I can't even remember what happened exactly, but I remember how lightfall was split into two DLCs and being upset about it and how scummy it felt, I kind of am okay with it now as it was to keep people employed in their offices (which did literally nothing anyways). Destiny just feel so soulless, I mean I don't blame it on them, how can you expect yourself to be a gleeful little kid about the same game that's about a decade old? Well, TF2 makes me feel that way still, I don't know how. Regardless I don't blame Destiny or Bungie for all my wasted time, I don't really regret any of it, all I know is whenever I boot this game I just have such a big feeling of disappointment and hate, booting up the game is a chore in and of itself. The only times I'll play is if my friends want to run a dungeon or a raid (which we do very rarely now). Long rant, doubt people will read or you will read Autumn, but it feels good to reflect on this, I will probably get the base version of Final Shape then jump ship, I have other games I enjoy. If you do read thank you, I appreciate it, also you have great animations.
Man, I never did much community stuff, but as someone who was with the games of Bungie since the first Halo, all the way up to Lightfall with only a mild break during the early D2 seasons, it was both Lightfall and Diablo 4 being so obviously malicious about their design and betraying the people who love their games that so thoroughly shattered my perception of what I wanted from games. I'm someone who lives my life to have as much fun as possible, make myself and those I care about happy while I have time left in this life, and that shattered perspective of just how much time and money (which equates to time as well in the capitalist hellscape we live in) had invested in games that give back so little without time and money greasing the wheels of satisfaction and fun, that was such a hard lesson to learn. It made me realize that, for a long time, I had let my standards slip, that my time (and the money traded for said time) was far more valuable to me than any of these shady games valued it. That i was being strung along into buying and grinding out my own fun like it was a second job where I had to earn and buy the right to be myself and be happy. I was trading one capitalist hellscape for two. It's a lesson i won't soon forget, even if the temptations will always claw and grip me. I'd far rather take the time to reflect on what a game does for me as i invest into it than sink blissfully into another cycle of being used.
It breaks my heart the way that this game is built, because for every good aspect of the game, which there are plenty, there is either an equal amount of, if not more negatives to counteract those positives, I can only hope that final shape gives a nice finale to the game, and that it is the end of the game, no more expansions or dlc after the episodes, just give it some time to breath
I just want to tell you thank you for having the bravery to make this and tell your story. This was powerful and it help others. Thank you for being the light in the world. I wish peace and tranquility in the future, guardian.
After coursing through my memories with destiny, I would say - It was worth it. The people I've met, the memories we've made, some of us even found a couple by playing together, all of it makes my time spent with destiny being worth the hussle. I'd say that for me destiny became what world of warcraft became for many people people in the past - a blissful time, when life long bonds and memories were made.
Yeah I really feel this, I was in college when D2 first came out and I'd say that's when my relationship with it was the healthiest, I still hung out with friends did my school work (mostly) and still lived a good life and spent time with my girlfriend. After I graduated I moved back "home" where I didn't have any of these on top of deciding I didn't want to do what I went to school for. I was completely lost, the only thing I had ever wanted to do with my life turned out to suck ass and I had no idea where to turn to. All my friends were scattered and lived far away, the only things that kept me going was the love of my life and destiny. Destiny became my every day, I was alone, once I felt I had lost everything, it was all I had it's all that kept me going and gave me some semblance of something to look forward to day to day. I had an okay job just something temporary but aside from visiting my girlfriend on weekends I didn't see anyone or do anything. I wasn't happy, I always had this gnawing feeling at the back of my mind this emptiness I did everything to repress. Then covid hit and it only got worse, I barely saw a future for myself before and after that I barely saw a present, the idea of getting my life together seemed impossible when suddenly even less seemed certain. Eventually I quit my job, stopped talking to my friends and truly gave up and neglected my girlfriend even more. I completely isolated myself. Every day was the exact same, while I still enjoyed destiny, the days and weeks and months and years just blew by because all I did was play this game. No new memories, barely anything that really mattered, just more of the same. The only thing breaking it up was seeing my girlfriend but I was in such a bad state that I couldn't be truly present for her. It bled over to our relationship where we didn't go out didn't do anything new and everything became stale, all because I was a hollow void dragging the people I care about down with me. That was my life for 3 long and short years. Shortly before lightfall I started to have a change in perspective, another thing I had been doing was idealizing my life from college it was part of what led me to give up on everything. I thought everything was so good back then and I've fallen so far and my life will never be that good again why should I even try. Then one day when I was doing dishes with my girlfriend and I told her I felt like I peaked back then and she essentially said "how do you think that makes me feel?" That's the moment I started to "wake up" from the years long coma I was in. I was so focused on what I had lost that I never acknowledged the way in which I got better. By idealizing my past I couldn't acknowledge all the issues I did have back then and I didn't do anything to address them. I started to get my life together I started trying again but destiny kept holding me back, it had such a stranglehold on my life and it wasn't until I sat with lightfall for a few weeks that it started to let go. My girlfriend broke up with me around that time as well, she's always been so supportive and loving but the damage of how I had been for years took its toll and it hurt her and dont blame her for leaving and I never will. It was so bad that even some of the last conversations we had before we broke up was about destiny. Destiny blinded me to what was important and numbed me to the point where nothing mattered. Ive played a lot less destiny the past year and I was able to think more clearly and it's easier to do things when it's not in my mind all the time. Everything has given me perspective on what I WANT the things that really matter. I have goals in life now, I talk to my friends, I plan get togethers with them, Im trying to get in better shape and dress nicer. I want to feel real again. I know it's not strictly all destiny but it's been so inseparable from me that it filled the gaps in my life and while it didn't create those problems, it stopped me from fixing them
Thank you so much for sharing your own story with this, I really hope that things stay on an upward trajectory for you in the coming months and years. All the best.
@@djungelskog9581 It's funny how similar your experience to my own. One of my primary reasons for quitting was because Destiny was a constant during my relationship too, and it never was the same afterwards. I began pulling back on Destiny during my relationship, but it was afterwards when I realized how unhealthy it was. I'm sorry to hear how the game served as a catalyst for your breakup, hope you're doing better now!
I can totally relate with how you feel about Destiny. My husband and I have played since day 1 of the first Destiny. Bungie was my favorite developer since Halo CE. My feelings about them have changed a lot since then, but that is another story..... We finally decided to step away at the end of Witch Queen and did not preorder lightfall expansion. It was a really hard decision as the addiction was real with this game. Bungie really knows how to work that psychology on players to draw them in. I can honestly say I have never been drawn into a game that made me feel like a slave to it like Destiny 2 has done. The Fomo and timegating was exhausting both mentally and physically. It was all we thought about most of the time outside of work. Now that we have been away it's a breath of fresh air and a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. We get sleep and don't feel dark and depressed anymore. We finally have time to enjoy real life, other games etc. I can tell you that we will not be picking up Marathon when it launches. We are sticking to some back logged games, single player and a few mmo's that don't put pressure on you from now on. There are some pretty good games coming on the horizon as well that will be nice to try out as well. Be proud you broke free! I know we are. 😊❤
my addiction reached a breaking point in april of last year. since 2022 I have been becoming more and more of a hardcore player. I went from being a solo player and only having about 10 raid completions under my belt to someone with 40+ clears in each raid, with multiple flawless raid completions, and all the dungeon's solo flawless'd as well. I dont say all this to brag (not entirely anyways) but I say it to show just how deep I fell into grinding this game. I have been playing since launch D1 as well, and was equally as obsessed during the heights of taken king and rise of iron, but spring of last year was when I would skip college classes to grind pinnacles and artifact levels. the grind leading up to Root of Nightmares and the time after it led to a point where I had missed a month's worth of assignments, and per my schools policies, that leads to being dropped. That was a really loud wake-up call to drastically decrease my hours in it. It also led me to take my education and craft much more seriously. I'm at a point now where I barely play. I only hop on to do a raid with my friends or to do the occasional GM, and I am perfectly happy with that. I realized that for so long I wasn't even enjoying what I did in the game, I just played for the sake of playing. I fully plan on playing the final shape, the raid that comes with it, and even the episodes, but in a more spiritual sense, I'm done with destiny. I still hold massive amounts of love for the community, world, lore, and characters of this universe, but that love is independent of weather or not I continue playing. it's been real Destiny, thank you for a (mostly) great 10 years
This is incredibly relatable. I would say I got addicted to D1 as soon as it came out. I hadn't played any MMOs, but I had been a bigtime old school RPG player on consoles and older PC games, so the idea of a shooter with an RPG progression system had me hooked. Plus, although I hadn't played Reach then, I loved some of Bungie's games from pre-Halo days and the immersive, deep story telling they were known for. I got so hooked the game but even on D1 they were signs. The stuff they pulled where they basically "sunset" Y1 gear to force you to grind TTK. That I was on a legacy console. The frustration with RNG. I played D2 from launch on PC and it became my go to entertainment for all these years. I had trouble focusing or watching TV, because why would I spend any free time not grinding whatever crap there was to do in the game? The I've been quitting the game on and off for the past few years, I only bought Beyond Light when it recently went on sale just so I could play as Stasis classes which mildly brought me back to the game again. The addiction only really works if you think you're getting something worthwhile and good by playing more. Once they started sunsetting AGAIN and then mostly issuing recycled content as the rewards it was clear this game didn't respect your time. I think they occasionally make it fun with the seasonal mods and broken, ability-spam builds, but there's really no point to play anymore beyond that. In D1 you would play every week to get Gjallarhorn or Fatebringer which were actually game changing weapons, there's nothing like that anymore. This game had a ton of promise but it doesn't respect your time.
Played this entire franchise since the age of 8 back in 2014, I’ve never been addicted to the game to the point of no life’ing it, usually only playing it after school once I’d done my homework and had dinner, other times I’d be outside enjoying life with friends that were close by, weekends were times when I’d do raids if I were home, met a lot of people in those days and I think it helped me learn how to co-operate well with others at completing a task which I’m thankful for, now a days I don’t play as much but I still find times throughout the week to play some Destiny 2, looking forward to reaching the Final Shape and finishing the story which filled my childhood mind with ambition, curiosity and immense wonder.
It’s nice to see that I’m not alone. I finally stopped playing Destiny around the midway point of season of the Serpth. I took a step back and realized that it wasn’t healthy for me. I was addicted. I played 10 to 12 hours, almost every day. I was subscribed to every single Destiny TH-camr you can think of watching their videos religiously, doing monotonous tasks over and over and over again just so I can get that perfect gun to kill the same enemy we’ve been fighting for the past decade in a slightly more optimized manner. I don’t hate Destiny. The world was always interesting and captivating to me. I mean Destiny was the reason I met the guy who was my only friend for 2-3 years. I miss you Jack… but I realize now all the negative effects it had on me all the bottled up feelings that I should’ve reflected on. I don’t blame Destiny for all my problems. Destiny didn’t make me neglect the relationships I had. I actively chose a game over people who cared about me and who just wanted the best for me and burned those bridges. I thought that my crummy life was never going to change, and I had no control over it, and I always chose to actively make it worse by escaping from it instead of directly facing the problem. Destiny is an addiction, but it’s up to you to choose if you will feed it or not. so I gave up on Destiny and pretty much gaming altogether. I got into some other habits, like rediscovering, my love for drawing, going out and hanging out with real people instead of just talking with online friends, all day, working out, which was something I thought I would never do in my life and enjoy it. I finally signed up for my trade school which I’ll be starting pretty soon. Giving up on destiny and facing my problems made me realize that I can control my life and make it change for the better. I feel like finally I’m on a better path and it warms my heart to see that others are as well. This was great video.
I share some of this relationship with destiny as well. I've been obsessed with this game since the open beta on the xbox 360, countless hours spent in D1 and D2. And while I only ever really had one friend who was as deep into it as I was, I still met a ton of people through it, though most I don't talk to anymore as they've seemingly all moved on as well. I've questioned whether it was worth it to keep playing this game like a zombie many times but I always stuck with it and let it eat up my time because I'd seen the great shit that can come from it. Lightfall was the final straw though, more specifically the insane company drama at bungie recently. I've finally come to terms with the fact that the game will never be satisfying anymore, whoever is in charge at bungie is seemingly inept with their finances, and I've ultimately wasted more time playing the bad parts of this game than doing anything productive with my life. And I've had enough man. I've wasted so much of my life on destiny and I can't even look back fondly on most of it. I've resolved to make myself better and the first step is cutting off the life sucking tumor that is my addiction to this game that lost its charm for me at shadowkeep.
I broke my addiction with Destiny 2 late last year, mostly due to college which I managed graduate. But also I broke away from games like Genshin or Tower of Fantasy(do not recommend, your welcome!). I do not regret playing Destiny, I met an incredible community of friends, and liked minded people that got me through with my personal issues, like the fact that I am nuerodivergent and struggle with nuerotypical ways of communicating. I do regret the amount of money that I dropped on this game, that is something I cant take back .This games preyed on my FOMO. Worst part, I knew, and I let it perpetuate, until I was able to break away. Its been 5 months since I last payed, the last class I played was my warlock, ironic, since the first class I made, was a warlock... apart of still misses playing it, but I know I am better off without this game. Amazing video Autumn! I am new to your channel, just earned a subscriber! Hope you dont mind, but here are some good games that I like that you may or may not of heard of! Point is, is to show people some other good games apart from Destiny, of course there other good ones not on here... Sekiro Dark Souls 3 Hades Persona 4 and 5 Spyro and Crash Bandicoot! Portal 2 Subnautica Metal Gear Rising: Revengence(for the memes jack!) Devil May Cry 5 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt!
NGL "I'm no longer in love with Destiny" hit a chord with me and almost made me cry for some reason. This game has been so much to me over the years. I started with IRL friends and kept playing longer after they had all left. I ground out every season hoping something would be as magical as the past. It's only been this year with a terrible first season that I've slowly been backing away from the game. I realised that I load it up to work on something, not to have fun. I No longer get the joy I once did but instead dread playing it but know I need to because I have already invested so much time and money into it. BG3 really opened my eyes to what I've been missing out on only playing Destiny and I've been trying to play other games, enjoy streams, and just talk to people instead of logging in again to grind out another triumph, or challenge, or exotic quest. I loved Destiny and I don't regret the time I put into it because it got me through some difficult times, but I can see it's time to move on and find that joy I once had in other places.
Your story is nearly a mirror of mine. I’ve been struggling with body image, have social anxiety, and use games as a distraction. I finally said enough was enough, I was ruining myself. I have since ditched bad habits and went on to exercise and get fit. I lost 68lbs in 7 months and have been doing better than ever. I prioritize more relaxing games and try to spend time with family more.
Seeing this make you wonder why anyone would think of going up to bat for Bungie in any scenario: they really care more about your money than anything else
When you finally break past that anxiety of quitting this game worrying about fomo to be free from its grasp, it is the best feeling someone can have. I now have a healthy relationship with gaming while playing other games again. It will never change though. They have enough people hooked.
Hi just wanted to say as someone who is currently struggling with something very similar in terms of gender and coping thank you for sharing your experience it’s nice to be reminded that you aren’t alone.
Thank you. 400 or so days of my life feels a lot different when I feel very similarly to you, mostly as expressed here, throughout, lately. I needed this video more than I can express off the top of my head in a single comment, just about every point resonated.
I resonated with this video on a spiritual level. I have just recently broken free from the shackles of Destiny. My life has been all the better for it. Thank you for airing your struggles, and putting it all into words that everyone can agree with.
Thank you for making this video and helping me realize that im not alone in this struggle. Destiny has hurt me both physically and mentally over the years as well, and knowing that im not the only one struggling with this problem gives me hope for my future after TFS. Destiny has given me many great memories over the years that I would love to experience one last time, but as I have grown older, I know that those times will never come back, especially with Destiny. I just started college recently back in the fall of last year. And just like you, I had to learn to move on and experience life for what it truly is, and to stop locking my own mind away from the outside world and to face my fears head on. This is still an ongoing process for me, but I know I'll get through it in the end. Thank you.
Came here from Aztecross’ video, I haven’t seen your content before. What a great video though. The editing, language, pace, everything is very professional and clearly done with great care. I don’t know you but you should be proud of who you have become.
Thank you for making this video, whilst writing this I am currently playing war frame because I heard it was like destiny and missed how destiny felt. But your video almost brought me to tears when I realized I am just trying to reignite my addiction so I can ignore everything else in my life. You may have just saved me years of my life and opened my eyes for future games.
I'll stop myself from writing an essay, but I can't help but relate to a majority of your points. I stopped playing during whatever the season was a few months ago with Titan was, it's so irrelevant to me now that I just simply wiped it from my memory. I used Destiny to escape my dysphoria, the PTSD I was diagnosed with at the time, the feelings of hopelessness, and the intense feelings of isolation I had because of my social situation. I found friends, I reconnected with my brothers through Destiny, I had moments of triumph and beauty that still make me tear up. But in the end, I just felt used and thrown to the sidelines when I realized how much I'd dumped into a dispassionate and soul-stealing experience. It was honestly Baldur's Gate 3 that reignited my passion for gaming as an art. I play D&D with friends and write my own settings. Getting to play my own OC characters in a video game, in a detailed and lovingly crafted experience which was made by passionate people who share interest in a passtime I have made me reflect on Destiny, a world I long considered my "perfect setting." I'd excused every flaw, every moment I'd felt leeched, every subpar story, every awful retcon, every fun-ruining balance change, and every excuse to spend more money. It was a game I have spent so much on and gotten so little out of other than just... wasted time. While I loved the devs of Destiny, things like the massive layoffs and disconnected showcases made me realize just how corporate and washed out it had become from the days when it felt like reading letters from a friend who cared about the game like a hobby. I uninstalled the game after I finished BG3, and honestly the thought of coming back puts a pit in my stomach. I'm sad sometimes that the thought of going back to finish of the story I invested so long into horrifies me, but I know that it'll end just as inconclusive and dispassionate as every story before it. I won't let the game hook me, I won't let it sink it's rotten claws into me, and I won't let it poison the passion that I've found for people who *care* about games as a medium. Seeing video games as art, as I do with games like Disco Elysium, makes something like Destiny reek of a corporate mockery of the things I love, and that saddens me. It's a universe I love, but one I must leave behind.
