My response to the question "Is Halo dying?"

Games Halo 5: Guardians
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I urge you to read this post before commenting. This isn’t some rant or some complaint.

Warning: Text wall inside of the spoiler, open at your own risk!

Now as a disclaimer before reading this I want you as the reader to know and understand that I have had a very deep, and now broken, love for the Halo franchise as well as its previous developer for their innovative features introduced to the gaming industry as well as what they did for Xbox Live and console online play as a whole.

As much as we all loved Halo. It has steeply declined and continues to decline in both concurrent online players and sales of the games since Halo 3. Halo: Reach kept about 1/3 of Halo 3’s population and when Halo 4 released only about 1/4 of the community from Halo: Reach passed down. This is probably due to the abandonment of the Halo franchise by Bungie (because them and M$S didn’t get along at all) but regardless of the reason there are numbers there to show. I believe Halo has taken the same fate as the Call of Duty franchise in that even though it will continue to exist and barely cough up a new title when it needs to (for CoD this is obviously more frequently) but in the end the sales are declining and the community is becoming more vulgar as a result of disenfranchisement in these communities. That of course is a fancy way of saying the game isn’t made with the player-base in mind anymore. You see when video-games were being developed for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 they were actually developed at a loss, much like how consoles are developed and sold at a loss. The only way you make up for this is by one of 3 ways (in video-games, not console sales), the first is Downloadable Content – obviously this one is the easiest way to make money because it is an expansion which uses the same engine, assets, and such to tell a new story or add a new map or weapon (granted these two still require textures and designs if they are unique) but ultimately it is still easier than having to release it as a standalone; now the second form is the dreaded route of micro-transactions, which are basically a (now-warped) idea that originated on the PC community in the form of game companies selling non-game-play oriented items, and you often knew exactly or most of what you were getting with a chance for something even better, but obviously this has changed – with the help from titles like Call of Duty, Halo, and Destiny (all with very tied-together roots) – into something that is abused into a pseudo-gambling facade designed to showcase only the best yet fill you in with the common and worst of the bunch, as seen in the aforementioned titles, and now these mt’s sell game-play-oriented items like a better weapon or vehicle or a new boost in a game to give you “that edge”. The third way is by releasing sequels. Now the last one may sound silly but depending on the rigor of the studio, the odds are that they will reuse an engine at least one time for another game before designing another (an example is the Frostbite Engine). Though you still must design the new textures and write the story (which isn’t cheap), you still don’t have to drum up a new theme in art-styles or in the story aspects and you also don’t have to worry about designing a new engine. For those of you out there who didn’t know, designing a game engine takes both time and effort and is very expensive, especially when done from the ground-up. So reusing the engine will ultimately save time and effort, and it will save the headache of developers having to relearn what they were used to from the old engine. Now those three ways all tie into the saying the games aren’t developed in a ‘player-centric’ point of view anymore because they have been warped and twisted. As seen with Call of Duty, they abuse the power of all three, releasing DLC in these Season Passes (which is a way to have people dedicate to your DLC no matter what you put in it, and too bad if they don’t like it!), having mt’s containing advantages in the game instead of just cosmetics, and over-using a game engine {yes, in-case you didn’t know, Call of Duty has used the same engine since 1996, which has just been modified every time they needed to.} The central idea of that is that the companies are all building games with a cash oriented view, and their vision and insight is very, very short. They don’t want to take creative risks anymore for fear that the game might fail, and always want to copy the game making the most money. Now don’t get me wrong, I know and understand that at the end of the day video games are just an industry, and the point of an industry is to make money from consumers in a desirable way on both ends, but this industry isn’t about short-term, and that’s the problem with the execs who are making crazed decisions in an attempt to “milk the cow before she dies!” Just like with a Certificate of Deposit or a Savings Account, if you invest money and time and effort into them and be patient, the result is outstanding. Start with $100 and 5 years later that amount can grow substantially (not too much, but video games are a lot longer than a 5-year lifespan and are certainly more invested intake, however the point remains valid). Now for some that may be semantics and one person may not want to wait the time to get that money, and in their greed they don’t work for it either. You can make money two ways in an honest manner. You can either be patient and respectful or impatient but hard-working. Both, however, are completely fine methods if you do them right, but the execs are like cranky toddlers who want the best of both and want to leave the bad parts behind, which doesn’t work in our economical reality for long. They want to be impatient and appear respectful so they can reap in the cash. As highlighted before with the fact that sales and concurrent online numbers have been dropping in a trending pattern, this mindset simply doesn’t work and is very toxic for the gaming community as a whole, because they get a lot of money temporarily, which is all the other publishers and developers notice, failing to notice the communities within that are crumbling as a result (even Command and Conquer suffered from a similar business tactic gone bad…) In conclusion? Halo died when the publishers, Microsoft Studios, set their minds on the short-term because they were afraid for the future and that they might lost money for a while, instead of letting their developers take the reins and do things the way they wished. (As a sub-note, if you didn’t already know, the publisher is the one who makes the decisions and sets the dates and boundaries on a game most often now.)

