our generation was about gameplay, this generation is about cosmetics and having a list of things to do…it’s all they care about. Like machines just following the program because they are too lazy to think. If no one is telling them what to do, they get bored.
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Microsoft saw this and said, “Yes but lets make money off of it”, you earn points when you play the credit card game with the Games Store.
And then you can use those points for cosmetics.
The Monetization has poisoned the game,
They chased after a monetization model that made games like Fortnite popular, and critically misunderstanding why they were so successful.
And it’s already too late to go back on it,
People have already spent tons of money on the game.
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I think this might fundamentally misunderstand the interest of older generations.
You need to bare in mind, the 360 generation of games were…
Really all that existed?
Like,
Halo 3 for example,
Literally what other shooter options did you have back then?
Ultimately, your only other REAL options was to play Call of Duty or Gears of war.
And maybe a small handful of other console games to match with it.
But over-all all gamers really had were the Big 3.
On top of that, it was MOST peoples real exposure to Online gaming.
Playing with people you would not other wise have ever played with.
There was something exciting about it, it was very easy to become addicted to that human interactions with strangers in a completely safe environment.
Modern games don’t have the luxury of that experience being a novelty anymore.
Everyone has grown up with online gaming at this point,
Progression systems are the next natural progression for player retention.
Now that the market is flooded with games that offer the same generic social experience.
Giving people goals to work towards IS always going to be more exciting than and empty “play” experience.
Fun is the Byproduct of having goals, not just having a goal to have fun.
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If you are measuring a game by its weakest link, what are you even trying to achieve?
What are the populations during the launch of a season or during an event, or even after a Twitch drop?
These are the kinds of data that truly represent the Halo Infinite gameplay, not members. If a season is attracting people back to play, every season will be a success: it’s like tourism, you don’t have 100% capacity in your tourist areas, yet many economies rely on tourism season for their income.
You don’t have to be Fortnite to be successful, and if you are in game development and think that way, maybe it’s time to transfer to the finances department…
The Analogy doesn’t line-up
Players are the life blood of a games existence.
Its not “Tourism” as that implies that the are other things keeping the game alive, and functional, and in the public consciousness.
Like, as a real world parallel.
Seasonal tourist towns exist, where very expensive properties exist.
When its not in season FOR tourism; the towns become dead.
No Shops open, no workers, locals go OUTSIDE of the town for their needs.
They are places where NO ONE LIVES, except for 3-4 months out of the year.
Tieing it back to infinite,
If the player population is bad, the game is doing bad.
Its not making the money or the metrics it should be.
Its on the downward path to being the Unprofitable dead Tourist town.
The BP and events were only ever supposed to hold your attention for 2-3 months.
Stretching it over 6 months is just half baking it.
And after going with an XP type system for the BP - why wouldn’t you simply extend that to a career rank? It’s not my cup of tea per se… but seriously. What the Hell?
Just seeing how people (slash nutters) invested in SR152 - that wasn’t a head’s up?
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It’s a mixture of a number of things. There’s no progression outside of the battle pass so once you finish it that’s it. There’s nothing else to work towards. Then you throw in the fact that the weekly ultimate sucks sometimes so there’s no incentive to grind for it. Then you have the lack of maps and the technical issues that still plague the game so of course the player count is going to decline
I personally think weekly rewards should expand to a small weekly rotting reward pass.
I personally think completing all the challenges for a random emblem or visor is waaayy to small of a reward for those really bad challenges.
A pass of 5-6 items would be better which switches out the items every week.
Ummm golden eye 
maybe the first of this kind
Id rather get an OG Halo game that is packed with awesome modes, playlists, maps, ranking system than have what we have in Halo Infinite… BattlePass is stupid most people like playing a game for it to be fun rather than playing a game to unlock something… But thanks to that community of people that love customizing their spartan more than playing the game we have 343 focusing on cross-core items than actually making the game fun.
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IMHO Well there are only 2 companies to blame!
- Microsoft for forcing to release a game that was not finished.
- 343i for the slow fixes that are still not fixed since the released date. ( 9mos. ago )
Sorry, but that is my opinion and my opinion only! . . . . . It is what it is!
Peace! 
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Were you even there at Reach’s launch? The progression was awful.
343 has claimed they are working on a long-term “Spartan Career” progression system. I’m baffled as to why it’s taking so long, though. How complicated can it be to set up a series of ranks, with appropriate amounts of XP between them, and maybe slap different titles and icons on each one?
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I agree! Now it would be nice to be able to “SPAWN” on a teammate by clicking on a teammates name. We have been doing that for years in The Battlefield Franchaise!
Just my suggestion.
Peace!
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Progression is just one piece of the puzzle. Personally I don’t care about progression/levels/unlocks. The 3 major things keeping me from playing infinite are desync, map quality, and playlist variety.
I stopped playing because the monetization is so scummy that I couldn’t comfortably support Halo Infinite. Refused to spend any money and even stopped playing altogether about a week after launch.
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You’re pretty much right, but I really hated Reach’s system tbh. I think the best is MCC.
I think you’re right for the most part but I have to believe that if people enjoy playing they’d just play. Playing a game should be the reward not the battle pass or some other prize which even if it were with all the monetized cosmetics they’ve rendered unlocks meaningless across the board. No, I think that fundamental aspects of this game such as the desync and ranking system have driven people away. Great game at its core, undermined by the systems the devs have added. 343 doesn’t have it in them to produce a Halo that resonates right out the gate. They’ve got no soul. Early Bungie did.
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If you think reach was the best halo model, this entire argument is invalid and I can’t trust you as a halo fan. Reach was the downfall of Halo as we knew it, and 343 then only took that and further ruined it to the point where it went in it’s grave and the only revival chance was Infinite. Now all that infinite has done is kept halo gasping for air in a vast ocean while they’re searching for some kind of land.
The one thing I will agree with is the ranked progression in the game. if they took the old model of 1-50 in the previous games as well as actually having a larger selection of ranked games (i.e. duo’s, mlg/hardcore, regular slayer, objective, etc.) I think the population would be a lot healthier.
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Reach was the 2nd most financially and commercially popular game in the entire franchise. 3 is the only one that holds a higher record in sales. It’s also one of the most popular titles among the community. There are still people that only play Reach and do so every day.
I personally hated the multiplayer in it, but saying its the downfall of Halo is disingenuous.
And the model I’m discussing is the ranking system in which, over time, you earned ranks based on gameplay, those xp points also contributed to how you unlocked cosmetics, and there was a separate ranking system for competitive play.
Reach had a very solid, reliable, long-standing model for how to do a progression system.