Similar experience here. Fuck, I mean I didn't sleep for 7 days to big one of the head solvers for Cooridors of Time. My online presence was 100% Destiny and I neglected reality just to chase the next weeklies. Haven't played since last raid and I'm learning to breathe again. Lost all my audience but I exist in reality now and I'm learning to live again! ~Aetherlore
I used to have an unhealthy relationship with destiny where i was playing it all the time. Still play it nearly every day but i know its not an addiction because im off playing different games and focusing on other aspects of my life. I still think destinys amazing and ill play it to the end but now since bungie are moving away from the whole DCV motto im not as bothered as i used to be
I did write a little blog post about it here: autumnsramblings.pika.page/posts/reflecting-some-more-on-my-addiction-with-destiny-2 Outside of that post though, there isn't really much more I have to say about the topic. This video and the little post-mortem writeup were about as much as I think I have to say. I'm glad you got something out of the video, thanks very much for watching it!
@@autumnsanimationstuff I cannot explain enough how much it helped. I finished the TFS campaign, but decided I am done except for just f*ck*ng around with friends. There is always going to be another exotic mission to try out, another dungeon or raid I feel I must do. I just want “off the bus.”
This hit me hard. Thank you for sharing your experience and being vulnerable. Following to see where you go. You’ve brought a lot of things from deep within me that I need to think about…
Im happy that I’ve gone from being addicted to this game to leaving for a month and returning for a day or two before putting it back down for a bit. I remember forcing myself to play it everyday regardless of if there was actually anything to do. I felt and still feel as if im just playing a different game entirely from what destiny once was, just always searching for the charm that halo and destiny one once had on me.
I find that I see a lot of my own story in yours; around mid-late 2020 I joined the Destiny community through fanart as well, my obsession with the game led me to a great community and a lot of friends, but my interest fell off severely with the release of Lightfall. I'll never reignite the initial spark that Destiny gave me, but it really is for the better considering its addictive nature. Incredible video, and thank you for sharing it.
It's been a bit after The Final Shape released. A friend got me the DLC, and the Episodes, thinking it was that good. I feel a bit bad about uninstalling the game, this was the game that got me to hang out with my current friend group, made me feel seen in a town that I do not like, in a house that barely feels like home. But I want to get away from that situation, to be able to see my friends in person, to be able to make a home for myself and those friends, to finally begin transitioning. All of my friends left this town, so I'm on my own, but this game does not have to be the tether. Some of them keep it because they can't find build crafting like it anywhere else. Wish I could agree, keep on playing, find something fun about it. But I've got other games to play. I've got art to dedicate myself to. I've got a life I'm trying to live. As of this video, it's uninstalled. Maybe I'll come back to it later. Right now that space could be used for any other game or project I want to play or work on. I don't know why I took so long to uninstall it, maybe I just needed a push in the right direction. And here it is, so, thank you, Autumn.
This was a great video. It helped me work through my thoughts about Overwatch, a game I've played since 2018 and that has consistently let me down despite the hours and hours I've put in. The FOMO tactics and the hopeful, slot-machine style "THIS update is gonna be it, they're gonna fix the game, we're getting triple sevens this time!" were very crippling to me. It shows in the community as people (myself included) get increasingly agitated that the "high" of good or nostalgic gameplay is taken away from them. And you can feel the passion and creativity of the devs, even through the veil of corpa scheming, which keeps you hoping, keeps you coming back. With the recent round of layoffs and the season 9 release notes being leaked, I'm coming to a point where I need to stop saying "just one more season." I have a life now. I used to get high and play Overwatch and watch Twitch and TH-cam, and that was my entire life outside of work. Now I go to the gym, I have many friends I really care about, I have a better job and I'm going to school. I even started a small business on the side. I'm incredibly grateful to Overwatch for giving me some amazing times with my friends, but ultimately by filling the hours I spent on the game with other things, more tangible, consistent things, I've delivered myself from a lot of meaningless days and shame and into a life I wake up every day genuinely excited to explore. It takes a lot more work to get my dopamine now, but it is so worth it. Thanks for this video. I'm gonna stop writing now before I start sobbing at my desk haha. Thanks for sharing your story and I am so happy for you and your success.
It took forever to realise I was addicted to destiny, it was unhealthy at one point. Family and work still came first and second but then Destiny was life. This video resonates with me so much. The addiction has gone now. Can log on get bored after an hour and move on. I do miss the friends I played with, everyone has moved on.
Halo Reach was my introduction to Bungie as well. Ill never forget being in 5th grade and playing it at my friend’s house for the first time. Such an incredible game with seemingly endless content, they just don’t make em like they used to.
Thank you for sharing this video. I too went through a similar realization after Lightfall - his game is predatory for my time but offers very little in return. Haven't played in like 8 months aside from logging in occasionally to grab a shader lol. Feels so good to not be bound to a game like this.
And the worst thing is - it was designed to do this. It was designed to be addictive like a gatcha game. The management is playing the players for fools in a world that is crumbling around them, and exploit them for the sake of keeping them in a goshdarn loop.
I have a weird relationship to Destiny, it comes and goes in waves, it feels like I always have some kind of Flavor of the Month, where I either come back to a game I love and played, or a new experience waiting for me. Ive found that for me, Destiny if played consistently for too long will always breed that resentment. Ive been lucky enough to preserve my appreciation for all the story details and aesthetic choices.
aside from my pre-destiny introduction was a friend getting me into borderlands 2 in around 2013, and then trying and failing to get me into destiny on launch only for him to quit around late forsaken early shadowkeep while i was the one to get sucked in, ive had almost the same experience outside of the animation aspect. lightfall pulled the rug out from under me, and i really havent felt the same playing it since, ive still gotten on every now and then, but its nowhere near as much as it used to be. i think the last time i touched it was 2 weeks ago to do some story quests, and before that it had been more than a month. my girlfriend just recently broke up with me, and while it broke me in the short term, im coming to terms with how i really wasnt that happy in the relationship lately, and there was a lot of problems piling up that i was ignoring in favor of getting to be a part of her life. and im starting to see that that was a kind of how i was treating destiny as well. ignoring my own well-being just because funny gameplay loop, and i had sunk so many hours into it. ive made really good friends through it, and i wont say i havent had fun, but ive hit the point where im waiting for it to end so i can move on with my life. ill cherish the good memories, but that point in my life has passed, and im okay with that. it feels weird to not have something to fall back on, so i do occasionally pop into vault of glass if im really bored and have nothing to do, since that's kind of always been my comfort activity, but im working towards cutting it out of my life completely. im not even sure if ill buy the final shape, which is crazy to think about comsidering how manic i used to be about this franchise. idk, im just kind of at a weird point in my life. recently coming to grips with my feelings about this game, recently single, recently finishing college and beginning the transition into professional work, recently beginning my own transition. im just kind of on the cusp of a lot of changes in my life, and i think its time i let destiny go. sorry this kind of went in no direction, im mostly just rambling my thoughts haha. your experiences really resonated with me.
also can i just say the witness was the worst way bungie couldve taken the narrative? i dont want to crazy deep-dive the lore when i just went on a long winded tirade about how i dont care about the game anymore but damn they had something really good going with the pyramids and i feel like they just threw it all away in the witch queen (not to knock the witch queen, that campaign was the best theyve done). like, i actually enjoyed shadowkeep if only for the lore implications. it was definitely not their best expansion but that final mission, and the pyramids in general up until witch queen, still give me chills to this day. the whole sentient monolith vibe was sick, the whole final mission of shadowkeep gave me so much hope for the future of the story and then they basically did nothing with it. as stupid of a reason as it is, the shift in pyramid aesthetics really killed a lot of my excitement for the game. and then obviously lightfall dropped and RAGGGHHH not even going to talk about that lmao what a shitshow.
God, so much of this just hits the beat by beat progression of my time with the series. Using it as an escape to hide from gender identity issues, especially Started in 2014, got hooked with Taken King, fell off during D2 Y1 and then went straight in with Forsaken. Though my feelings started showing before Witch Queen I realized that I was just logging on for no reason and quit but when WQ went on sale a year later, it grabbed me again. Yet Lightfall destroyed that, thankfully 🤣 Bungie and every other live service studio know how to exploit human behavior. They literally hire specialists to make sure they do so So I also had to step away and thankfully for the better Video was great! Hope you're doing better 💗
Yep, when i hear people complain about it often it is like they have lost their crutch in life. From hearing bungie talk about it, it seems like this was what they wanted, they wanted it to "be like a hobby", so destiny when fully realised was quite an insideous machine i think. I was better off with just the art book and not the game. Not that it can be solely blamed.
if this makes you mad then thats ok, you know what you are and are empowered by it but bungie made me leave destiny when they called me latinx. that isn't me. I'm Latino, or Hispanic. i was born biologically male. meat is fine to eat and the goverment has been lying to us since the 50's. it's just life now.
I can relate to a lot of to what you’ve said in this video. I picked the game up in April 2016 when I was 12 years old and was quickly hooked into the world. It was my escape from reality. The Destiny universe gave me a reason to look forward to something in life. This game had a community where I felt welcomed when I didn’t felt welcomed in my school. As I got older and I had more experience in Destiny, I grew apart from it because I was tired of the community, tired of the poor game design, and overall, tired of the game. Not only that, I started to have a significantly better social life, getting caught up with the effects of early adulthood (I’m 20 right now), and having less free time on my hands makes playing Destiny less appealing to me. I don’t regret spending my time playing Destiny at all. I only regret making time for mostly Destiny because I missed out on a lot. Thank you for this amazing video.
Just want to share my story. It’s very different from yours, but here: Legitimately, I don’t think I’m addicted, but I also know that that may be something an addict would say. By no means do you or anyone have to read this, but I’m just going to describe my relationship to the game. I love the lore and worldbuilding. I’m maybe a little bit too obsessed/fixated on it to be honest - it’s one of the only like ongoing stories that I follow almost religiously. I have fun in the game, but I don’t play THAT much - maybe a few hours a week. I have about 1.6k hours total in D2, which is like about 4 hours a week average. Like the you did, I often become fixated for days on new releases and trailers etc when they release. I want to play the game with people but only really my girlfriend and one other irl friend play, so I can’t do raids without lfg’ing. I try to get my friends to play every once in a while, but I know they at the very least won’t be into the game as much as me. I legitimately feel like I love the game. I plan to play Final Shape and at least a bit of what comes after. That said, I don’t feel a desire to play the game when I’m not having fun in it at all. I’ll play other games with my friends. I don’t neglect work/school because I’d rather be playing. (I neglect it for other reasons because I’m stupid, but this isn’t about that). I don’t login every Tuesday at every weekly reset, though I usually do try to keep up with the story when they’re releasing it seasonally. I think that I really could quit if I really wanted to, but I also know that that’s a stereotype of what an addict might say. But I think the real reason why I refuse to believe that I’m addicted is that I don’t really feel any sort of agreement when I hear people say something like “I hate Destiny 2; it’s my favorite game.” Whenever I hear that, I just think “if I hated the game, I’d stop playing it”. I don’t ALWAYS love the game, but when I’m genuinely tired of it, I take a break. I understand the concept of being addicted to the game and I empathize with those people, but I really think I don’t feel that same way. Of course I get some FOMO - it’s built into the way the game is designed unfortunately. But that FOMO never drives me to play the game when I truly am tired of it. So, yes. To anyone still here, thanks for reading if you got this far. I don’t really know why I wrote this, I don’t understand the point. But anyone here who legitimately feels like they’re addicted, I hope you can push through it and make whatever decision you feel is right for you, whether that’s taking a break, uninstalling the game permanently, just playing a bit less, or anything else you want to do. If anyone wants to say anything in the replies of this, I promise I’ll try to read and reply. See you around, in or out of the game.
Thanks so much for sharing your story. Over the pandemic I was definitely addicted to it too. When I first came out about 13 years ago I played Skyrim for 1300 hours in the span of about 9 months. I told myself it'd be the last time I ever spent so much time on a video game, because I saw what that kind of addictive behavior could do to the rest of my life. Then in mid 2019 I got into Destiny 2 and the pandemic hit soon after. The rest of the story is a lot like yours. Anyway. Glad you're moving on too. Books and food and health are actually way better than constantly playing games, who would've thought!
I used to play D2stiny and D2 religiously. I did this because I was unsatisfied with my life. I was depressed and hopeless. In 2017, when my daughter was 8, I took up photography. Of course during lockdown, I played a lot of Destiny. Once the lockdown was over, I really dove into learning the art of photography. Since then, I still play D2, but only a few hours a week. I run a small photography business on the side and also spend hours training my Belgian Malinois. I still like the game, but I seem to become bored with it quickly after an hour or two. Then I don't play for days. At this point, I'm glad it's about to come to an end. This was a once in a lifetime thing, but now it's time for it to end.
First off, thank you from the bottom of my heart for posting this, as well as being here on this planet. You put a lot of things into words that I haven’t before and opened my eyes for a couple things. I started playing this game when D2 launched. I remembered the initial “For the Puppies!” Trailer burned a whole in my brain that made me want nothing more than to play that game. I skipped on Destiny 1 so I had little to no idea what to expect. I adored the game at first, but as the content slowly started to come out it began to take more and more money from me while giving back less and less in return. But I always thought “the game *can* be good, so I’m going to stick around.” I “stuck around” for 7 ish years. I played through all of high school, into my first few years of college, it’s the only game I played consistently and all the time. I slacked off at school from time to time, didn’t take care of myself on a handful of occasions, confidence at an all time low (whoopsies it was Gender Dysphoria) and spent several hundred dollars too much on it. The friends I had made through this game led to some of the most toxic and morally horrific people I’ve ever met. Not exactly the game’s fault but still, we all met through Destiny’s social media community. Eventually about when Lance Reddick passed away, I decided to take a break. That break turned into me not having touched the game since and I am happily no longer thinking about it. I have a loving boyfriend, loving irl friends who I play dnd with, got involved in local protests and stuff, and when I look in the mirror I see a young woman who’s loved, not a teenage boy who thinks they’re incapable of being loved.
Thank you so much for the wonderful, touching comment! I'm really glad you found something of value in the video, and have found yourself in a much better place than before! All the best to you ❤
Amazing video! Some parts definitely rang true with me. I started playing Destiny 1 on Day 1 and I was hooked instantly. Within a few weeks I found a group of new friends and we played together for years. Having a consistent friend group to play with makes it simultaneously more addictive but also more fun and socially engaging. Playing with and talking to people online helped me come out of my shell and deal my social anxiety and general discomfort around people. For that, I'm forever grateful to Destiny and Bungie. However, similar to yourself I became too addicited. I ignored my real life friends, my family, my university (college) education just so I could play. It makes me cringe looking back. I thank whatever power is out there that during July of 2017 a couple of months before Destiny 2, I met my future wife. Initially it was hard pulling away from Destiny but once I fell head over heels for her, Destiny just faded away in the background. I'm in a much healthier place now, with a normal life completely separate from Destiny. I have made lifelong friends from Destiny who are now my "real life friends" outside of the game that I see regularly. I still play games but I won't be touching any live-service games with a 10 foot pole, I'd rather have the large amount of time required by them to go into my real life. Thank you for posting this video, it has been nice to hear your story and reflect on my own.
You hit a lot of good points that most veteran players know and realize over time, especially with how Bungie doesn't REALLY give us anything back for the massive amounts of time and effort we put into playing Destiny. A LOT of other games do it too...but Destiny is like a pimp straight up slapping you in the face and telling you go get back out there and make his money.
I want to thank you for making this video. I had a very bad addiction to this game, so bad I almost lost my wife. After that and a very bad fall out with people who I thought I could call friends I finally saw that there are more important things in life then a video game. I do play every now and then but it's not important to me anymore. I have much more important things in my life that need me more then a game. So again thank you for sharing your experience.