Feel free to reply with any questions that you may have. If you’d like to reference what I said in the question to further clarify, copy it and embolden in quotations before your question so I can better help you. Thank you if you took the time to read, and just like the dev’s and publishers, I am open to criticism so long as you have a valid reason for it and can back it up.

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At the end of the day what you need to take away from this is that we are all gamers, and we all want the best experience possible, but for everyone that will be different, but that doesn’t mean someone is just a troll or just wrong. This used to be one of the friendliest, most helpful communities in gaming. It’s high-time we restore it to its rightful place on that throne, as we will cease to make progress with improving the overall quality of our favorite franchise if we are, at our core, broken. We must set aside our differences and agree on the simple fact that we all are here and we were all brought here by the same things: Halo, the Xbox, and our love for gaming. Our should not ever be put off by petty arguments and silly differences in which vehicles you like.

To those of you who think Halo is perfect as-is, I give you the advice that you must always be open to change, and that it may not always weigh in your favor.

However…

The same goes for those of you who don’t like Halo as-is and call for change, understand that, even though Halo is open to change, it may not always weigh in your favor, meaning it will sometimes stay the way it is. And if you still don’t like it (and I’m not trying to be immature and sarcastic like a lot of kids on here) learn how to code, learn how to design textures, learn how to do the tasks associated with Halo 5: Guardians, and apply to join. I’m sure their resources aren’t exactly plentiful considering how we can all agree the game was missing some very vital modes at launch and for quite some time. But this is not the time for a gripe-fest, instead if you have a problem, then do something about it. And if all you truly have to offer is “I don’t like sprint!” or “I don’t like Halo now!” then perhaps reconsider that… Maybe explain your reasoning. Perhaps “I don’t like sprint because Halo’s gameplay aspect doesn’t work with it relative to the maps’ designs.” or something alone the lines of at least an explanation. And by all means it will help if you provide proof. But to those who are on the opposite side, don’t just toss these away and say a classic spam response like “Oh typo here!” or “Just stop playing Halo then!”, instead actually counter the argument like the intellectuals you are all certainly capable of being! Say something like “Sprint is a good addition to Halo because it has helped dive deeper into the Arena roots by making it faster and keeping you on alert!”

Again, all questions are certainly welcome. Thank you for your time.

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–double post–

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Halo has been “dying” since Halo 2. It’s nothing new under the sun.

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I don’t think Halo is dying. It’s just not a top game any more. And as long as 343 continues with their wonky servers and limited game types it will never be a top game. If they want more players get more stable and reliable servers and release more game types already.

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In the same way that every game dies from a certain point. The question is more emphatic on the point of a more recent lack of purchases and the recent downtrends in the newer titles, Halo: Reach, Halo 4, and Halo 5.

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> 2533274816788253;5:
> I don’t think Halo is dying. It’s just not a top game any more. And as long as 343 continues with their wonky servers and limited game types it will never be a top game. If they want more players get more stable and reliable servers and release more game types already.

Yeah I did talk about that in the post. But if you read it more you’d notice how I referenced the downtrend of sales and concurrent online players, which suggests, if anything, that is more dying than living. But a very thorough case can easily be made for both sides.

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here is my short response as I’m too lazy and too tired of seeing threads like this. Everybody wants to blame subsequent Halos and their developers for the decline if said games. But hardly anybody excepts the fact that the shooter genre exploded with a lot of games mainly COD and BF. COD and BF really started coming into popularity around the time if Reach (if my memory is correct) Both at the time were much easily to jump in and play. Especially COD. There is little to no skill gap what so ever with COD. That lack of a skill gap will always attract more players. Even now Halo with its headshots required to be good is considerably harder than both COD and BF. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or bad. It’s good or bad depending on your point of view. Do you want and easily accessible game by the masses? or do you want a very specialized game. Both have their pros and cons. But you are not going to get both. COD Simply took players and kept them go look at the rise of COD. By COD releasing games every year instead of 3 years like Halo , they were able to deliver/feed to huge desire for first person shooters that was lacking during the years between Halo 3 and reach and then between Reach and Halo 4. Once COD became the most popular, it didn’t matter what they made people are going to buy it because their friends are buying it and playing it. Go look at the timing launch of Halo 4 and 5. Can you honestly say Halo was not affected by poorly timing of the launch dates for both 4 and 5? all prior games had launched in Sept.(not sure about ODST). That alone accounts for loss of fans. Forcing players to choose is a terrible marketing strategy. Look when Destiny launched. Guess when? September, that’s right the same month that the Halos by bungie launched. See a pattern? You should. Everybody wants to blame little things. But simple competition and poorly planned launch dates I would almost bet has had a bigger impact than sprint or other things. If you can’t see that , then I recommend going and taking some college level business courses.

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It’s dieing in the sense that it’s lost sales, people, popularity and such, but when the franchise can still go for 30 years I’d say it’s not dieing and it still makes more than enough to support itself. I’ll ask to those who always bring up losing sales and people, does it “have” to mean it’s dieing? No, you’re not going to continuously profit game by game by game, eventually your going to have a dip, not a single thing is immune to this. I will say tho that because halo in itself has had a sudden drop rather than a minor drop that it does create that impression that something is wrong. It could be bad mechanic changes, lack of quality in the game itself, poorly executed stories, sequels making prequels irrelevant, the list goes on.

