i would argue that wasn’t even the real cause. from where we sat it seemed like they spent the entire year prior to release, getting players to be like “this gonna be your holidays holiday game” - released a mess, then their staff took 6 weeks of vacation to pat themselves on the back leaving us with no words of encouragement except generic platitudes and mentions about the storefront.
beyond bungie d2 levels of mismanagement.
This entire thread is as open ended as you set up the parameters to be:
So I put forth my own argument. Where we ended up is a compounded path since our first interaction.
Our interactions have been entirely beneficial to the discussion. Comparisons, contrasts, examining/refuting examples and evidence to purport our claims.
We’ve stayed very much on the topic of discussion, in fact all talk of Destiny actually started with you and it was contextually viable to the dialogue at hand.
You can speak to its current state, but that doesn’t mean the conversation warrants the discussion to stay in the current state especially when past evidence counters the current narrative:
Infinite’s approach to game modes isn’t a direct result of it being F2P, game mode rotation has been in this franchise for every nearly every P2P title since Halo 3.
Destiny 2 isn’t magically the way it is currently because you say it is, it’s been a struggle for that game to attain the relevance for years.
Like it or not, this is how discussions proceed. If you don’t like my points then counter them or circle back to a previous point in the conversation if you feel like it’s been circumvented. Refusing to accept them on the pretext that “they don’t belong because ____” because it’s easier than refuting them is just cheap.
Edit:
Completely agree, however for every example of Devs learning from each other’s mistakes/successes there’s an example where Devs don’t learn from each other’s mistakes/successes.
Honestly there is no excuse for the antiquated system that was put into place, but it also doesn’t mean that concepts are interchangeable. Destiny’s cosmetic system works well for Destiny, short of an explanation from your perspective I don’t see how it translates to fixing Halo’s situation. It’s one thing to suggest that 343 could’ve learned from Bungie, it’s another to put forth an idea how it could’ve been implemented let alone how it would fix the F2P model.
The willingness to text wall does not provide depth
Not sure what “text wall” you’re referencing.
There was more than enough depth within my/your/our punctuated, paragraphed, and concise responses to warrant further discussion, as evidenced by how our discussion had carried on quite well prior.
Kind of a shame you didn’t want to continue an insightful dialogue on your own topic promoting it as such because of impatience, but it is what it is.
Thank you for the debate.
Actually, it did do something. It showed whoever is making the calls for this game that they literally have no idea what they are doing other than cash grabbing.
Infinite is dead, and 343 is to blame. It’s not dead as far as players because there are way too many suckers that easily fall for PR BS. It’s dead as far as the concept of Halo.
Infinite is a cheap knock off that is a disgrace to Halo.
I’m not sure what it has done for Halo, but I can tell you that it has saved me $60.
The way things are, I am inclined to agree. To me it looks like 343 was not fully prepared to run on the F2P model. This was supposed to be a 10 year plan, but with the lack of content so far, I cannot see it going anywhere.
Yeah, clearly not prepared. 343/Microsoft thought that a FTP Halo would be instantly successful, and while not exactly wrong, they didn’t do really anything to retain the success for longer than a few weeks.
The fact that the game is ftp isn’t bad, it’s the obvious bad decisions made to rely on that model so heavily; thinking that ftp was some kind of easy button.
The community is so sour right now, not because Halo is ftp, but because this game was T’d up perfectly only for 343 to swing and drive it straight into the dirt. And now we are rolling slowly down the hill towards the water while 343 is standing there dumbfounded with a broken club, wondering how they didn’t get a hole-in-1 with their brand new, ftp driver.
Just google it: F2P gave Infinite exposure, but failed to lock down the audience due to all of its inherent issues. A real wasted potential, and honestly F2P will now serve to hurt Infinite more than help.
F2P has been and always will be a double edged sword, and 343 basically dropped the sword on their foot.
That’s a perfect metaphor for their management of the Halo brand entirely ever since they began doing so.