I first started playing Destiny shortly after House of Wolves. It was one of the few shooters my parents would let me play since it was rated T and the House of Wolves trailer interested me. When I first started playing I did not even have PS Plus, so I didn't even play any of the online modes. When I convinced my parents to buy me the subscription for my birthday, I decided to try the PvP. It was not my first shooter--I had played some on PC before. When I played the Destiny PvP however, I was hooked. I also enjoyed the PvE, but nothing felt as satisfying as going into a rumble match with 5 other equally skilled and intelligent players and emerging triumphant. Every game was unique and the replay potential infinite. Everyday after high school, I would play. I wanted to get better at PvP. When I wasn't playing, I was watching the PvP youtubers like tripleWreck, nKuch, Holtzman, RealKraftyy--the ones you never hear about now. But the more you play a game, the more the cracks start to show. Melee shortstops. Laggy opponents. Getting killed behind walls. Enemy rubberbanding. Ghost bullets. Degenerate, unfun to play against exotics and strategies that Bungie fails to address for 6 months, sometimes even a taking a year. Backwards balance decisions. Decisions that make it clear they lack understanding of the sandbox. Infrequent meta shakeups. Bungie took the PvP community for granted. So many times the same story has happened: Bungie decided on a dumb change, the players predicted that it is a dumb change and asked Bungie to reconsider, and Bungie has bullheadedly implemented the change that they then had to walk back six month later. Ever since Destiny 2 (with double primary that literally no one asked for), I found myself playing less and less, taking multi-month breaks from the game. The final straw with PvP for me was Stasis. It was too broken for too long. After that I pretty much stopped playing PvP. I came back once to go flawless after the Trials rework but abandoned it quickly again. I was done with PvP, but I still enjoyed creating builds for PvE, and every new season's mods had me trying different builds out, trying to find interesting interactions. And then came Armor 3.0, completely obliterating build crafting. Yes, it lowered the barrier of entry (which is a good thing), but it removed any depth and diversity to armor mods. Nowadays you pretty much just put the same mods on in most builds (hint: the surge mods matching your heavy's element are the most important part). There are no build around armor mods that would even give you any reason not to use surge mods. So what remains then? The story! I have always enjoyed the lore of the game. Lightfall had me cringing at every predictable story beat. I truly think it was the worst storytelling in Destiny--even worse than the original Destiny 1 campaign. At least the lore cards gave explanations. I just can't take the story seriously after the ridiculousness of Lightfall. Bungie has killed every reason I ever played the game. I've barely played Destiny in the past year. I would not say that I regret the time I spent playing Destiny. In fact, I look back on it fondly. To me, Destiny has been dying a slow, slow death for many years now. I just hope I can find a new game to love as much as I loved Destiny. Good night, and good luck.
My addiction to destiny started dying down after lightfall and was finally broken when the admins of my clan who were far more addicted than me raided and destroyed my clan of 4 years because i demodded one of them lol, it kinda sucks but at least i’m free of the curse now
Personally since D1 I have lost a lot and gained really nothing but a stable mind as I used it as a medium to process the world I lived in. A couple friends that still don't understand but at least someone to banter with. It's tough and Destiny gave me peace of mind by just existing in those moments and letting go. Never did I really raid or grind for much, it was to play the game and experience what Bungie had made for us. I remember going out of my way and being excited for events in game whenever they came around. It never dominated my entire life only my free time as I still worked a job and went to school during that time. Something I understand as I see video games is that they are just like any other piece of media, a reflection of their time and for Destiny it feels alive. Experiencing it when and during that time was lowkey magical and a nice meme for Historic Destiny times.(Felwinter's Door, countless bugs, Things still in the DCV) I barely play anymore and doubt I'll play more after this final expansion as I am ready to see one of my favorite games die. I want to see the end of the Light and Dark Saga and close this book in my life. I'm glad of the times we had but it's time for me to let go and move on to newer and brighter options. I can't stay hooked in the past or it'll eat me up like the other things that did that exact thing. Move on but remember that you are a Guardian of The Last Safe City on Earth, You've slain foes greater than anyone can imagine, Conquered yourself in order to Become Legend. It's time to prove that now as we take a step past what was and into what is.
I came into Destiny when it came out and had almost the exact same experience say for playing Halo. I played nonstop since i was 9 years old. I cannot thank Destiny enough for the friends it brought me and the spaces it brought me to, meeting likeminded people and similarly transitioning during it. I don't post often on TH-cam comments, and looking now i see even my TH-cam profile pic is my Destiny OC. This resonated with me a lot more than i thought it would. I haven't played Destiny since i finished Witch Queen, and for the better. I wasn't taking care of myself, furthering myself in any way. All around bad time. Since leaving, I've felt the cravings for Destiny. Anytime i see the gunplay, or old clips it just activates that want to play it again. I honestly consider it close to Heroin with how much terminology goes with them both. Even now, almost 3 years of not playing, i still get those cravings and have to consciously think of how that game made me as a person and the constant upkeep required to keep that dopamine flowing. Your brain tries to overlook all the bad for any crumb of good. I love what came from it in my life, but not Destiny itself anymore.
I've had issues with gaming addiction for a long ass time. I learned to step away and do more outside of gaming. I still play destiny a good amount, I simply dont log on every day and play for 5 hours or more. I learned that FOMO is not worth it and would focus on what I truly enjoyed about the game and stopped trying to get everything and be the best. Simply have fun on your own time, dont treat it like a necessity.
This is without a doubt my first time putting my experience into words: First I want to say how incredibly relatable your story is and how happy I am for you that you did indeed beat the game and still got something valuable out of it, like your pursuit in art. I want to take some time to lay out my experience so it might stop weighing on my mind until my last breath. When I got into first got into Destiny I've been already rotting away in my room for a few years. Didn't have friends or the needed social skills to make any so video games quickly became the only thing keeping me going. I played D1 3 years after it's prime but still fell in love with it almost instantly, despite the "questionable" story. I played it for at least a year, a full year of me neglecting absolutely everything else in life because destiny became my driving force. Then, a few months before Forsaken would came out, I switched to D2 with a friend and the addiction got way, way worse. I'd come home from school and immediately get on the game, not caring about assignments, the relationship to my parents or even the most basic things like eating and drinking. my friend and I eventually parted ways in 2021 which left me playing the game alone and it was at that time when I realized just how much this game has changed me for the worse. but with nothing else going for me I just kept playing, giving more into the addiction. it took me until this year to finally let go of it and I guess I should thank the rough state of the game for it. This game helped me through a rough time but left me in a much worse state, regretting the past 6 year that I was just rotting away on this game. I gave it all I had and got nothing in return. Well, it did leave me with something, although definitely not something I wanted. that being overwhelming depression and growing disinterest in games. If I could wish for one thing then it'd be for me not picking up D1 all those years ago. I hope to god that everyone bound to this addiction will find their way out of it.
Got so addicted to this game that when Red War came out I called in to work and played from 5am to 1am the next day to complete the campaign with all my characters. Now I just go in on Tuesdays complete the quest for that day, do a couple of other steps for side quests and that's about it.
I think I'm in a spot where I'm starting to break free from its chains as well. I was backing off slowly the last year or so myself. Still had my own personal goals, but wasn't going to make the game a chore for myself. I only did enough to finish the story and personal goals each season but this season? Haven't touched the story and only played Gambit for a couple days. It's still my favorite game mode and I genuinely enjoy it. Haven't done anything else in game. I'm still playing a lot of games, I've been playing the Yakuza series to catch up for the new game Infinate Wealth The layoffs brought me to a full stop and killed what little enthusiasm I had left. Like I mentioned, I still dabble, but I am very disconnected and only play what I want, and if I feel like it, not feeling bullied mentally into playing or feeling like I have to spend money. So far I don't think I want to stop playing all together, but I definitely am not letting it be the only thing I have anymore
I have a very similar story During 2010-2014 I was the weird kid at school, I didn't understand what a TH-cam was, only barely had gotten into Minecraft in 2013, had surface level experience with Halo 2, ODST and it's multiplayer and Reach so when I heard about Destiny I was very curious, but it all got shot down when my best friend at the time told me it wasn't very good Around late 2016 early 2017 I had gotten into a fight with my Father I have divorced parents and a very long history of rejection, discrimination, suppressed feelings of affection, identity and depression so finally breaking out felt... Liberating So during 2016, I got recommended destiny during age of triumph after the April update and I. Was. Hooked. I loved the game so much in only a few months I accumulated over 300 hours and started obsessing over God rolls and the next high I played through Destiny 2 Vanilla, Curse and Warmind when everyone else seemed to be moving on to Fortnite Fell in love with Forsaken to the point nothing else mattered, through Forge and Opulence I didn't care what came next Though it was during Drifter and Shadowkeep that I didn't care to continue I didn't have the money to buy the expansion so, I started playing Warframe I had a small roleplay community I was constantly around and we had a schism around the release of Shadowkeep when I was once again, an outcast Through Shadowkeep and Especially Beyond light I focused entirely on Warframe, I was so disappointed in the removal of all my memories in Forsaken I felt betrayed This is when I met my best friend and the only person I talk to on a regular basis I was free for two years... Then Witch Queen happened... I didn't much care for Witch Queen at first, Beyond Light was a betrayal that destroyed my confidence in the franchise but, that's when Season of the Seraph dropped And I got hooked again Farming every craftable weapon I could, I actually maxed out everything except for raids during that year But when Lightfall came out and the reviews came in I was sorely disappointed With Elden Ring at my side I was able to stave off boredom But with The New War ending Warframe's main narrative and Elden Ring's DLC nowhere in sight I fell back into the grind This is the part where I elaborate on my personal life I entered the workforce in 2020 during the lockdowns I've never been in a single place longer than 3 years Every friend I've met I no longer know except for my Discord friends I haven't been able to keep a single job for longer than a year and more recently, I haven't been able to hold down a job for longer than a month... After 4 messy breakups, the deaths of my grandmother, two of my closest friends, my dog and now being over a month unemployed Meanwhile an ocean deep in poverty, debt and depression with no government programs I'm eligible for and no money to actually afford a therapist and more recently, food, just today running out of Ramen with barely enough change leftover to buy 4 packets... I've been contemplating the worst... --- Sorry for the long winded rant, I know nobody cares... I guess that's the reason I'm writing this... I have no advice to offer, maybe this is a cry for help... I guess we'll see if anyone sees this... I'm half hoping nobody does, makes things easier...
You have no idea how incredibly relieving it is to hear that someone else has gone through a similar experience. My lifting of the veil came slightly earlier during Season of the Haunted, longing for what was and having reservations about what was to come. Lightfall, although the buildup was exciting, it just solidified my thoughts. I still love this game, and one day I would love to work on it (if it’s still around), but I have a much healthier relationship with it now. Logging in for a couple hours a week when there is content then having a break until something new. However, I have been at a crossroads for a while now with what I want to do going forward in life. And I can’t lie, Destiny still makes me struggle what to pick. I’m struggling to dissect why, but I hope that after sleeping on this video it might give me that clear introspection I need. This is my first time being aware of your work, although I had seen Insurrection Prime video haha. Just wanted to say thank you for making this! ❤️
Honestly, this video kinda hurts to watch because of all the similar experiences I went through, especially falling head over heels in forsaken, and espeeeecially the disillusionment during lightfall. All my friends know I went through about a year's period of saying I wanted to uninstall the game, only to log back on the next day and do a raid, because destiny was one of the only things that got me through my own transition. Thank you... Thank you Thank you for making this video
I'm honestly happy that the things that happened in 2023 happened as they did. The poor reception to Lightfall, the true face of Bungie being reviled when they fired all those employees and finding out that some how they are still not making enough money. All this stuff happening turned my tolerance into distain into hatred. I hate this game. I've been playing since the D1 Beta, but i'm done. I haven't played in almost 5 months and in the past when i take breaks this long by now i'm kinda ready to get back into Destiny, but not this time. I recently had a small panic attack when the game i play now started to have problems on my Computer. My literal thoughts were "oh please not. I don't want to go back and play Destiny." Thankfully i figured out the problem. I used to tell myself as recently as early last year "I've come this far. I need to see it through. I need to see how this story ends." And now i have no interest in The Final Shape. I know it's going to be a let down. I know that the ending will not satisfy the majority of of us. I know all this from past experiences from Destiny. So yeah...basic TLDR....I have no interest in this game anymore and don't care how it ends. I regret ever giving this game a 2nd chance when i hated the D1 Beta.
I love halo reach. I spend so many hours a day playing it and just kept playing and playing. Its how i met my friend group which 10 years later all hang out whenever possible, of course some left but the same 6 stayed together to the point where one got married, 2 graduated, me a mechanic/school, and the others enjoying their lives along with school. We all went to destiny and were addicted, no one stopped and then shadowkeep, i took the year off but beyond light sucked me back in. I couldnt stop along with them. The only game that stopped our addiction with reach was our addiction to destiny. But now after lightfall we dont play, we talk about it cause why wouldnt we, the game sucks now and ez to make fun of. But now we all feel so much relax, so mellow and less obnoxious. Now we all switch and play different games. Its like Fives from clone wars "The nightmares are finally over". We all are just done and feel better and can enjoy other games. We dont even play reach anymore, our group game is just done. We're like noble team with each off us dying off represents us not playing anymore with one of us being the last one left still playing halo. Its nice being over destiny since its still a love/hate relationship. We finally have our group back without a grind being involved. The nightmare is finnaly over. Sorry for the long comment
I haven’t played Destiny since Lightfall. That was after a number of relapses from post Forsaken. You are not wrong about how much of a truly amazing game came be so costly. Thank you for sharing your experience
I am literally here cuz I quit Destiny because of my video game addiction like this guy. Once in a while, I check up on it and this resonated a ton with me.
It's crazy how much I relate to this. This game was my main form of escapism from depression and just shitty dark moments of my life that turned into an addiction. Lightfall and the subsequent seasons were what finally gave my will enough wiggle room to say ENOUGH. That's how my addiction to Destiny ended, in short
Kind of off topic but I’ll never forget buying halo reach. Toys R Us when I was like 8 the year of its release. Didn’t know wtf halo was and peeped it and tried to convince my mom to get it for me. She didn’t know about it as it was my first shooter, the store clerk came in clutch and explained to her it was just fighting aliens with blue and purple cartoony “blood”. Booting it up that night was crazy
This feels so incredibly familiar. Ive been around since the D1 Beta, and the only time I stopped playing was beyond light (and more recently when I binged the whole mass effect trilogy), and even then, I came returned during season of the lost and got sucked right back in. The amount of money I’ve sunk into this game over the years is absurd in retrospect, and it’s taken me so long to realize that it probably is, truly, an addiction. It isn’t truly all consuming, which I think is part of why its taken me so long to realize, but since its release, I barely play other video games and when I do, I always end up getting brought back into the cycle. The only way to momentarily escape is to have some other hyper obsession that monopolizes my focus. And I never really got involved with the community. When I tried, the experiences were terrible, to the point I still haven’t tried the new in game lfg system yet. I just run by myself. Doing what little content I can on my own, being a solo player who isn’t even very good. I get my school work done (usually. I am procrastinating rn, so if that’s not irony I dont know what is) and I try to play other games and branch out, but even when I go back to destiny and there’s nothing I really want to do, it still isn’t enough to make me leave. I grind through boring strikes and activities I dont want to play to hopefully get better gear to make build so that I can run a dungeon by myself, and the entire time, the overwhelming feeling of depression is just… hanging there. I’m glad to see that other people, even with the same obsessive addiction at least got more out of it than I have. Honestly, searching for a sense of community is, ironically, one of the things that got me so engrossed with the franchise to begin with. I desperately wanted to be part of a clan and… well… just belong. It’s a strange bittersweet feeling, seeing someone else succeed where you failed. It feels so validating, watching this video, and im so happy for you, a complete internet stranger, that you were able to get out and build up skills like animation and build a community presence, but at the same time… it hurts. I’m over here struggling to stay focused and get a couple illustrations done. Anyway, whole ass ramble but… TL;DR: This so closely mirrored my own experience and it’s bittersweet but incredibly validating, so thank you for making this video, and thank the algorithm for plopping it on my dash. Probably gonna go check out some of your animations later.
Glad you identified an issue and tackled it. People with addictive personalities and games never mix well whether that be gambling in csgo or just one more run in D2. I don't play D2 often anymore because I find it to be a worse pass time than playing other games with my friends or doing other stuff. Doesn't matter the game companies are manipulative and if you aren't aware you'll get sucked in hard it's really bad.
I remember starting to play Destiny about 2-3 months before ROI came out for Destiny 1. I dont know how it happened, but I remember seeing the TTK trial or something on my PS4 home menu. I had never played a multiplayer game before, and my only experience with a shooter was Fallout 4. I didn't even make my first character, I just logged in and was immediately in on the tutorial. I played through it and... Safe to say it was in that moment I became an addict. Every mission in that free trial was exhilarating to me, I had never known fear playing a game before, but when you go into the Lunar Colony for the first time with the Hive... God I think maybe 10 year old me was shaking in fear. I remember a group hanging around me in the Cosmodrome and I was so happy to join them... Than a notification appeared on my screen saying I needed to buy the game to join a fireteam. When I learned that I needed to buy the game, I begged my parents for it and within the week I was playing with new friends. I was a social outcast throughout my entire life in school, so having a game I could play with friends who wouldnt judge me was so refreshing. I pre-ordered EVERYTHING from then on. Every deluxe pre-order bundle whatnot, I got it. When D2 launched horribly, even with Curse of Osiris, I still defended the game and played it endlessly. When Forsaken revitalized the game, I couldn't have been happier... It took Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt for me to realize my addiction, and break it forever. Ever since than, I only played through the DLC campaigns despite still getting the best digital versions I could. After Lightfall though, I won't be getting Final Shape. It took me so long to realize my addiction, and now that I'm over it, I realize all the great moments in school and other games I missed out on. I found newer games like BG3 and Elden Ring to find myself immersed in, and even met a new wonderful group of friends to hang out with on ESO. Honestly I'm glad I realized my addiction for the game as early as I did.
its so weird how this game became an addiction in the worst ways. we were addicted for the potential not the game itself
and let's not forget that it was made to be addictive as well, deliberately. we have stepped into a casino and they closed the doors
Can't agree with this more. It was more about waiting for Bungie to get their heads out of their collective ass and get the game to where it needed to be then actually enjoying the game itself. Eventually, the frustrations of the game built up too much. I had "quite" the game before. But one day, during one of the missions in the lightfall campaign, i got so infuriated with some of the mechanics of the mission and the bugs/glitches that kept halting my progress. I had a moment of clarity where i thought, "why am I doing this? Why am i playing this? This isn't fun. This game is shit." I immediately exited the game, deleted every one of my characters, and uninstalled the game. And haven't looked back. Only in the time following that did i realize how manipulative this game is to keep you addicted. And it felt so good to be rid of it and start enjoying other games that actually made me laugh and have fun. To hell with destiny.
