All over the internet, there are so many toxic yoinkholes that take things too far. We know this is true, and widely considered to be a part of “gamer culture” in general. The Halo fan community isn’t free from this at all, as much as I wish it was.
I really wish people wouldn’t get personal about the game, and that they would think more about what they say and do as a reaction to the current state of the game. It’s okay to be angry, but if you are, please understand that a lot of folks are angry with you, your voices together are loud enough that you yourself dont actually need to yell- so to speak.
But I also really wish folks would stop acting like this is a problem endemic to “The Halo Community”. People that are acting out or otherwise being aggressive about this is something we can and should address within the community for sure, and I’m glad that that’s being done to some degree. But these traits don’t come from being a Halo fan, or being part of the community.
I think it’s actually not a stretch to say that by and large, the Halo fan community has been one of the most constructive and influential fan communities endemic to a successful gaming franchise of all time. Measurably. I think at least more than most (if not all) “AAA” games, Halo has a history of interaction with the fan base where the community helps make the game what it is, and that is baked into the DNA of this 20 year old franchise.
If the Halo community was a person, it could’ve been in the army and smoking cigarettes legally for one year, and be celebrating the one year anniversary of quitting for another.
Something that is undeniably true is that a LOT of folks have tried passionately and with respect to put a lot of love and labour into providing honest genuinely constructive feedback to this game. Youtubers, waypoint users, r/halo members, Twitter probably, I don’t know. Unfortunately a lot of them- myself included- feel ignored.
Halo Infinite’s multiplayer has some great things, but the way it is presented to the fan-base feels to me- and clearly for a lot of people- blatantly there to exploit their goodwill and faith in the franchise. It’s easy to see there is a good multiplayer game in there that has been broken down into commodified pieces, with extra new sellable pieces on top. This is more than to support a healthy live service game, this is to get in on the supremely lucrative and profit driven (literally 100,000s of millions and even billions more than needed to operate the game) Free To Play market. Some fans support every way that Halo Infinite has formed itself to that end. But many of their fellow community members don’t find the current user-end of this game fun, or even friendly (probably at least some newcomers too, right?). I wish these community members were all supporting each other. Not to mention fellow community members who literally can’t afford what we’ve been presented with, or perhaps may even be vulnerable to unhealthy spending habits, or who just plain don’t like it for any of the other various and reasonable and widely stated reasons. Whether you agree with these decisions, recognize their negative impacts, or neither: things like this definitely hurt the health of the Halo community, and I think we’re seeing a lot of that right now and everyone involved with it can see that, whether they have the same analysis on “why”, or not.
Personally I think think this shows an unfortunate lack of faith in what Halo could be. It doesn’t need to have restrictive armor coatings or cores, it doesn’t need to have restrictive playlists, or a progression system based on a commodified challenge system. It can totally abandon those things and still make lots of profit, and be sustainable. Other games do it, it’s not a stretch to make that work. And Halo has the potential to outlive them all; not just 10 years from now, but 100 years from now. It’s clear that many fans feel a lot of things which make Halo great have been removed, despite being deliberately given an expectation that the game was being made with what they wanted in mind. And honestly I think Bungie knew what they were doing when they made progression and customization a persistent part of the gameplay which transcended individual matches, and even bound the experience together across 2 games in the franchise; I think that is a big part of it’s success. That and the meticulously crafted ease of community interaction and player choice within the game’s systems. This cultivated fan base- the literal patrons of this game- were deliberately given the tools to keep the community healthy both in terms of player numbers, variety, and ultimately longevity. Personally I think without this approach, Halo can’t reach it’s greatest potential in any way.
But look, the 343 Community Manager said it’s a business, and we all know that’s true, right? We’re not owed anything from this corporation. And the fact of the matter is, Halo could be- probably is, actually - targeting a demographic that is so wide (the larger free-to-play shooter market) that it actually makes Halo fans infinitesimally small. So honestly, why should 343i or Xbox Game Studios or Microsoft care about what sort of Halo game the Halo community wants to be presented with? We can just literally not play, shut up about it, and the game will continue making money off of young people with access to their parents’ credit cards and people with addictive personalities and whatever other “whales” out there can generate untold fortunes on a monthly and even weekly basis through systems specifically designed like this one to target them. They can fish those whales till they’re dry, and then “fix” the game later, earning a No Man’s Sky, or Battlefront II-style reputation: “The game is much better now” people will say, a year or so from now as the Halo fans rush back with Forge and Firefight and maybe a new Campaign section (with a new whole new biome!) addition and unlocked customization options both for spartans and custom games. “And next season they’re adding custom emblems we can buy different parts in bulk or earn them through grinding!”. Or not. It also may be that the current model will indefinitely make way too much money for the devs to even be allowed to willingly structurally change it in any significant way.
And if that’s the case, “The Halo Community” will soon become mostly made up of people who are accustomed to predatory financial practices in “free” games- they will outnumber the “old fans” at least 4 to 1 quickly, and if we’re not careful, the “old fans”, marked by having these criticisms, will simply be dismissed and generalized as toxic. So that’s on each of us to ensure the current Halo Community doesn’t become even more irrelevant than it’s at risk of being right now, by not being toxic about this, Not to the devs, not to each other, not to anyone. I think we should still be heard and “take up air space” about it, but in a respectful and constructive way, please.