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Spartan, I urge you to read my essay. It has fairly nothing to do with what you said. In fact, I only used the “sprint argument” in a strawman sort of thought-process, just using a common and overplayed example as what others might say and telling them how they can revise it. I was in no way saying I hated Halo or that I said I didn’t want sprint.

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> 2533274923562209;9:
> It’s dieing in the sense that it’s lost sales, people, popularity and such, but when the franchise can still go for 30 years I’d say it’s not dieing and it still makes more than enough to support itself. I’ll ask to those who always bring up losing sales and people, does it “have” to mean it’s dieing? No, you’re not going to continuously profit game by game by game, eventually your going to have a dip, not a single thing is immune to this. I will say tho that because halo in itself has had a sudden drop rather than a minor drop that it does create that impression that something is wrong. It could be bad mechanic changes, lack of quality in the game itself, poorly executed stories, sequels making prequels irrelevant, the list goes on.

That is precisely why I imposed the question in my essay. I do think it is odd that the downward trend is so sudden (in gaming, a few years is scary for a 3-year launch cycle)

In fact my essay is mainly to try to explain why it may be dying and the first step we as the Halo community must do to fix it.

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I can find games in any gametype within less than 30 seconds (usually under), so I’m not going to call Halo “dying” when I have no shortage of games or people to play them with.

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Could you please read the post in full before commenting on it? You have no idea why I posed the question. You simply posted for the sake of doing so. I’d like it if you commented in a constructive manner.

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I think I understand the idea “Halo is dying” because Halo for a lot of people was something different than what it is today. I don’t think Halo is dying as a franchise, but the culture that once supported it is dying, or more likely, changing to a different scene. Before e-sports and all of this non-sense of modernizing the franchise with other competitive FPS types, it was nerdy fan fiction wars, Cortana-pin ups, and Master Chief mountain dew for days.

I can honestly say, Halo was once a family game, geared toward providing anyone with a controller in their hand, sitting in your living room, with a good to exceptionally fun experience. Now that all seems to have faded for a more serious, straight forward approach, ditching the nostalgic idea that the household was the only place for players, instead the entire world is their play ground.

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> 2535461287427665;14:
> I think I understand the idea “Halo is dying” because Halo for a lot of people was something different than what it is today. I don’t think Halo is dying as a franchise, but the culture that once supported it is dying, or more likely, changing to a different scene. Before e-sports and all of this non-sense of modernizing the franchise with other competitive FPS types, it was nerdy fan fiction wars, Cortana-pin ups, and Master Chief mountain dew for days.
>
> I can honestly say, Halo was once a family game, geared toward providing anyone with a controller in their hand, sitting in your living room, with a good to exceptionally fun experience. Now that all seems to have faded for a more serious, straight forward approach, ditching the nostalgic idea that the household was the only place for players, instead the entire world is their play ground.

You know while I agree with your argument I’d have to digress on the part where you say the culture has died. It is still there in many people but they have long since abandoned the franchise. The culture will live for a very long time, make no mistake. I think, however, that even this new eSports fad version of Halo is losing traction. Look at the sales and number of daily players online. They are dipping, quite steeply and quite unusually for a game franchise like Halo. But I do respect your opinion and I do agree with most points on it still.

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> 2533274878514250;13:
> Could you please read the post in full before commenting on it? You have no idea why I posed the question. You simply posted for the sake of doing so. I’d like it if you commented in a constructive manner.

No, I am being constructive. The title says your response to the question “Is Halo dying?” and I gave my response to that question. I’m constructively responding to the title of the thread, not your paragraph-less mess.

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Good post. The problem is that the majority of Waypoint has the attention span of a squirrel, so don’t expect people to read anything over a paragraph.

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> 2533274821761464;16:
> > 2533274878514250;13:
> > Could you please read the post in full before commenting on it? You have no idea why I posed the question. You simply posted for the sake of doing so. I’d like it if you commented in a constructive manner.
>
>
> No, I am being constructive. The title says your response to the question “Is Halo dying?” and I gave my response to that question. I’m constructively responding to the title of the thread, not your paragraph-less mess.

Did I ask for your answer though? Case and point is that you don’t need to be rude.

The fact that you can find a game in less than 30 seconds has nothing to do with this topic in almost any way. I can still find a match in Call of Duty 2 relatively fast (less than a minute time wait) but does that mean that it’s the most lively? No.

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> 2533274970658419;17:
> Good post. The problem is that the majority of Waypoint has the attention span of a squirrel, so don’t expect people to read anything over a paragraph.

I’m seeing the effects. Thank you though for the kind, yet also amusing words.

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> 2533274821761464;12:
> I can find games in any gametype within less than 30 seconds (usually under), so I’m not going to call Halo “dying” when I have no shortage of games or people to play them with.

Really because I and others can’t find a game in BTB or it takes 20 mins and play the same people over and over. There are plenty of post on here about this very issue.