It’s really weird because imo if I was part of something I didn’t agree with I wouldn’t continue working there. At the very crux of every bungie worker a small piece of their heart is okay enough with how the game is going to let it slide. The people that made D1 aren’t there anymore and if they are the no longer making the game .
God how fucking true, that’s quite literally what’s kept me. I believed in it but now I’m just sick of the seasonal shit and now I just want to see how things end.
I have always looked for a way to put it into words but damn "addicted for the potential not the game itself" is easily the best way to put it
It’s not easy to recognize addiction let alone actually break it. I think there’s far too many players of Destiny who are addicted and can’t admit it. Mad props to you for this.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!!
Took me till last December to learn it myself. Lethal Company made me realize that I was missing true fun and Destiny was just a habit. Now I'm down to a max 3 hours of D2 a week on average and I'm feeling great
I deleted it soon as they fixed the crafting glitch with busted guns.. I had never had that much fun in the game since d1, and when it was fixed I just thought to myself, I’m never going to have this much fun on the game again.. and deleted it.. it hurt bc I was a D1 alpha vet and it’s still prolly my top 2/3 game, but god it really was a addiction..
The first step into quitting is to admit, that you are addicted. But it is also one of the hardest steps.
@@Salsamderdritte took me from d1 beta till like a year ago roughly..
The halo reach ending with the ghost was so beautiful.
I was strongly addicted to destiny to the point where intervention needed to happen. Now that I've been gone from it for a long time now, I don't miss it at all. You don't realize how predatory or deep in their model you have fallen until you step outside of it. Destiny is really hard to get into and understand. And many parts of it are absolutely stunning, but it gets your hooks in you. There's never an end in sight or a goal you can truly reach. I strongly regret allowing it to come between me and my partner, but I am also very glad that she ripped me away from the game in the end. I was so addicted to the game that when I was told, it is either me, or your stupid game. I had second thoughts if leaving the game was the right decision. I'm glad to see I am not alone. All of those destiny raid friends were not real friends.
I can never log into this game again without immediately feeling completely exhausted
I feel exactly the same way
Yeh
Right? It feels more like a thankless task than something I want to do now. The joy has gone and only the grind remains.
Fantastic video. I've been slowly falling out of all my previous addictions lately, and I've been playing Destiny less and less. I used to be able to no life this game for hours on end, but lately, mainly due to story problems and a stale sandbox, I've been playing, 2, maybe 3 hours a week if that. Sure this lets me spend more time doing other stuff, but not having something to fall back on is a strange feeling.
same, it's like now you have to find something to do in your free time where as before there was no question you just play D2. I think a lot of people would have similar experiences with Destiny if they stopped playing it exclusively for a month.
Completely agree with this. Found the exact same thing happening
@@gizmo2445 I'm kinda in that boat right now. I'm not as motivated to play games I even know I would love, but dismiss them because they wouldn't give me the same "high" that Destiny gave me.
@@ado_fritos I know that exact lost feeling or like you’re growing out of gaming and are just a Destiny player now. Elden Ring was what pulled me out of that but I think you just gotta find the game that pulls you out or get fed up enough with Destiny
Start playing monster Hunter world if you haven’t already. It has scratched that same itch for me. I haven’t touched d2 in months
I doubt that you would know me at all, but I was one of the "big three" in the lore space back in Rise of Iron and Destiny 2's tumultuous starts. I tried my best to stick with the game for the sake of the community I had been building, but in the end it just wasn't worth the mental toll for myself. I moved on, have since found Warframe and a few other titles (trust me when I say it's actually a better model all around and Bungie's model is a joke comparatively) to fill in the gaps, and I don't miss it at all. The universe that those at Bungie were creating, most of which have moved on or were fired, is far from the same I was interested in when I started creating content. The stewards of a universe and a company need to be filled with passion for it. Bungie's heads lack that passion, and frankly we don't need much more information nor evidence to suggest that.
The community lied to itself, and by doing so made itself sick and simply awful. It's ability to twist narratives and make everything into a war was a showcase of just how toxic things had been and still are. Destiny deserves to be put to rest, and the devs deserve to be given a chance at a new project, one that they actively are able to control and be vested in from here on out.
While your personal story is actually not dissimilar from mine, albeit many years apart, (I played Halo when it came out on the original Xbox so Bungie is a BIG relation for me) it's terribly clear that the influence of social media can grip people differently with gaming addiction in their adolescence. I say this to simply highlight I hope you keep on track for yourself, your sanity and your personal development and growth. You CAN allow yourself to be addicted to something. Just remember that addiction and passion, however, usually have to go hand in hand. That and getting done the gym, meals and so on is just the step to getting back to the addiction.
Anyway, too long of a comment. Your story just rang with me and my terribly cynical, old self. I wish you luck.
Destiny 2’s FOMO was the greatest choke hold I’ve felt from a video game. And even though I enjoyed the core mechanics and lore, playing the game felt like a chore. Like something I HAD to do.
Ironically, another MMO was what pulled the veil away from my eyes: Final Fantasy XIV. It was there I realized what a GOOD MMO was like. 99% of the content that came to the game was there to stay. And if you missed it, it always came back eventually. Even on the rare case where a cosmetic was available for a short amount of time, the way you’d get it was through one or two five minute long quests, and that was it. You had weeks to get it done. Naoki Yoshida, the director of the game, even said, “I don’t want players to feel forced to log in every day. I want them to play other games, work on personal skills, or talk with their family.”
Playing with that mindset broke the illusion Destiny had put in front of me. I still love Destiny and its world, even though I’m not playing it as much. It’s a game my brother plays a lot, so it gives me time to talk with him every week when he lives a long way away. I look forward to The Final Shape and the new raid. I’m going to kill the Witness, but when I do, I’m putting Destiny down. I’ve been with it since launch. Even though I’m tired, I’m seeing the Light and Dark saga to its end.
Thanks very much for this, a shocking and somewhat disturbing amount of points really hit home for me. I am playing through the end of TFS to see the conclusion of the series and plan to step away completely from what I know to be an unhealthy addiction. Thank you for being so brave and putting your personal thoughts and feelings out there, it helps.
I'll probably also be reinstalling to play through the campaign, but after that I'm definitely out for good. Thanks so much for your kind words!
Girl, Please for the love of god don't read this entire comment unless you really have the time, because this is about to become a 20 page essay, but holy shit. Literally everything you described in this video is basically exactly what I went through the last decade.
I came across Destiny around the time House of Wolves had launched and the marketing for The Taken King had begun. At this point I had never really played multiplayer games before, let alone an MMO, because the only console I really used was a Wii. My dad had an Xbox which I played on very occasionally, but I never really had any games on it that I found interesting, until Destiny came around. The trailers I was seeing and the music I was hearing instantly captured me, and I could not stop thinking about getting this game. Finally, just a few weeks before TTK launched, I got the game and I don't think I left my room for the next 2 weeks. I was still very new to shooters and I was very much still a solo player, so things took me a long time to beat (I remember struggling on one of the random bosses in the House of Wolves campaign for like 3 hours straight), but I was having a good time.
Now I didn't yet know the concept of a live service game, and I also didn't really understand a lot of the game's deeper mechanics and activities. I remember launching into the vault of glass raid at some point trying to figure out what it was, but after running around venus for an hour, I gave up. Then The Taken King released. I absolutely lost my mind at everything, and if I wasn't already in love with the game before, I definitely was now. However, I was still a solo player and never ran activities with others, until one day when I saw that people were talking about this new activity called "King's Fall" releasing soon, and that there was a race to beat it going on. Now I didn't know what this was, but I figured out a lot of people would stream this race on places like Twitch, so I made an account and waited for the race to start.
Watching that raid race is probably one of the fondest memories I have ever made with this franchise, as it showed me something I had never seen in a game before. From then on, I wanted to learn how to do exactly what I saw on that stream, so I started trying to find ways to connect to other players and eventually beat my first raid, which was King's Fall (bad idea, really shouldn't have picked THAT to start with, but I digress).
From then on I was just about as into the game as you described you were at this time. I wouldn't say I was addicted, but I was definitely playing a lot. Forsaken for me too was where I went from a mere enjoyer of the game, to obsessively and addictively playing and consuming everything about the game I could find. This turns out that for me was also a massive coping mechanism. I was struggling in high school. I had probably the exact opposite of an IRL social life. Destiny was my escape. It was something I got super invested in and could visibly see myself getting better and better, which was a feeling I couldn't get from school, and I played with other people almost every day, which was a substitute for me being the quiet antisocial kid during the day.
However, just like you, after Shadowkeep's launch, specifically when the pandemic hit, things changed. My finals were cancelled in the wake of lockdown, and suddenly my high school was over and I had a 3.5 month vacation before I would get to start at uni. I had literally nothing else to do, but Destiny was all that was on my mind, so I tried my best to fill as many parts of my day with activities related to it, which eventually turned to me making music. I started playing the game's music on piano, trying to recreate it (badly), and I started engaging with the other people who enjoyed the game's music too. Eventually this resulted in a video of mine blowing up after getting a MOTW, and I was hit with the same dopamine rush as you.
For the next while, if the game was ever not fully satisfying my needs for an escape, I would turn to making music instead, and this cycle would continue for a good while. It was around this time that 2 things happened in my life that forever changed me. Firstly, my dad unexpectedly passed away while we were out on a trip with our family, and secondly I started questioning my gender identity. My entire life was being turned upside down in real time, but I just tried to escape it by doing the things I was already doing.
Just like it was for you, I'm still really conflicted about this time of my life. I met some of my best friends of all time through all this, and even got to work with a bunch of other musicians from the community. People embraced me when I eventually came out to them as trans and I never felt as loved in my life as I did during this time. Some of my fondest memories of my entire existence were during these years. Completing day 1 raids with my friends, getting very personal messages from people telling me how my music made them feel something, Destiny developers telling me that they listened to my music while working on the game, so many good things happened during this, and yet....
A growing feeling started inside of me. I later realized that this feeling had started way before I first noticed it, but when I finally did, I collapsed. Probably the biggest burnout I have ever felt hit me around the start of last year, and I simply couldn't continue anymore. All of my feelings that I had been burying underneath this obsession with the franchise and all of the complex emotions I needed to sort through started flooding all over me, and I broke down. It was just a few short weeks later that we got Lightfall, which was finally the snap back to reality that I needed to start breaking down my addiction.
First it started with the game itself. I just couldn't bring myself to log on as frequently as I did anymore, and I even started skipping weekly resets itself, which is something I NEVER did unless I had something else planned, which was almost never the case because I planned my entire life around the weekly cycle of this game, making sure to always keep Tuesdays free. So naturally, even though I was already in a burnout and just hadn't admitted it to myself yet, I tried making music to fill the time, and for some reason....I couldn't. I had zero inspiration, zero creativity, zero motivation. Now this wasn't because Lightfall's music was bad. Hell, some of my favorite tracks in the franchise's history came from this expansion. I was extremely happy with the music of the game. It was all purely personal. The years of running away from my feelings had finally caught up to me.
This is where I went through a very similar reflection as you did, finally realizing what the past few years of my life had been. I'd been neglecting everything that wasn't Destiny related. The only purpose I felt like I really had was being a Destiny player and musician. I even chose a game development uni course rather than anything else, because the only real long-term life goal I had was to work at Bungie to help make this game, or to somehow find my own way into Destiny's music team. This franchise had consumed my entire life, and I needed to get out.
This has taken me basically the entire year to do, and I'm still very much not entirely free yet, but Destiny has instead turned into one of the many things I do every so often just as any other game is. I first spent multiple months in a state that looking back, I'm very much not proud of, but being forced to actually handle these emotions and feelings, and having now built up a group of friends and a partner that are there to help me through, I started seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I decided to drop out of Uni since the work around it was consuming me, and having lost the passion for Destiny, I also lost a lot of my drive to continue to pursue a career in this (all of the gaming related layoffs and horror stories from the past few years also definitely didn't help here).
All of this freed up a lot of my time, which for the first few months I just spent relaxing. I needed a moment to just lay down and process everything. Eventually, I started feeling better. I got my passion for music back and started work on projects that weren't destiny related, even learning entirely new things that I had never done with music before. I began taking flights to see my partner more and more regularly and I'm currently working on getting all the paperwork sorted so I can immigrate to where they live and move in with them permanently. Finally, I chose to rebrand my online existence, away from Destiny, and into something that I actually feel represents me, rather than the game I was obsessed with. Pkmt1234 The Destiny Lo-Fi Queen is no more. Instead, I now feel so much more comfortable and at home with what I'm doing, and my life seems to be heading in the right direction again.
I cannot thank you enough for making this video. If you've somehow made it to the end of this comment, it's really reassuring to know that I wasn't the only one who went through all of these complicated feelings over the last decade, and it brings me joy knowing that you came out of it as strong as you did. I'm definitely not as far improved as I want to be, but seeing the progress you made makes me feel like I can do all of that too.
Thank you Ty
I'm so glad you found so much to relate to, I really appreciate you taking so much time to write out your own experience with it. It's wonderful to hear that you're on a better path now, and that you've been able to get back into making music separate from just Destiny related pieces. That's certainly something I've also had to work on with my own 3D art, it's so easy to get hung up on one particular thing that it feels daunting exploring art based on other things. But it's been getting better for me too.
Thanks so much for the wonderful comment. :)
Holly shit imma save this for later 💀
At work for the time being, but this is something I want to read later. It's really rare that someone goes in depth with something like this, and I would wager most who otherwise would never do because most ostracize people who do. Then again, they typically have the brain power of a potato.....ask me how I how I know about later if you like.
Hell as much as I like this series for its lore and stuff, this game has also brought out the inner A-hole in me that I have usually kept buried for a very long time.
That is the LORE. Absolutely it was a journey, Rosa!
I got into Destiny because of its concept and art that brought my attention to it. It was really something else back then! I spent a LOT of hours into the game, too. I didn't bougt all of the expansions and when i got the chance to play them for free I didn't waste any time on anything else but grinding most of it. Seasons? I had only bought two in total that looked interesting for me.
From my perspective, the game I used to know, lost its concept and direction; it evolved into... something I didn't appreciate anymore -it became "too alien" for me-. I only came back when they got something interesting going on like Season of the Haunted or some F2P missions but then everything else became "meh". Everything was behind paywall and I try to spend my money smartly. I just wish everybody give themselves some time to rest from it and to focus on other things rather than grinding Destiny, even the developers! Its like eating the same thing or thinking the same thing all day, over and over and over. It will drive you crazy! To reward ourselves with health, care and knowledge.
I wish you all the best and success! 👍
Watching the video and reading this are both making me very glad that my only creative interest is writing. I don't want to think about how much worse off I'd have been if I'd started making art also revolving around Destiny - like there's no escaping it.
Burnout and collapse is definitely accurate. I know I've been grappling with a lot of things, not just since breaking off from constantly playing Destiny a couple years ago, but slowing down on video games in general more recently too. It was an uncomfortable emptiness that suddenly brought a lot of space for thoughts I'd been trying to ignore. I'm doing a lot better now and I'm glad for the changes I've made in my life (I even started reading again for the first time in years!), but god it was rough for a time.
Still, I got through it. It sounds like Ty's getting through it, and you will too!
Also the casual gamer kid -> Destiny player -> trans pipeline is real huh
*Soon comes the exodus.*
*When then we will see the dust that has settled around us.*
*And the healing will begin.*
I have a lot to process over my time with Destiny so brace yourself for a long read. I am grateful and bitter. Hope and despair has been the duality of my experience, and I think the conversation of stepping away is something we really need to have as a community. I remember it seeming like a problem for the first time when Aztecross mentioned us being addicted to Destiny once and it really began to hit home. So I definitely want to participate and unpack this.
Before Destiny, I used to play games with endings, and in their wake, I returned to life, had experiences, made tangible, palpable memories. But I've been struggling... with a gap in time that I can't make sense of.
I'm 34 now. My body has aged. I barely have any friends left. I lost a good job because I couldn't handle the gravity of reality. I don't know what's happened in the last 10 years. I used to travel, go outside and feel- REALLY FEEL the sun. I had people that I would see and invite over to hang out, eat, and commune.
Now, I'm surrounded by literal bird shit because my comfort animals have become more than I can maintain. The trash is piled up. The sink is full. My bedroom is full of boxes I haven't unpacked after moving almost two years ago. My girlfriend and I have stopped our physical relationship almost entirely. All my big life goals... they're in the wind. Worst of all, I... can't remember the feeling of ambition. I really feel like I need help, like I need saving.
I used to dream so heavily about becoming a comic book artist ("graphic novelist" I used to tell people). I was so driven to learn new skills from ground zero all in the name of accomplishing that dream (how to draw, how write, how to design, how to speak new languages in case I thought to sell my stories abroad, etc). I had such a charge within to take on the world that it felt like I held a star in my chest and radiated my dream onto everyone... and now, a fact that haunts me in reflection, I could tell in their faces and voices, they believed I one day would be all that I set out to be.
Destiny has been the blackhole that took everything away from me.
Sure, I am ultimately responsible for this, which is why I feel immense shame, but the moment Destiny embraced the live-service model and sought to ensnare every moment of my attention and pleasure, I felt I was completely unprepared for what extremely powerful psychological tactics they had at their disposal.
I don't think anything good can also be addicting. I roll my eyes whenever I hear someone say something is so good that it's addicting. Addicting implies imprisonment, and I want freedom. I cherish it. I yearn for it now. So too do I yearn for closure from this ride. I want a place I can step off from and say "hey, this is my stop so now's time for the nostalgia to form."