I’d counter that the vast majority of players weren’t following the long pathetic saga of Halo Infinite. They heard about the delay, then the release, and that’s it not following the marketing BS at all.
I don’t think we can solely place blame at a F2P model for the game, unless of course you are talking an aggresive MXT system in which case that mose surely ocntirbuted to its health delcine
I tink what is killing/has killed infinite is a sheer lack of content and updates
infinite was touted as a F2P “live service” game, one that would launch relatively barren but since its a live service would add content consistently over the life span of the game.
Thus far this live service game has no live service, and it doesn’t look like much is in the pipeline either.
They delayed their roadmap…
Let that sionk in a moment…honestly, seriously take a moment to ponder this.
They delayed putting forward a map and timeline for new features/game modes/events etc etc etc, and they did this after they already announced that campaign co-op is delayed as well.
Forge? they say season 3…dude…thats in freakin august…
August…thats another five months away…do any of us, any of us…think this game will have a population five months down the track?
They will be releasing forge for the miniscule amount of players who inevitably stick around
Its not so much the F2P model causing the issues, its 343i’s inability to deliver even the most basic of content in a timely mannor
I blame 343 for the ill health of the franchise currently, not simply because the game is F2P
I truly believe a free-to-play Halo could’ve worked, but some very unreasonable decisions & changes were made that alienated both the returning & new players.
A proof that F2P Halo could have worked was Halo Online.
Literally H3 MP remastered and f2p but that got canned. Thanks MS 
I have a theory, it’s just a theory. I believe that Halo Infinite was not initially conceived as a F2P game.
I think this twist came about because it was too late, too much content missing in every way, and that it was impossible to sell as a complete product.
I think that being aware that they had at least a year or more of development left, they tried to make it F2P where the initial content could be poor and gain time while they finished the product, invented seasons and obtained benefits with the store.
I think this system allowed them to hide the mess and profit from an incomplete game.
Hey, as a strategy it would have been fine, in fact it was working for all the other F2P. But this is Halo. People know what they want from Halo. And this is not the Halo they expected.
I believe it’s very clear at this point that Halo’s current struggles have everything to do with poor management.
Had Infinite simply launched with a bigger variety of gamemodes, a better challenge system, cheaper mtx, more maps, and co-op and forge like other modern Halo titles, then we would be praising this game to the heavens.
If 343i can get it’s act together and resolve the above issues, then I think the game would be in a very healthy spot regardless of the monetization model they use.
But the game sites all told me Infinite was the best Halo ever. So it must be…right?
Why would they lie???
Also, looks like GT7 has joined in on the fun. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
There’s lots of issues with Infinite that aren’t connected to it being F2P. What you gain with F2P is to easily get lots of people to look into it. The problem is that you also can lose them instantly as they are not “invested” (in this case quite literaly) into their “purchase”.
The real issue caused to the remaining players is in customization being tied to MTXs to a large degree. However if Infinite had been a regular P2P title the majority of Infinite’s issues would likely still exist (missing modes, few maps, technical issues).
All in all I don’t think Infinite releasing as a P2P title would have put it in a much different place than it is in now. Where it might be more interesting is when we look into how much investment Microsoft would be willing to put into it post release. If it was P2P (and therefore little money coming in after the original sale) it might be less attractive to them to keep working on content instead of just bugfixes. Look at MCC - that only got “mostly fixed” after they needed it as a showpeace for the One X release.
Fast cash but no cash in the long run will ruin the game, for sure.
I think MS wanted a big AAA game in their gamepass library but it was a miss and now its just silence.
I think both MS and 343 lost on the move making it F2P. And there is no going back now, 343 need to release more maps and content but the game is dead and it feels like a part of my gaming also died.
It hasnt improved anything. Except for people buying cosmetics.
Id argue that halo is on life support till season 2.
Peeps can say, “look at mcc now!”
Thats not going to happen with Infinite