For 12 years, the Destiny shooter series has always had a community manager present that players could talk to via Twitter. It used to be DeeJ, the last few years Dylan “dmg04” Gaffner took over the job at Destiny 2. But dmg04 received death threats via Twitter and quit his job in December 2022. Now nobody is there and the players don’t like that either.
These were the well-known community managers at Bungie:
From 2011 to 2020, David “Deej” Dague was the figurehead and frontman for Bungie. He had a dry sense of humor, wasn’t your typical shooter player, and was involved in 2 legendary moments on Destiny where he didn’t come across well.
Though DeeJ seemed committed for 10 years and seemed to take the pressures of the job lightly, by the end of his tenure at Bungie he was already sounding bitter. He said: We listen to players, but we don’t let them ride us like ponies.
Cozmo supported him for a long time. He previously ran the reddit on Destiny, but since working at Bungie he’s always looked more like DeeJ’s apprentice and kept a low profile. Cozmo is now Bungie’s Global Community Lead.
The real successor to Deej as the game’s frontman in 2020 was Dylan Gafner. He also always seemed available, was someone who really knew the game.
However, the community hit him with personal attacks in such a way that he had to seek mental help. Some angry players even made death threats against him and his family. That was probably too much.
Again and again he asked the players to be reasonable and to respect boundaries. He warned players that if they continued to behave in such a toxic manner, soon no one would speak to them.
Ultimately, he stopped his job in December 2022. He didn’t give specific reasons, nor did he have a new job to switch to like DeeJ did before.
At the time, some Destiny 2 players guiltily saw that the departure of dmg04 was probably the fault of the community. Some apparently made him quit with their personal threats (via reddit). Although everyone agreed that he was actually a really good person and ideal for the job.
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Destiny players are constantly looking for someone to bash personally
What was each community manager’s problem? Since Destiny has existed, it has been a hobby for players, community managers or developers, who personally outwardly, complain about how terrible Destiny is right now, what bad bugs are ruining the game and that the developers have no idea and are lazy anyway .
Individual developers were made scapegoats for the development of the whole game: Luke Smith became a downright hate figure because a single quote (“throwing money at the monitor”) identified him as a greedy manager when actually he is a gaming nerd , who was responsible for the best moments of Destiny.
Most recently, developer Kevin Yanes was hit: he received a shitstorm for an ironic statement about the titan. Destiny players don’t take any jokes when it comes to their favorite class, it’s dead serious right away.
However, the default scapegoat at Destiny has always been the community managers: players often get upset about Bungie with good reason, sometimes without reason, and the community managers get the full brunt of it. They are accused of having no idea about the game, only answering in empty phrases, of being generally useless.
At Bungie, an anonymous Twitter account replaces the personal community manager
How is Bungie now? Following the departure of dmg04, Bungie no longer has a community manager present like it has had for 12 years, instead opening a general Twitter account to communicate with players.
“Destiny 2 Teams” is now giving out faceless and impersonal what the community manager used to do personally. The good thing: If you don’t put anyone down, nobody will be pelted with tomatoes or threatened.
Significantly less vulnerable:
Does this work? No, there is now a thread on Reddit with over 3.6k upvotes and around 700 comments.
the core. The Twitter account is nice, but now it feels like Destiny 2 has no connection to the community at all. Although the account is successful in limiting hatred against individuals, it would not create a permanent bond.
There is now a lack of human-to-human communication.
Well, somehow the community brought this on itself after individuals went after every developer who showed their face.
In many cases, those who personally spoke to toxic Destiny players regretted it.
Now, after 12 years, nobody seems to want to take over as the permanent lightning conductor that DeeJ and dmg04 played for over 12 years.
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