I personally don't think I can feel nostalgic for something if I'm still experiencing it, and that fact makes me so incredibly sad. Why? Because I've found that it is in nostalgia that meaning, joy, and pleasure exalt into nourishing warmth and fondness. I can't tell you how richly I look back at other franchises I enjoyed in the past, experiences that are so outdated that I can't imagine how I ever enjoyed them.
Final Fantasy 7 is a game that holds a spot like that in my mind. So is the first season of Pokemon, when that first dropped. I remember running home from school as fast as I could just to watch the next episode of Dragonball Z in similar fashion. Now, I go back to experience those things and think, "man, I've grown since then, I can't believe I didn't see all these issues before".
With Destiny however, I can't do that properly. Don't get me wrong, I can do it a little, maybe because Destiny 1 is a thing of the past (let me tell you how fondly I remember my first raid experience in the Vault of Glass, with all my irl friends in the raid team, man... good times, those days are over). But because I don't feel separated from the Destiny experience, I don't feel the intensity of nostalgia.
I can't exactly figure out why that's important to me, but something about it bothers me. Maybe because I'm ready to move onto something else. Maybe I feel I need to leave it behind so I can go and experience some nurturing newness. Maybe that's it.
You know, I recently learn how damaging long term excessive gaming is on the brain. I started watching a TH-cam psychologist named Dr. K (@HealthyGamerGG) and he had a video on the effects excessive gaming long-term has on the brain, and it's not good. Atrophy of vital brain centers occurs due to too much dopamine and not enough serotonin and that causes severe issues down the line. The findings terrified me when I found out, but knowing also gave me insight into what's been wrong with me this whole time. That insight I hold dear and it may be what started breaking me away from Destiny (he also made me wonder if I have ADHD and if that made me more susceptible to gaming addiction).
Then again, I gave up Destiny for a whole year when Shadowkeep was annouced. So maybe I was feeling the fatigue before.
Anyone else identify with the Snap that happened in Avengers Infinity War and the 5 year gap in Endgame? I certainly draw parallels between that and my experience. Especially with the pandemic, not to mention my big break up at the time. I was supposed to get married back then…
God... Some much time wasted. I should've had a family by now. All my other friends do. I feel so left behind. But I also feel so glued to this Destiny ride that I can't get out before it's over. The Final Shape is so close now. So close.
But hey, I'm not one to focus only on negativity. Destiny mesmerizes me. Going in, I felt so enamored by anything and everything about it. I truly believed that I could learn so much about writing simply by being exposed to Destiny. I felt so firmly in my heart that there was something vital to be gained from playing Destiny that I had to be there. So many things were given to me over the years of playing. I've freaking learned things, a ton of things from experiencing Destiny, and I am ever grateful for that.
I remember back in 2014 going in and being so eager to walk on the various planets and moons of our solar system. Be it the moon, Mars, Mercury or Venus, I was so excited to see what these places might be like (Venus was my favorite 🤩). When I actually got there, the satisfaction was physical. I loved it all so much.
But now... I want life. I want to walk the forests, climb mountains, ford the rivers, and bathe in the sun and shadows of the day and night. I want to experience the real. I want a place that is my own where I can sow the seeds of my life and grow a family that will give me purpose. I want to see it all, breathe it all, feel it all. So desperately. I want to feel the dreams again. I want my zest back. I want my age to make sense.
This game... maybe all gaming... maybe all screen time.. hell, maybe all forms of escapism, is troublesome in large, endless doses. Be wary, my friends. I don't think we're supposed to escape our lives more than we face them.
Thank you to those who read to the end. I really needed to get this out after watching the video.
I'm not as well written as you are, but this seems to be the ongoing theme of video game addiction, rather any addiction, that is the missing out on life for a much cheaper alternative. Whether it be games, movies, cornography 🌽 or drugs including alcohol, these are the phony things that will never compare to the real deal of living life. Let me humble myself by saying that I am the worst of these addicts, but the only thing that has delivered me from the worst of these addictions is Jesus Christ. WAIT! ⚠please keep reading even if you're not a believer yet. This historical One is indeed real and He really did die on the cross for us so that we may be saved from our sins and live a life for Him, not ourselves. Which I think is really the main issue for any addiction. Jesus can in fact save you from all if you believe in Him and ask in His name. God bless you, and anyone reading this. I'll be praying for you! God set this on my heart to tell you this! Love you!
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16
Oh god I hate how much I relate to this, all the way down to the timeline of Reach into D1 (though I started with Halo 2) and using Destiny to escape my dysphoria. Playing every day, doing all endgame activities on all 3 characters every week, doing every quest and getting every item, reading every update and spending all my time away from the game on the subreddits. I had a lot of free time in high school that I think led to this, and while I was probably addicted at that point too, it wasn't really an obvious problem until university and working full time. Destiny ate up all my free time, I barely engaged with people or my responsibilities unless I was forced out of the house by school or work, and the worst part is that I don't think I was even really having fun. It was like it was a job unto itself. Then the pandemic hit and that certainly didn't help, either.
I'm happy to say I'm doing a LOT better now. I think things like actually getting hobbies outside of gaming (D&D has been a godsend for my social life), getting into Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, Stellaris, and other games that don't try to demand my attention every week, and just plain boredom and frustration with FOMO, seasonal models, and the power grind are what finally broke me out of it. Having friends drop the game, connecting with people in real life and, of course, going to therapy (even though it wasn't specifically for addiction) helped a lot too. And, in part due to that therapy and actual connection with people, I've finally been able to sort out the gender stuff and start my transition properly. I don't know if I'd have done that if I'd remained buried under addiction. Weird side note, now that I'm on estrogen it's like a switch has been flipped: where I used to play 8+ hours of video games a day in general, not just Destiny, I barely even WANT to play them, and do maybe a few hours a week at most. I guess I should have started years ago 'cause it forcibly broke any addiction I might have.
Nowadays I'll play on and off for maybe a couple weeks, with month long breaks and it's sooo much better for me. I no longer bother maintaining 3 characters and don't really do endgame stuff. Basically do the seasonal story, mess around getting some gear, and that's it. Started that pattern just before Shadowkeep, but Lightfall solidified it. I'm really of the opinion now that live service games are not a good thing - as much as some parts of the community complained about content droughts, I really miss the D1 model of single, giant yearly expansions with little between them. I could play those as much as I wanted and when I had done everything, I could just do other stuff without fear of missing out.
Anyways, this has been really long and all over the place, but my point is that this was a great video. I know I've had issues with Destiny and while I think I've resolved them now, it's really been good to hear someone with a similar experience actually sit down and put it all into words, something I never did and it's made me actually stop and think. It's good to have some retrospection. It's also fun (?) to hear about another trans person with an experience so similar to my own. Ironically, I found this because the algorithm has decided start feeding me Destiny videos. I just hope our corporate overlords allow the game, the devs, and us to take a break after The Final Shape. Let it all breathe, take a step back, and reflect like you've done.
PS how do I get a girlfriend through Destiny? Asking for a friend
I'm glad you enjoyed the video and found some space to reflect for yourself! It's certainly been very cathartic seeing everyone sharing similar stories.
Thank you for your wonderful comment and sharing your experience as well, as a fellow trans person I wish you all the best ❤
ill always cherish destiny for helping me come to terms with my gender identity, but damn yeah was i using it as a crutch to not think about shit. i definitely feel you on the whole "24/7, spending all my time on the game or looking at the subreddits and stuff". glad you were able to distance yourself and focus on yourself first.
I’ll never get over how the Joe Staten Destiny was taken from us. Destiny has had ups and downs but it never lived up to its full potential.
The game they were hyping up in 2013 is not the game we got.
Still I’ve had the most fun playing Destiny than any other game.
Could not have said this better. I went thru something similar with Destiny 2. One day I said the same thing, "what is the point of me playing?" I'd already stopped having fun and was just going thru the motions. There was no story, no real narrative as we received bits of a short story each week and you had to grind to get even that.
Difference is that I did quit cold turkey. Since then, I've played the Witcher 3, Detroit Become Human a couple times, Cyberpunk (a lot), and other games.
D2 was made to be addictive. The 1st step is acknowledging that fact and then you can move on.
Thanks for the great vid!
I had a similar revelation - it’s really all about balance. I still love hopping on and playing with friends or when I have extra free time (like breaks from college), but destiny doesn’t control my life like it used to. Destiny will always hold a place in my heart, but I plan to quit after TFS. Thank you for sharing your experience, wishing you all the best!
This game may have single-handedly killed my interest in any game that asks me to devote a boat load of my time to it.
If I didnt log in and run strikes, crucible, gambit, bounties, etc etc etc. Then I would be behind, and so I grinded mindlessly. I wasnt having fun most of the time but I did it anyway to do the one thing I did enjoy. The Raids.
Eventually even my love of doing raids couldn't keep me around. I was spending so much time being unhappy playing the game but I didn't want to stop because my friends played and we would raid together. I logged off one last time after Lightfall and after a few months of debate I uninstalled Destiny 2. I am free of it and I won't go back. I drained so much time in there just to keep up, not because I was enjoying it.
it sucks because you know every time someone tries to bring these things up the d2 goblins show up and are just like "It's not that deep bro, just stop playing" as if the concept of psychology doesn't exist.
Destiny 2 is a game that is MADE to steal your attention. they want you to spend every waking moment you have pouring your life into this game so that they can keep making money. Games that are made like this have actual psychological effects on people, some more than others. Videogames are an escape from reality, not an entirely new reality to live in, and vulnerable people, like kids, teens, those with ADHD, Autism, etc etc, can be extremely vulnerable to this.
The fact some people can see these games doing exactly as they are intended to, that being absorbing you completely, and they can just be like "So just stop" is comically uneducated. It works like any other addiction, just because it's a game doesn't make it's effects any less real
also sucks like hell that d2 yters like aztecross just repost this video with their commentary and take 3x the viewcounts, feels really scummy
@@FennKitFox Yeah, it can definitely be frustrating seeing people say shit without really understanding how harmful games like these can be for people. Anonymity gives people the confidence to say some real gross, dumbass shit.
And yeah, Aztecross reacting and shuffling viewership away from this video kinda sucks, but I'm just happy so many people have gotten the chance to watch it through them at least.
Two years clean.
Watching this, I feel solace knowing I'm not the only one who feels like this about Destiny. This franchise has been monumental in creating the individual I am today, my opinions on games, my taste of games, how I interact with people around me. Half of my life has been spent playing this game (granted on an off again because of lows, but that's literally every fan of any game ever).
I got into destiny in elementary school, 5th grade. I remember the exact moment I first learned about the game. I was in the cafeteria talking about playing Garden Warfare with my friends that night but they said "oh we are gunna play Destiny", I asked them what it was, watched a video on it and the next day I asked my dad if I could get it. I immediately fell in love with it and it was really the first game I played that made me obsessed with games as something more than a hobby. One of my favorite moments was playing Cerberus Vae III with my friends and just running each other over with Interceptors, simple things like that were really funny. I bought and replayed every story mission, vanilla, Dark Below, House of Wolves, even deleting and making new characters because I couldn't really do endgame content. I remember even trying to get my dad into the game by letting him make a character and trying to play, he couldn't since he had arthritis but it was something I wanted to do to feel connected to him through a media I loved.
When Taken King came out, I was completely attached to this game. The slew of new exotics (Zhalo Supercell my beloved) and the dreadnaught had me in awe. The two new strikes, Sunless Cell and Shield Brothers, were my favorite to ever be added to the game and still are (both also had the coolest titan exclusive armor pieces that I still have). I was largely a solo player so my enjoyment of the game was pretty limited, I did one raid with my friends but they never invited me again since I did suck admittedly, but I still loved the game all the same with strikes, weekly story missions, crucible, even a nightfall or two. I did almost everything I could do as a solo player and didn't get bored after the fact.
Once Rise of Iron came out and Destiny 2 was announced I was so excited and had so many ideas rushing through my mind about what they would add or could add. One of my favorite ideas was having Light and Dark guardians, a real sort of faction system that I thought would be awesome since the faction wars they had in the game already were pretty disappointing. There are so many things I wished they had done differently in the story now that I look back, overall it feels so chaotic the many different directions Destiny has gone in and just barely at the finish line did they have something stable, and people are already sick of it. Especially now the story feels predictable and I have no connection to it anymore, it feels like a poor imitation of a marvel show, not to say that characters in the past weren't bland or easy to understand they very much were, but nothing about the seasons feel interesting at all anymore. I'm an idiot at story telling but this is just what I feel.
Going back to the D2 launch, I was excited to start, that little call back to all the things I did in D1 made me feel almost proud of everything I did and that I was really about to start a new journey or have a new experience. Once I finished Red War I was still connected to the game but it was starting to wane. That love and devotion to this game was morphing to confusion and hatred, and I feel like an idiot for ever letting myself feel that way for something, especially as stupid as a game. Eververse was extremely predatory, there was hardly anything to do as a mostly solo player (amplified with no randomly rolls on guns), and the game just felt so boring to play. I remember being so completely angry and I had an hour long rant to myself and how I felt betrayed by Bungie, which was silly in retrospect because who really cares. I can't remember exactly what it was that set me off, I'm sure part of it was taking in the opinions of the community at the time and part of it was genuine frustration I felt myself, whatever it was I just quit playing completely.
I played other games, Overwatch mostly (what a shit show that turned out to be), Rainbow Six Siege (another shit show), For Honor (a shit show that I genuinely love, still play it and highly recommend) and Titanfall (just absolute heat) to name a few. It was around new years 2018 that I built my PC, at that point I just played TF2 almost exclusively and dropped Overwatch (boring ahh game), I had watched TF2 vids since I was 12 but played on my laptop a handful of times but getting my computer changed everything. After having my PC for a while my new friends told me about how Destiny 2 was on PC and was free, I downloaded it for shits and gigs and was enjoying how the game felt faster than launch, the return of random rolls and the kinetic/especial/heavy weapon system, and the massive amount of time I took away from the game meant there was so much content to partake in. I wasn't completely invested again at this point but I enjoyed just playing the game casually, picking it up on and off again.
I think something I always enjoyed in this game was role-playing admittedly, I really like feeling like a protector of humanity, it's kind of cringey but I loved feeling like a powerhouse who could just destroy every ad in front of me. Undying was fun and helped me feel like this, just killing hordes of vex in Vex Offensive was the thing I enjoyed in the game (something I like in the game currently, the enemy density is fantastic). It was around Arrivals that I become passionate about the game again, in large part because my friend group enjoyed raiding making us all have a game to play and work together in, It was also when the pandemic and lockdown was starting to take full effect and I had nothing but time. Beyond Light came out and I was feeling a similar sense of excitement I did for Taken King with the introduction of Stasis, I was feeling like they were doing all the things I wanted them to do with having Dark Guardians. Well it wasn't amazing, I still really enjoyed it though, it was the first time I ever did a day one raid and we got so close too. That will probably be one of my favorite memories of all time, getting through Atraks and screaming in joy (which pissed my parents off immensely, rightfully so). Some of my friends slowly lost interest while I still played religiously, even though they hated Hunt I still played it. Chosen was absolutely amazing, I completely adored the story, I loved that the guardians were making alliances with the Cabal, I really like Caitil I think she's cool and interesting character.
It was around this time that my dad passed away and I felt very lost, angry, confused, depressed, remorseful, every feeling you get when someone close to you passes away, the immense pain of it. Destiny was an escape that distracted me, but it wasn't healthy, the lack of social interaction made things worse and I completely dropped school which caused more problems for my family and for my own future. None of it was important to me since I just had Destiny, I was a complete mess with no ambition or motivation to do anything but play Destiny. Around Lost I dropped the game completely due to immense burn out and boredom with the content in the game which was for the best as I finally started getting myself back together and focus on school (somehow I graduated with my peers). I don't remember exactly what else happened but something inside me clicked and I started to hate Destiny again, it wasn't just the burnout but something else. I had no intention on playing Destiny again but my friends told me how Witch Queen was a phenomenal expansion so I bought it and loved it, I wasn't exactly devoted to the game but I enjoyed it since I had no really games of interest. I bought the deluxe and played every season, Haunted and Plunder was awesome, thoroughly enjoyed those two seasons and played the game heavily. Seraph I had a waning interest again but still played enough. When Lightfall was announced I was fairly excited but not ecstatic, but when it came out I was very disappointed in the story.
I have barely touched this game since Defiance, the live service model has made FOMO an actual thing for me and I hate it, Destiny isn't fun anymore for me, I have gear that works fine still and no reason to grind for new god rolls nor do I intend on doing it, I have more time to play other games that make me happy. I can't even remember what happened exactly, but I remember how lightfall was split into two DLCs and being upset about it and how scummy it felt, I kind of am okay with it now as it was to keep people employed in their offices (which did literally nothing anyways). Destiny just feel so soulless, I mean I don't blame it on them, how can you expect yourself to be a gleeful little kid about the same game that's about a decade old? Well, TF2 makes me feel that way still, I don't know how. Regardless I don't blame Destiny or Bungie for all my wasted time, I don't really regret any of it, all I know is whenever I boot this game I just have such a big feeling of disappointment and hate, booting up the game is a chore in and of itself. The only times I'll play is if my friends want to run a dungeon or a raid (which we do very rarely now).
Long rant, doubt people will read or you will read Autumn, but it feels good to reflect on this, I will probably get the base version of Final Shape then jump ship, I have other games I enjoy. If you do read thank you, I appreciate it, also you have great animations.
Man, I never did much community stuff, but as someone who was with the games of Bungie since the first Halo, all the way up to Lightfall with only a mild break during the early D2 seasons, it was both Lightfall and Diablo 4 being so obviously malicious about their design and betraying the people who love their games that so thoroughly shattered my perception of what I wanted from games.
I'm someone who lives my life to have as much fun as possible, make myself and those I care about happy while I have time left in this life, and that shattered perspective of just how much time and money (which equates to time as well in the capitalist hellscape we live in) had invested in games that give back so little without time and money greasing the wheels of satisfaction and fun, that was such a hard lesson to learn.
It made me realize that, for a long time, I had let my standards slip, that my time (and the money traded for said time) was far more valuable to me than any of these shady games valued it. That i was being strung along into buying and grinding out my own fun like it was a second job where I had to earn and buy the right to be myself and be happy. I was trading one capitalist hellscape for two. It's a lesson i won't soon forget, even if the temptations will always claw and grip me. I'd far rather take the time to reflect on what a game does for me as i invest into it than sink blissfully into another cycle of being used.
Lightfall was the best thing Bungie ever made - because it's what shook me from my blind daily / weekly grinding toward nothing.
It breaks my heart the way that this game is built, because for every good aspect of the game, which there are plenty, there is either an equal amount of, if not more negatives to counteract those positives, I can only hope that final shape gives a nice finale to the game, and that it is the end of the game, no more expansions or dlc after the episodes, just give it some time to breath
I just want to tell you thank you for having the bravery to make this and tell your story. This was powerful and it help others. Thank you for being the light in the world. I wish peace and tranquility in the future, guardian.
After coursing through my memories with destiny, I would say - It was worth it. The people I've met, the memories we've made, some of us even found a couple by playing together, all of it makes my time spent with destiny being worth the hussle. I'd say that for me destiny became what world of warcraft became for many people people in the past - a blissful time, when life long bonds and memories were made.
Yeah I really feel this, I was in college when D2 first came out and I'd say that's when my relationship with it was the healthiest, I still hung out with friends did my school work (mostly) and still lived a good life and spent time with my girlfriend.
After I graduated I moved back "home" where I didn't have any of these on top of deciding I didn't want to do what I went to school for. I was completely lost, the only thing I had ever wanted to do with my life turned out to suck ass and I had no idea where to turn to. All my friends were scattered and lived far away, the only things that kept me going was the love of my life and destiny.
Destiny became my every day, I was alone, once I felt I had lost everything, it was all I had it's all that kept me going and gave me some semblance of something to look forward to day to day.
I had an okay job just something temporary but aside from visiting my girlfriend on weekends I didn't see anyone or do anything. I wasn't happy, I always had this gnawing feeling at the back of my mind this emptiness I did everything to repress.
Then covid hit and it only got worse, I barely saw a future for myself before and after that I barely saw a present, the idea of getting my life together seemed impossible when suddenly even less seemed certain. Eventually I quit my job, stopped talking to my friends and truly gave up and neglected my girlfriend even more. I completely isolated myself.
Every day was the exact same, while I still enjoyed destiny, the days and weeks and months and years just blew by because all I did was play this game. No new memories, barely anything that really mattered, just more of the same. The only thing breaking it up was seeing my girlfriend but I was in such a bad state that I couldn't be truly present for her. It bled over to our relationship where we didn't go out didn't do anything new and everything became stale, all because I was a hollow void dragging the people I care about down with me.
That was my life for 3 long and short years.
Shortly before lightfall I started to have a change in perspective, another thing I had been doing was idealizing my life from college it was part of what led me to give up on everything. I thought everything was so good back then and I've fallen so far and my life will never be that good again why should I even try. Then one day when I was doing dishes with my girlfriend and I told her I felt like I peaked back then and she essentially said "how do you think that makes me feel?" That's the moment I started to "wake up" from the years long coma I was in. I was so focused on what I had lost that I never acknowledged the way in which I got better. By idealizing my past I couldn't acknowledge all the issues I did have back then and I didn't do anything to address them.
I started to get my life together I started trying again but destiny kept holding me back, it had such a stranglehold on my life and it wasn't until I sat with lightfall for a few weeks that it started to let go. My girlfriend broke up with me around that time as well, she's always been so supportive and loving but the damage of how I had been for years took its toll and it hurt her and dont blame her for leaving and I never will. It was so bad that even some of the last conversations we had before we broke up was about destiny. Destiny blinded me to what was important and numbed me to the point where nothing mattered.
Ive played a lot less destiny the past year and I was able to think more clearly and it's easier to do things when it's not in my mind all the time. Everything has given me perspective on what I WANT the things that really matter. I have goals in life now, I talk to my friends, I plan get togethers with them, Im trying to get in better shape and dress nicer. I want to feel real again.
I know it's not strictly all destiny but it's been so inseparable from me that it filled the gaps in my life and while it didn't create those problems, it stopped me from fixing them
Thank you so much for sharing your own story with this, I really hope that things stay on an upward trajectory for you in the coming months and years. All the best.
@@autumnsanimationstuff thank you I really appreciate that and thank you for making this video that's not an easy thing to do, I wish you all the same
@@djungelskog9581 It's funny how similar your experience to my own. One of my primary reasons for quitting was because Destiny was a constant during my relationship too, and it never was the same afterwards. I began pulling back on Destiny during my relationship, but it was afterwards when I realized how unhealthy it was. I'm sorry to hear how the game served as a catalyst for your breakup, hope you're doing better now!
I can totally relate with how you feel about Destiny. My husband and I have played since day 1 of the first Destiny. Bungie was my favorite developer since Halo CE. My feelings about them have changed a lot since then, but that is another story.....
We finally decided to step away at the end of Witch Queen and did not preorder lightfall expansion. It was a really hard decision as the addiction was real with this game. Bungie really knows how to work that psychology on players to draw them in. I can honestly say I have never been drawn into a game that made me feel like a slave to it like Destiny 2 has done. The Fomo and timegating was exhausting both mentally and physically. It was all we thought about most of the time outside of work.
Now that we have been away it's a breath of fresh air and a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. We get sleep and don't feel dark and depressed anymore. We finally have time to enjoy real life, other games etc.
I can tell you that we will not be picking up Marathon when it launches. We are sticking to some back logged games, single player and a few mmo's that don't put pressure on you from now on. There are some pretty good games coming on the horizon as well that will be nice to try out as well.
Be proud you broke free! I know we are. 😊❤
Did you get final shape after seeing how good it was?
my addiction reached a breaking point in april of last year. since 2022 I have been becoming more and more of a hardcore player. I went from being a solo player and only having about 10 raid completions under my belt to someone with 40+ clears in each raid, with multiple flawless raid completions, and all the dungeon's solo flawless'd as well. I dont say all this to brag (not entirely anyways) but I say it to show just how deep I fell into grinding this game. I have been playing since launch D1 as well, and was equally as obsessed during the heights of taken king and rise of iron, but spring of last year was when I would skip college classes to grind pinnacles and artifact levels.
the grind leading up to Root of Nightmares and the time after it led to a point where I had missed a month's worth of assignments, and per my schools policies, that leads to being dropped. That was a really loud wake-up call to drastically decrease my hours in it. It also led me to take my education and craft much more seriously. I'm at a point now where I barely play. I only hop on to do a raid with my friends or to do the occasional GM, and I am perfectly happy with that. I realized that for so long I wasn't even enjoying what I did in the game, I just played for the sake of playing. I fully plan on playing the final shape, the raid that comes with it, and even the episodes, but in a more spiritual sense, I'm done with destiny. I still hold massive amounts of love for the community, world, lore, and characters of this universe, but that love is independent of weather or not I continue playing. it's been real Destiny, thank you for a (mostly) great 10 years
This is incredibly relatable. I would say I got addicted to D1 as soon as it came out. I hadn't played any MMOs, but I had been a bigtime old school RPG player on consoles and older PC games, so the idea of a shooter with an RPG progression system had me hooked. Plus, although I hadn't played Reach then, I loved some of Bungie's games from pre-Halo days and the immersive, deep story telling they were known for. I got so hooked the game but even on D1 they were signs. The stuff they pulled where they basically "sunset" Y1 gear to force you to grind TTK. That I was on a legacy console. The frustration with RNG.
I played D2 from launch on PC and it became my go to entertainment for all these years. I had trouble focusing or watching TV, because why would I spend any free time not grinding whatever crap there was to do in the game? The I've been quitting the game on and off for the past few years, I only bought Beyond Light when it recently went on sale just so I could play as Stasis classes which mildly brought me back to the game again. The addiction only really works if you think you're getting something worthwhile and good by playing more. Once they started sunsetting AGAIN and then mostly issuing recycled content as the rewards it was clear this game didn't respect your time. I think they occasionally make it fun with the seasonal mods and broken, ability-spam builds, but there's really no point to play anymore beyond that. In D1 you would play every week to get Gjallarhorn or Fatebringer which were actually game changing weapons, there's nothing like that anymore.
This game had a ton of promise but it doesn't respect your time.
Played this entire franchise since the age of 8 back in 2014, I’ve never been addicted to the game to the point of no life’ing it, usually only playing it after school once I’d done my homework and had dinner, other times I’d be outside enjoying life with friends that were close by, weekends were times when I’d do raids if I were home, met a lot of people in those days and I think it helped me learn how to co-operate well with others at completing a task which I’m thankful for, now a days I don’t play as much but I still find times throughout the week to play some Destiny 2, looking forward to reaching the Final Shape and finishing the story which filled my childhood mind with ambition, curiosity and immense wonder.
It’s nice to see that I’m not alone. I finally stopped playing Destiny around the midway point of season of the Serpth. I took a step back and realized that it wasn’t healthy for me. I was addicted. I played 10 to 12 hours, almost every day. I was subscribed to every single Destiny TH-camr you can think of watching their videos religiously, doing monotonous tasks over and over and over again just so I can get that perfect gun to kill the same enemy we’ve been fighting for the past decade in a slightly more optimized manner. I don’t hate Destiny. The world was always interesting and captivating to me. I mean Destiny was the reason I met the guy who was my only friend for 2-3 years. I miss you Jack… but I realize now all the negative effects it had on me all the bottled up feelings that I should’ve reflected on. I don’t blame Destiny for all my problems. Destiny didn’t make me neglect the relationships I had. I actively chose a game over people who cared about me and who just wanted the best for me and burned those bridges. I thought that my crummy life was never going to change, and I had no control over it, and I always chose to actively make it worse by escaping from it instead of directly facing the problem. Destiny is an addiction, but it’s up to you to choose if you will feed it or not. so I gave up on Destiny and pretty much gaming altogether. I got into some other habits, like rediscovering, my love for drawing, going out and hanging out with real people instead of just talking with online friends, all day, working out, which was something I thought I would never do in my life and enjoy it. I finally signed up for my trade school which I’ll be starting pretty soon. Giving up on destiny and facing my problems made me realize that I can control my life and make it change for the better. I feel like finally I’m on a better path and it warms my heart to see that others are as well. This was great video.
I share some of this relationship with destiny as well. I've been obsessed with this game since the open beta on the xbox 360, countless hours spent in D1 and D2. And while I only ever really had one friend who was as deep into it as I was, I still met a ton of people through it, though most I don't talk to anymore as they've seemingly all moved on as well. I've questioned whether it was worth it to keep playing this game like a zombie many times but I always stuck with it and let it eat up my time because I'd seen the great shit that can come from it. Lightfall was the final straw though, more specifically the insane company drama at bungie recently. I've finally come to terms with the fact that the game will never be satisfying anymore, whoever is in charge at bungie is seemingly inept with their finances, and I've ultimately wasted more time playing the bad parts of this game than doing anything productive with my life. And I've had enough man. I've wasted so much of my life on destiny and I can't even look back fondly on most of it. I've resolved to make myself better and the first step is cutting off the life sucking tumor that is my addiction to this game that lost its charm for me at shadowkeep.
I broke my addiction with Destiny 2 late last year, mostly due to college which I managed graduate. But also I broke away from games like Genshin or Tower of Fantasy(do not recommend, your welcome!). I do not regret playing Destiny, I met an incredible community of friends, and liked minded people that got me through with my personal issues, like the fact that I am nuerodivergent and struggle with nuerotypical ways of communicating. I do regret the amount of money that I dropped on this game, that is something I cant take back .This games preyed on my FOMO. Worst part, I knew, and I let it perpetuate, until I was able to break away.
Its been 5 months since I last payed, the last class I played was my warlock, ironic, since the first class I made, was a warlock... apart of still misses playing it, but I know I am better off without this game.
Amazing video Autumn! I am new to your channel, just earned a subscriber! Hope you dont mind, but here are some good games that I like that you may or may not of heard of! Point is, is to show people some other good games apart from Destiny, of course there other good ones not on here...
Sekiro
Dark Souls 3
Hades
Persona 4 and 5
Spyro and Crash Bandicoot!
Portal 2
Subnautica
Metal Gear Rising: Revengence(for the memes jack!)
Devil May Cry 5
and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt!
NGL "I'm no longer in love with Destiny" hit a chord with me and almost made me cry for some reason. This game has been so much to me over the years. I started with IRL friends and kept playing longer after they had all left. I ground out every season hoping something would be as magical as the past. It's only been this year with a terrible first season that I've slowly been backing away from the game. I realised that I load it up to work on something, not to have fun. I No longer get the joy I once did but instead dread playing it but know I need to because I have already invested so much time and money into it. BG3 really opened my eyes to what I've been missing out on only playing Destiny and I've been trying to play other games, enjoy streams, and just talk to people instead of logging in again to grind out another triumph, or challenge, or exotic quest. I loved Destiny and I don't regret the time I put into it because it got me through some difficult times, but I can see it's time to move on and find that joy I once had in other places.
Your story is nearly a mirror of mine. I’ve been struggling with body image, have social anxiety, and use games as a distraction.
I finally said enough was enough, I was ruining myself. I have since ditched bad habits and went on to exercise and get fit. I lost 68lbs in 7 months and have been doing better than ever.
I prioritize more relaxing games and try to spend time with family more.
Seeing this make you wonder why anyone would think of going up to bat for Bungie in any scenario: they really care more about your money than anything else
At least we have Lightfall's fumble to thank for breaking the cycle for so many.
This hits home too hard. Same join time, same mindset, absolutely fantastic video.
When you finally break past that anxiety of quitting this game worrying about fomo to be free from its grasp, it is the best feeling someone can have.
I now have a healthy relationship with gaming while playing other games again.
It will never change though. They have enough people hooked.
Hi just wanted to say as someone who is currently struggling with something very similar in terms of gender and coping thank you for sharing your experience it’s nice to be reminded that you aren’t alone.
Thank you. 400 or so days of my life feels a lot different when I feel very similarly to you, mostly as expressed here, throughout, lately.
I needed this video more than I can express off the top of my head in a single comment, just about every point resonated.
I quit destiny and i dont feel better or worse i came back and dont feel better or worse...
i do 5 pounds of a crack a day.
I resonated with this video on a spiritual level. I have just recently broken free from the shackles of Destiny. My life has been all the better for it. Thank you for airing your struggles, and putting it all into words that everyone can agree with.
Thank you for making this video and helping me realize that im not alone in this struggle. Destiny has hurt me both physically and mentally over the years as well, and knowing that im not the only one struggling with this problem gives me hope for my future after TFS. Destiny has given me many great memories over the years that I would love to experience one last time, but as I have grown older, I know that those times will never come back, especially with Destiny. I just started college recently back in the fall of last year. And just like you, I had to learn to move on and experience life for what it truly is, and to stop locking my own mind away from the outside world and to face my fears head on. This is still an ongoing process for me, but I know I'll get through it in the end. Thank you.
Came here from Aztecross’ video, I haven’t seen your content before. What a great video though. The editing, language, pace, everything is very professional and clearly done with great care. I don’t know you but you should be proud of who you have become.
I really appreciate this comment, thank you so much for all the kind words! I'm happy that you and several others found the video through Aztecross :)
Thank you for making this video, whilst writing this I am currently playing war frame because I heard it was like destiny and missed how destiny felt. But your video almost brought me to tears when I realized I am just trying to reignite my addiction so I can ignore everything else in my life. You may have just saved me years of my life and opened my eyes for future games.
Thank you for making this video it moved something in me.
I'll stop myself from writing an essay, but I can't help but relate to a majority of your points. I stopped playing during whatever the season was a few months ago with Titan was, it's so irrelevant to me now that I just simply wiped it from my memory. I used Destiny to escape my dysphoria, the PTSD I was diagnosed with at the time, the feelings of hopelessness, and the intense feelings of isolation I had because of my social situation. I found friends, I reconnected with my brothers through Destiny, I had moments of triumph and beauty that still make me tear up. But in the end, I just felt used and thrown to the sidelines when I realized how much I'd dumped into a dispassionate and soul-stealing experience.
It was honestly Baldur's Gate 3 that reignited my passion for gaming as an art. I play D&D with friends and write my own settings. Getting to play my own OC characters in a video game, in a detailed and lovingly crafted experience which was made by passionate people who share interest in a passtime I have made me reflect on Destiny, a world I long considered my "perfect setting." I'd excused every flaw, every moment I'd felt leeched, every subpar story, every awful retcon, every fun-ruining balance change, and every excuse to spend more money. It was a game I have spent so much on and gotten so little out of other than just... wasted time. While I loved the devs of Destiny, things like the massive layoffs and disconnected showcases made me realize just how corporate and washed out it had become from the days when it felt like reading letters from a friend who cared about the game like a hobby. I uninstalled the game after I finished BG3, and honestly the thought of coming back puts a pit in my stomach.
I'm sad sometimes that the thought of going back to finish of the story I invested so long into horrifies me, but I know that it'll end just as inconclusive and dispassionate as every story before it. I won't let the game hook me, I won't let it sink it's rotten claws into me, and I won't let it poison the passion that I've found for people who *care* about games as a medium. Seeing video games as art, as I do with games like Disco Elysium, makes something like Destiny reek of a corporate mockery of the things I love, and that saddens me. It's a universe I love, but one I must leave behind.
Similar experience here. Fuck, I mean I didn't sleep for 7 days to big one of the head solvers for Cooridors of Time. My online presence was 100% Destiny and I neglected reality just to chase the next weeklies. Haven't played since last raid and I'm learning to breathe again. Lost all my audience but I exist in reality now and I'm learning to live again! ~Aetherlore
I used to have an unhealthy relationship with destiny where i was playing it all the time. Still play it nearly every day but i know its not an addiction because im off playing different games and focusing on other aspects of my life. I still think destinys amazing and ill play it to the end but now since bungie are moving away from the whole DCV motto im not as bothered as i used to be
Thank you so much for sharing this. Would you ever consider giving an update?
I did write a little blog post about it here: autumnsramblings.pika.page/posts/reflecting-some-more-on-my-addiction-with-destiny-2
Outside of that post though, there isn't really much more I have to say about the topic. This video and the little post-mortem writeup were about as much as I think I have to say. I'm glad you got something out of the video, thanks very much for watching it!
@@autumnsanimationstuff I cannot explain enough how much it helped. I finished the TFS campaign, but decided I am done except for just f*ck*ng around with friends. There is always going to be another exotic mission to try out, another dungeon or raid I feel I must do. I just want “off the bus.”
This hit me hard. Thank you for sharing your experience and being vulnerable. Following to see where you go. You’ve brought a lot of things from deep within me that I need to think about…
Im happy that I’ve gone from being addicted to this game to leaving for a month and returning for a day or two before putting it back down for a bit. I remember forcing myself to play it everyday regardless of if there was actually anything to do. I felt and still feel as if im just playing a different game entirely from what destiny once was, just always searching for the charm that halo and destiny one once had on me.
this puts into words what ive been feeling about the game for a long time
Me too
This video came to me at such a perfect time. Thank you. I haven't played Destiny in roughly over 2 months, and it's been a breath of fresh air.
Your story falls flat when you don't acknowledge the FOMO and addiction tactics deployed by bungie.
I find that I see a lot of my own story in yours; around mid-late 2020 I joined the Destiny community through fanart as well, my obsession with the game led me to a great community and a lot of friends, but my interest fell off severely with the release of Lightfall. I'll never reignite the initial spark that Destiny gave me, but it really is for the better considering its addictive nature. Incredible video, and thank you for sharing it.
I gave up on Destiny 2 since Feb 14th 2021. Almost three years now. No game made me feel so happy and miserable at the same time.
Atleast there's one good that came with Lightfall. Congratulations on winning your fight against your addiction!
It's been a bit after The Final Shape released. A friend got me the DLC, and the Episodes, thinking it was that good. I feel a bit bad about uninstalling the game, this was the game that got me to hang out with my current friend group, made me feel seen in a town that I do not like, in a house that barely feels like home. But I want to get away from that situation, to be able to see my friends in person, to be able to make a home for myself and those friends, to finally begin transitioning. All of my friends left this town, so I'm on my own, but this game does not have to be the tether. Some of them keep it because they can't find build crafting like it anywhere else. Wish I could agree, keep on playing, find something fun about it. But I've got other games to play. I've got art to dedicate myself to. I've got a life I'm trying to live.
As of this video, it's uninstalled. Maybe I'll come back to it later. Right now that space could be used for any other game or project I want to play or work on. I don't know why I took so long to uninstall it, maybe I just needed a push in the right direction. And here it is, so, thank you, Autumn.
This was a great video. It helped me work through my thoughts about Overwatch, a game I've played since 2018 and that has consistently let me down despite the hours and hours I've put in. The FOMO tactics and the hopeful, slot-machine style "THIS update is gonna be it, they're gonna fix the game, we're getting triple sevens this time!" were very crippling to me. It shows in the community as people (myself included) get increasingly agitated that the "high" of good or nostalgic gameplay is taken away from them. And you can feel the passion and creativity of the devs, even through the veil of corpa scheming, which keeps you hoping, keeps you coming back.
With the recent round of layoffs and the season 9 release notes being leaked, I'm coming to a point where I need to stop saying "just one more season." I have a life now. I used to get high and play Overwatch and watch Twitch and TH-cam, and that was my entire life outside of work. Now I go to the gym, I have many friends I really care about, I have a better job and I'm going to school. I even started a small business on the side. I'm incredibly grateful to Overwatch for giving me some amazing times with my friends, but ultimately by filling the hours I spent on the game with other things, more tangible, consistent things, I've delivered myself from a lot of meaningless days and shame and into a life I wake up every day genuinely excited to explore. It takes a lot more work to get my dopamine now, but it is so worth it.
Thanks for this video. I'm gonna stop writing now before I start sobbing at my desk haha. Thanks for sharing your story and I am so happy for you and your success.
It took forever to realise I was addicted to destiny, it was unhealthy at one point. Family and work still came first and second but then Destiny was life. This video resonates with me so much. The addiction has gone now. Can log on get bored after an hour and move on. I do miss the friends I played with, everyone has moved on.
Halo Reach was my introduction to Bungie as well. Ill never forget being in 5th grade and playing it at my friend’s house for the first time. Such an incredible game with seemingly endless content, they just don’t make em like they used to.
Thank you for sharing this video. I too went through a similar realization after Lightfall - his game is predatory for my time but offers very little in return. Haven't played in like 8 months aside from logging in occasionally to grab a shader lol. Feels so good to not be bound to a game like this.
And the worst thing is - it was designed to do this. It was designed to be addictive like a gatcha game. The management is playing the players for fools in a world that is crumbling around them, and exploit them for the sake of keeping them in a goshdarn loop.
I broke away from the addiction two years ago
I have a weird relationship to Destiny, it comes and goes in waves, it feels like I always have some kind of Flavor of the Month, where I either come back to a game I love and played, or a new experience waiting for me.
Ive found that for me, Destiny if played consistently for too long will always breed that resentment. Ive been lucky enough to preserve my appreciation for all the story details and aesthetic choices.
aside from my pre-destiny introduction was a friend getting me into borderlands 2 in around 2013, and then trying and failing to get me into destiny on launch only for him to quit around late forsaken early shadowkeep while i was the one to get sucked in, ive had almost the same experience outside of the animation aspect. lightfall pulled the rug out from under me, and i really havent felt the same playing it since, ive still gotten on every now and then, but its nowhere near as much as it used to be. i think the last time i touched it was 2 weeks ago to do some story quests, and before that it had been more than a month. my girlfriend just recently broke up with me, and while it broke me in the short term, im coming to terms with how i really wasnt that happy in the relationship lately, and there was a lot of problems piling up that i was ignoring in favor of getting to be a part of her life. and im starting to see that that was a kind of how i was treating destiny as well. ignoring my own well-being just because funny gameplay loop, and i had sunk so many hours into it. ive made really good friends through it, and i wont say i havent had fun, but ive hit the point where im waiting for it to end so i can move on with my life. ill cherish the good memories, but that point in my life has passed, and im okay with that. it feels weird to not have something to fall back on, so i do occasionally pop into vault of glass if im really bored and have nothing to do, since that's kind of always been my comfort activity, but im working towards cutting it out of my life completely. im not even sure if ill buy the final shape, which is crazy to think about comsidering how manic i used to be about this franchise. idk, im just kind of at a weird point in my life. recently coming to grips with my feelings about this game, recently single, recently finishing college and beginning the transition into professional work, recently beginning my own transition. im just kind of on the cusp of a lot of changes in my life, and i think its time i let destiny go. sorry this kind of went in no direction, im mostly just rambling my thoughts haha. your experiences really resonated with me.
also can i just say the witness was the worst way bungie couldve taken the narrative? i dont want to crazy deep-dive the lore when i just went on a long winded tirade about how i dont care about the game anymore but damn they had something really good going with the pyramids and i feel like they just threw it all away in the witch queen (not to knock the witch queen, that campaign was the best theyve done). like, i actually enjoyed shadowkeep if only for the lore implications. it was definitely not their best expansion but that final mission, and the pyramids in general up until witch queen, still give me chills to this day. the whole sentient monolith vibe was sick, the whole final mission of shadowkeep gave me so much hope for the future of the story and then they basically did nothing with it. as stupid of a reason as it is, the shift in pyramid aesthetics really killed a lot of my excitement for the game. and then obviously lightfall dropped and RAGGGHHH not even going to talk about that lmao what a shitshow.
God, so much of this just hits the beat by beat progression of my time with the series. Using it as an escape to hide from gender identity issues, especially
Started in 2014, got hooked with Taken King, fell off during D2 Y1 and then went straight in with Forsaken. Though my feelings started showing before Witch Queen
I realized that I was just logging on for no reason and quit but when WQ went on sale a year later, it grabbed me again. Yet Lightfall destroyed that, thankfully 🤣
Bungie and every other live service studio know how to exploit human behavior. They literally hire specialists to make sure they do so
So I also had to step away and thankfully for the better
Video was great! Hope you're doing better 💗
Yep, when i hear people complain about it often it is like they have lost their crutch in life. From hearing bungie talk about it, it seems like this was what they wanted, they wanted it to "be like a hobby", so destiny when fully realised was quite an insideous machine i think. I was better off with just the art book and not the game. Not that it can be solely blamed.
if this makes you mad then thats ok, you know what you are and are empowered by it but bungie made me leave destiny when they called me latinx. that isn't me. I'm Latino, or Hispanic. i was born biologically male. meat is fine to eat and the goverment has been lying to us since the 50's. it's just life now.
Bruh this was beautiful
I can relate to a lot of to what you’ve said in this video. I picked the game up in April 2016 when I was 12 years old and was quickly hooked into the world. It was my escape from reality. The Destiny universe gave me a reason to look forward to something in life. This game had a community where I felt welcomed when I didn’t felt welcomed in my school. As I got older and I had more experience in Destiny, I grew apart from it because I was tired of the community, tired of the poor game design, and overall, tired of the game. Not only that, I started to have a significantly better social life, getting caught up with the effects of early adulthood (I’m 20 right now), and having less free time on my hands makes playing Destiny less appealing to me. I don’t regret spending my time playing Destiny at all. I only regret making time for mostly Destiny because I missed out on a lot. Thank you for this amazing video.
Just want to share my story. It’s very different from yours, but here:
Legitimately, I don’t think I’m addicted, but I also know that that may be something an addict would say. By no means do you or anyone have to read this, but I’m just going to describe my relationship to the game.
I love the lore and worldbuilding. I’m maybe a little bit too obsessed/fixated on it to be honest - it’s one of the only like ongoing stories that I follow almost religiously. I have fun in the game, but I don’t play THAT much - maybe a few hours a week. I have about 1.6k hours total in D2, which is like about 4 hours a week average. Like the you did, I often become fixated for days on new releases and trailers etc when they release. I want to play the game with people but only really my girlfriend and one other irl friend play, so I can’t do raids without lfg’ing. I try to get my friends to play every once in a while, but I know they at the very least won’t be into the game as much as me. I legitimately feel like I love the game. I plan to play Final Shape and at least a bit of what comes after. That said, I don’t feel a desire to play the game when I’m not having fun in it at all. I’ll play other games with my friends. I don’t neglect work/school because I’d rather be playing. (I neglect it for other reasons because I’m stupid, but this isn’t about that). I don’t login every Tuesday at every weekly reset, though I usually do try to keep up with the story when they’re releasing it seasonally. I think that I really could quit if I really wanted to, but I also know that that’s a stereotype of what an addict might say.
But I think the real reason why I refuse to believe that I’m addicted is that I don’t really feel any sort of agreement when I hear people say something like “I hate Destiny 2; it’s my favorite game.” Whenever I hear that, I just think “if I hated the game, I’d stop playing it”. I don’t ALWAYS love the game, but when I’m genuinely tired of it, I take a break. I understand the concept of being addicted to the game and I empathize with those people, but I really think I don’t feel that same way. Of course I get some FOMO - it’s built into the way the game is designed unfortunately. But that FOMO never drives me to play the game when I truly am tired of it.
So, yes. To anyone still here, thanks for reading if you got this far. I don’t really know why I wrote this, I don’t understand the point. But anyone here who legitimately feels like they’re addicted, I hope you can push through it and make whatever decision you feel is right for you, whether that’s taking a break, uninstalling the game permanently, just playing a bit less, or anything else you want to do. If anyone wants to say anything in the replies of this, I promise I’ll try to read and reply. See you around, in or out of the game.
Thanks so much for sharing your story. Over the pandemic I was definitely addicted to it too. When I first came out about 13 years ago I played Skyrim for 1300 hours in the span of about 9 months. I told myself it'd be the last time I ever spent so much time on a video game, because I saw what that kind of addictive behavior could do to the rest of my life. Then in mid 2019 I got into Destiny 2 and the pandemic hit soon after. The rest of the story is a lot like yours. Anyway. Glad you're moving on too. Books and food and health are actually way better than constantly playing games, who would've thought!
I used to play D2stiny and D2 religiously. I did this because I was unsatisfied with my life. I was depressed and hopeless. In 2017, when my daughter was 8, I took up photography. Of course during lockdown, I played a lot of Destiny. Once the lockdown was over, I really dove into learning the art of photography. Since then, I still play D2, but only a few hours a week. I run a small photography business on the side and also spend hours training my Belgian Malinois. I still like the game, but I seem to become bored with it quickly after an hour or two. Then I don't play for days. At this point, I'm glad it's about to come to an end. This was a once in a lifetime thing, but now it's time for it to end.
First off, thank you from the bottom of my heart for posting this, as well as being here on this planet. You put a lot of things into words that I haven’t before and opened my eyes for a couple things.
I started playing this game when D2 launched. I remembered the initial “For the Puppies!” Trailer burned a whole in my brain that made me want nothing more than to play that game. I skipped on Destiny 1 so I had little to no idea what to expect. I adored the game at first, but as the content slowly started to come out it began to take more and more money from me while giving back less and less in return. But I always thought “the game *can* be good, so I’m going to stick around.”
I “stuck around” for 7 ish years. I played through all of high school, into my first few years of college, it’s the only game I played consistently and all the time. I slacked off at school from time to time, didn’t take care of myself on a handful of occasions, confidence at an all time low (whoopsies it was Gender Dysphoria) and spent several hundred dollars too much on it. The friends I had made through this game led to some of the most toxic and morally horrific people I’ve ever met. Not exactly the game’s fault but still, we all met through Destiny’s social media community.
Eventually about when Lance Reddick passed away, I decided to take a break. That break turned into me not having touched the game since and I am happily no longer thinking about it. I have a loving boyfriend, loving irl friends who I play dnd with, got involved in local protests and stuff, and when I look in the mirror I see a young woman who’s loved, not a teenage boy who thinks they’re incapable of being loved.
Thank you so much for the wonderful, touching comment! I'm really glad you found something of value in the video, and have found yourself in a much better place than before! All the best to you ❤
Amazing video! Some parts definitely rang true with me.
I started playing Destiny 1 on Day 1 and I was hooked instantly. Within a few weeks I found a group of new friends and we played together for years. Having a consistent friend group to play with makes it simultaneously more addictive but also more fun and socially engaging.
Playing with and talking to people online helped me come out of my shell and deal my social anxiety and general discomfort around people. For that, I'm forever grateful to Destiny and Bungie.
However, similar to yourself I became too addicited. I ignored my real life friends, my family, my university (college) education just so I could play. It makes me cringe looking back.
I thank whatever power is out there that during July of 2017 a couple of months before Destiny 2, I met my future wife. Initially it was hard pulling away from Destiny but once I fell head over heels for her, Destiny just faded away in the background.
I'm in a much healthier place now, with a normal life completely separate from Destiny. I have made lifelong friends from Destiny who are now my "real life friends" outside of the game that I see regularly. I still play games but I won't be touching any live-service games with a 10 foot pole, I'd rather have the large amount of time required by them to go into my real life.
Thank you for posting this video, it has been nice to hear your story and reflect on my own.
You hit a lot of good points that most veteran players know and realize over time, especially with how Bungie doesn't REALLY give us anything back for the massive amounts of time and effort we put into playing Destiny. A LOT of other games do it too...but Destiny is like a pimp straight up slapping you in the face and telling you go get back out there and make his money.
I want to thank you for making this video. I had a very bad addiction to this game, so bad I almost lost my wife. After that and a very bad fall out with people who I thought I could call friends I finally saw that there are more important things in life then a video game. I do play every now and then but it's not important to me anymore. I have much more important things in my life that need me more then a game. So again thank you for sharing your experience.
I first started playing Destiny shortly after House of Wolves. It was one of the few shooters my parents would let me play since it was rated T and the House of Wolves trailer interested me. When I first started playing I did not even have PS Plus, so I didn't even play any of the online modes. When I convinced my parents to buy me the subscription for my birthday, I decided to try the PvP. It was not my first shooter--I had played some on PC before.
When I played the Destiny PvP however, I was hooked. I also enjoyed the PvE, but nothing felt as satisfying as going into a rumble match with 5 other equally skilled and intelligent players and emerging triumphant. Every game was unique and the replay potential infinite. Everyday after high school, I would play. I wanted to get better at PvP. When I wasn't playing, I was watching the PvP youtubers like tripleWreck, nKuch, Holtzman, RealKraftyy--the ones you never hear about now.
But the more you play a game, the more the cracks start to show. Melee shortstops. Laggy opponents. Getting killed behind walls. Enemy rubberbanding. Ghost bullets. Degenerate, unfun to play against exotics and strategies that Bungie fails to address for 6 months, sometimes even a taking a year. Backwards balance decisions. Decisions that make it clear they lack understanding of the sandbox. Infrequent meta shakeups. Bungie took the PvP community for granted. So many times the same story has happened: Bungie decided on a dumb change, the players predicted that it is a dumb change and asked Bungie to reconsider, and Bungie has bullheadedly implemented the change that they then had to walk back six month later.
Ever since Destiny 2 (with double primary that literally no one asked for), I found myself playing less and less, taking multi-month breaks from the game. The final straw with PvP for me was Stasis. It was too broken for too long. After that I pretty much stopped playing PvP. I came back once to go flawless after the Trials rework but abandoned it quickly again.
I was done with PvP, but I still enjoyed creating builds for PvE, and every new season's mods had me trying different builds out, trying to find interesting interactions. And then came Armor 3.0, completely obliterating build crafting. Yes, it lowered the barrier of entry (which is a good thing), but it removed any depth and diversity to armor mods. Nowadays you pretty much just put the same mods on in most builds (hint: the surge mods matching your heavy's element are the most important part). There are no build around armor mods that would even give you any reason not to use surge mods.
So what remains then? The story! I have always enjoyed the lore of the game. Lightfall had me cringing at every predictable story beat. I truly think it was the worst storytelling in Destiny--even worse than the original Destiny 1 campaign. At least the lore cards gave explanations. I just can't take the story seriously after the ridiculousness of Lightfall.
Bungie has killed every reason I ever played the game. I've barely played Destiny in the past year.
I would not say that I regret the time I spent playing Destiny. In fact, I look back on it fondly. To me, Destiny has been dying a slow, slow death for many years now. I just hope I can find a new game to love as much as I loved Destiny. Good night, and good luck.
My addiction to destiny started dying down after lightfall and was finally broken when the admins of my clan who were far more addicted than me raided and destroyed my clan of 4 years because i demodded one of them lol, it kinda sucks but at least i’m free of the curse now
Personally since D1 I have lost a lot and gained really nothing but a stable mind as I used it as a medium to process the world I lived in. A couple friends that still don't understand but at least someone to banter with. It's tough and Destiny gave me peace of mind by just existing in those moments and letting go.
Never did I really raid or grind for much, it was to play the game and experience what Bungie had made for us. I remember going out of my way and being excited for events in game whenever they came around. It never dominated my entire life only my free time as I still worked a job and went to school during that time.
Something I understand as I see video games is that they are just like any other piece of media, a reflection of their time and for Destiny it feels alive. Experiencing it when and during that time was lowkey magical and a nice meme for Historic Destiny times.(Felwinter's Door, countless bugs, Things still in the DCV)
I barely play anymore and doubt I'll play more after this final expansion as I am ready to see one of my favorite games die. I want to see the end of the Light and Dark Saga and close this book in my life. I'm glad of the times we had but it's time for me to let go and move on to newer and brighter options. I can't stay hooked in the past or it'll eat me up like the other things that did that exact thing.
Move on but remember that you are a Guardian of The Last Safe City on Earth, You've slain foes greater than anyone can imagine, Conquered yourself in order to Become Legend. It's time to prove that now as we take a step past what was and into what is.
I came into Destiny when it came out and had almost the exact same experience say for playing Halo. I played nonstop since i was 9 years old. I cannot thank Destiny enough for the friends it brought me and the spaces it brought me to, meeting likeminded people and similarly transitioning during it. I don't post often on TH-cam comments, and looking now i see even my TH-cam profile pic is my Destiny OC. This resonated with me a lot more than i thought it would.
I haven't played Destiny since i finished Witch Queen, and for the better. I wasn't taking care of myself, furthering myself in any way. All around bad time.
Since leaving, I've felt the cravings for Destiny. Anytime i see the gunplay, or old clips it just activates that want to play it again. I honestly consider it close to Heroin with how much terminology goes with them both. Even now, almost 3 years of not playing, i still get those cravings and have to consciously think of how that game made me as a person and the constant upkeep required to keep that dopamine flowing. Your brain tries to overlook all the bad for any crumb of good. I love what came from it in my life, but not Destiny itself anymore.
I've had issues with gaming addiction for a long ass time. I learned to step away and do more outside of gaming. I still play destiny a good amount, I simply dont log on every day and play for 5 hours or more. I learned that FOMO is not worth it and would focus on what I truly enjoyed about the game and stopped trying to get everything and be the best. Simply have fun on your own time, dont treat it like a necessity.
This is without a doubt my first time putting my experience into words:
First I want to say how incredibly relatable your story is and how happy I am for you that you did indeed beat the game and still got something valuable out of it, like your pursuit in art.
I want to take some time to lay out my experience so it might stop weighing on my mind until my last breath.
When I got into first got into Destiny I've been already rotting away in my room for a few years. Didn't have friends or the needed social skills to make any so video games quickly became the only thing keeping me going. I played D1 3 years after it's prime but still fell in love with it almost instantly, despite the "questionable" story. I played it for at least a year, a full year of me neglecting absolutely everything else in life because destiny became my driving force. Then, a few months before Forsaken would came out, I switched to D2 with a friend and the addiction got way, way worse. I'd come home from school and immediately get on the game, not caring about assignments, the relationship to my parents or even the most basic things like eating and drinking. my friend and I eventually parted ways in 2021 which left me playing the game alone and it was at that time when I realized just how much this game has changed me for the worse. but with nothing else going for me I just kept playing, giving more into the addiction.
it took me until this year to finally let go of it and I guess I should thank the rough state of the game for it.
This game helped me through a rough time but left me in a much worse state, regretting the past 6 year that I was just rotting away on this game. I gave it all I had and got nothing in return. Well, it did leave me with something, although definitely not something I wanted. that being overwhelming depression and growing disinterest in games.
If I could wish for one thing then it'd be for me not picking up D1 all those years ago.
I hope to god that everyone bound to this addiction will find their way out of it.
Got so addicted to this game that when Red War came out I called in to work and played from 5am to 1am the next day to complete the campaign with all my characters. Now I just go in on Tuesdays complete the quest for that day, do a couple of other steps for side quests and that's about it.
I think I'm in a spot where I'm starting to break free from its chains as well. I was backing off slowly the last year or so myself. Still had my own personal goals, but wasn't going to make the game a chore for myself. I only did enough to finish the story and personal goals each season but this season? Haven't touched the story and only played Gambit for a couple days. It's still my favorite game mode and I genuinely enjoy it. Haven't done anything else in game. I'm still playing a lot of games, I've been playing the Yakuza series to catch up for the new game Infinate Wealth
The layoffs brought me to a full stop and killed what little enthusiasm I had left. Like I mentioned, I still dabble, but I am very disconnected and only play what I want, and if I feel like it, not feeling bullied mentally into playing or feeling like I have to spend money. So far I don't think I want to stop playing all together, but I definitely am not letting it be the only thing I have anymore
I have a very similar story
During 2010-2014 I was the weird kid at school, I didn't understand what a TH-cam was, only barely had gotten into Minecraft in 2013, had surface level experience with Halo 2, ODST and it's multiplayer and Reach so when I heard about Destiny I was very curious, but it all got shot down when my best friend at the time told me it wasn't very good
Around late 2016 early 2017 I had gotten into a fight with my Father
I have divorced parents and a very long history of rejection, discrimination, suppressed feelings of affection, identity and depression so finally breaking out felt... Liberating
So during 2016, I got recommended destiny during age of triumph after the April update and I. Was. Hooked.
I loved the game so much in only a few months I accumulated over 300 hours and started obsessing over God rolls and the next high
I played through Destiny 2 Vanilla, Curse and Warmind when everyone else seemed to be moving on to Fortnite
Fell in love with Forsaken to the point nothing else mattered, through Forge and Opulence I didn't care what came next
Though it was during Drifter and Shadowkeep that I didn't care to continue
I didn't have the money to buy the expansion so, I started playing Warframe
I had a small roleplay community I was constantly around and we had a schism around the release of Shadowkeep when I was once again, an outcast
Through Shadowkeep and Especially Beyond light I focused entirely on Warframe, I was so disappointed in the removal of all my memories in Forsaken I felt betrayed
This is when I met my best friend and the only person I talk to on a regular basis
I was free for two years... Then Witch Queen happened...
I didn't much care for Witch Queen at first, Beyond Light was a betrayal that destroyed my confidence in the franchise but, that's when Season of the Seraph dropped
And I got hooked again
Farming every craftable weapon I could, I actually maxed out everything except for raids during that year
But when Lightfall came out and the reviews came in
I was sorely disappointed
With Elden Ring at my side I was able to stave off boredom
But with The New War ending Warframe's main narrative and Elden Ring's DLC nowhere in sight I fell back into the grind
This is the part where I elaborate on my personal life
I entered the workforce in 2020 during the lockdowns
I've never been in a single place longer than 3 years
Every friend I've met I no longer know except for my Discord friends
I haven't been able to keep a single job for longer than a year and more recently, I haven't been able to hold down a job for longer than a month...
After 4 messy breakups, the deaths of my grandmother, two of my closest friends, my dog and now being over a month unemployed
Meanwhile an ocean deep in poverty, debt and depression with no government programs I'm eligible for and no money to actually afford a therapist and more recently, food, just today running out of Ramen with barely enough change leftover to buy 4 packets...
I've been contemplating the worst...
---
Sorry for the long winded rant, I know nobody cares...
I guess that's the reason I'm writing this...
I have no advice to offer, maybe this is a cry for help...
I guess we'll see if anyone sees this...
I'm half hoping nobody does, makes things easier...
I was addicted, Lightfall happened, and now I play a healthy amount.
You have no idea how incredibly relieving it is to hear that someone else has gone through a similar experience.
My lifting of the veil came slightly earlier during Season of the Haunted, longing for what was and having reservations about what was to come. Lightfall, although the buildup was exciting, it just solidified my thoughts.
I still love this game, and one day I would love to work on it (if it’s still around), but I have a much healthier relationship with it now. Logging in for a couple hours a week when there is content then having a break until something new.
However, I have been at a crossroads for a while now with what I want to do going forward in life. And I can’t lie, Destiny still makes me struggle what to pick. I’m struggling to dissect why, but I hope that after sleeping on this video it might give me that clear introspection I need.
This is my first time being aware of your work, although I had seen Insurrection Prime video haha. Just wanted to say thank you for making this! ❤️
Honestly, this video kinda hurts to watch because of all the similar experiences I went through, especially falling head over heels in forsaken, and espeeeecially the disillusionment during lightfall. All my friends know I went through about a year's period of saying I wanted to uninstall the game, only to log back on the next day and do a raid, because destiny was one of the only things that got me through my own transition. Thank you...
Thank you
Thank you for making this video
I'm honestly happy that the things that happened in 2023 happened as they did. The poor reception to Lightfall, the true face of Bungie being reviled when they fired all those employees and finding out that some how they are still not making enough money. All this stuff happening turned my tolerance into distain into hatred. I hate this game. I've been playing since the D1 Beta, but i'm done. I haven't played in almost 5 months and in the past when i take breaks this long by now i'm kinda ready to get back into Destiny, but not this time. I recently had a small panic attack when the game i play now started to have problems on my Computer. My literal thoughts were "oh please not. I don't want to go back and play Destiny." Thankfully i figured out the problem. I used to tell myself as recently as early last year "I've come this far. I need to see it through. I need to see how this story ends." And now i have no interest in The Final Shape. I know it's going to be a let down. I know that the ending will not satisfy the majority of of us. I know all this from past experiences from Destiny. So yeah...basic TLDR....I have no interest in this game anymore and don't care how it ends. I regret ever giving this game a 2nd chance when i hated the D1 Beta.
I love halo reach. I spend so many hours a day playing it and just kept playing and playing. Its how i met my friend group which 10 years later all hang out whenever possible, of course some left but the same 6 stayed together to the point where one got married, 2 graduated, me a mechanic/school, and the others enjoying their lives along with school. We all went to destiny and were addicted, no one stopped and then shadowkeep, i took the year off but beyond light sucked me back in. I couldnt stop along with them. The only game that stopped our addiction with reach was our addiction to destiny. But now after lightfall we dont play, we talk about it cause why wouldnt we, the game sucks now and ez to make fun of. But now we all feel so much relax, so mellow and less obnoxious. Now we all switch and play different games. Its like Fives from clone wars "The nightmares are finally over". We all are just done and feel better and can enjoy other games. We dont even play reach anymore, our group game is just done. We're like noble team with each off us dying off represents us not playing anymore with one of us being the last one left still playing halo. Its nice being over destiny since its still a love/hate relationship. We finally have our group back without a grind being involved. The nightmare is finnaly over. Sorry for the long comment
I haven’t played Destiny since Lightfall. That was after a number of relapses from post Forsaken. You are not wrong about how much of a truly amazing game came be so costly. Thank you for sharing your experience
I am literally here cuz I quit Destiny because of my video game addiction like this guy. Once in a while, I check up on it and this resonated a ton with me.
It's crazy how much I relate to this. This game was my main form of escapism from depression and just shitty dark moments of my life that turned into an addiction. Lightfall and the subsequent seasons were what finally gave my will enough wiggle room to say ENOUGH. That's how my addiction to Destiny ended, in short
Kind of off topic but I’ll never forget buying halo reach. Toys R Us when I was like 8 the year of its release. Didn’t know wtf halo was and peeped it and tried to convince my mom to get it for me. She didn’t know about it as it was my first shooter, the store clerk came in clutch and explained to her it was just fighting aliens with blue and purple cartoony “blood”. Booting it up that night was crazy
My bungie addiction started in 01 until now but these last 10 years taught me to take a break here and there from destiny
This feels so incredibly familiar. Ive been around since the D1 Beta, and the only time I stopped playing was beyond light (and more recently when I binged the whole mass effect trilogy), and even then, I came returned during season of the lost and got sucked right back in. The amount of money I’ve sunk into this game over the years is absurd in retrospect, and it’s taken me so long to realize that it probably is, truly, an addiction. It isn’t truly all consuming, which I think is part of why its taken me so long to realize, but since its release, I barely play other video games and when I do, I always end up getting brought back into the cycle. The only way to momentarily escape is to have some other hyper obsession that monopolizes my focus. And I never really got involved with the community. When I tried, the experiences were terrible, to the point I still haven’t tried the new in game lfg system yet. I just run by myself. Doing what little content I can on my own, being a solo player who isn’t even very good. I get my school work done (usually. I am procrastinating rn, so if that’s not irony I dont know what is) and I try to play other games and branch out, but even when I go back to destiny and there’s nothing I really want to do, it still isn’t enough to make me leave. I grind through boring strikes and activities I dont want to play to hopefully get better gear to make build so that I can run a dungeon by myself, and the entire time, the overwhelming feeling of depression is just… hanging there. I’m glad to see that other people, even with the same obsessive addiction at least got more out of it than I have. Honestly, searching for a sense of community is, ironically, one of the things that got me so engrossed with the franchise to begin with. I desperately wanted to be part of a clan and… well… just belong. It’s a strange bittersweet feeling, seeing someone else succeed where you failed. It feels so validating, watching this video, and im so happy for you, a complete internet stranger, that you were able to get out and build up skills like animation and build a community presence, but at the same time… it hurts. I’m over here struggling to stay focused and get a couple illustrations done. Anyway, whole ass ramble but…
TL;DR: This so closely mirrored my own experience and it’s bittersweet but incredibly validating, so thank you for making this video, and thank the algorithm for plopping it on my dash. Probably gonna go check out some of your animations later.
Glad you identified an issue and tackled it. People with addictive personalities and games never mix well whether that be gambling in csgo or just one more run in D2. I don't play D2 often anymore because I find it to be a worse pass time than playing other games with my friends or doing other stuff. Doesn't matter the game companies are manipulative and if you aren't aware you'll get sucked in hard it's really bad.
I remember starting to play Destiny about 2-3 months before ROI came out for Destiny 1. I dont know how it happened, but I remember seeing the TTK trial or something on my PS4 home menu. I had never played a multiplayer game before, and my only experience with a shooter was Fallout 4. I didn't even make my first character, I just logged in and was immediately in on the tutorial. I played through it and... Safe to say it was in that moment I became an addict. Every mission in that free trial was exhilarating to me, I had never known fear playing a game before, but when you go into the Lunar Colony for the first time with the Hive... God I think maybe 10 year old me was shaking in fear. I remember a group hanging around me in the Cosmodrome and I was so happy to join them... Than a notification appeared on my screen saying I needed to buy the game to join a fireteam. When I learned that I needed to buy the game, I begged my parents for it and within the week I was playing with new friends. I was a social outcast throughout my entire life in school, so having a game I could play with friends who wouldnt judge me was so refreshing. I pre-ordered EVERYTHING from then on. Every deluxe pre-order bundle whatnot, I got it. When D2 launched horribly, even with Curse of Osiris, I still defended the game and played it endlessly. When Forsaken revitalized the game, I couldn't have been happier... It took Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt for me to realize my addiction, and break it forever. Ever since than, I only played through the DLC campaigns despite still getting the best digital versions I could. After Lightfall though, I won't be getting Final Shape. It took me so long to realize my addiction, and now that I'm over it, I realize all the great moments in school and other games I missed out on. I found newer games like BG3 and Elden Ring to find myself immersed in, and even met a new wonderful group of friends to hang out with on ESO. Honestly I'm glad I realized my addiction for the game as early as I did.
Honestly, this is probably the most I could trim this story down, but I suppose if any of you reading this want, I could go into more depth.