The company's community manager explains that Bungie started to interact with players less because of threats to the studio, staff, and families.
Destiny 2 developer Bungie recently stated that it reduced communication with players because of the harassment and threats it's started to get.
On Tuesday, a Reddit user TheMediocreThor posted on the Destiny subreddit saying that Bungie was responding to fans far less than it previously did and that they missed this open line of communication with developers.
After another user replied to this thread claiming that "that’s what happens when developers receive harassment and death threats over a video game" and another user disagreed, Destiny community manager Dylan "dmg04" Gafner stepped in to explain the studio's stance on the matter.
Gafner confirmed that Bungie now interacts less with its players due to the harassment. The manager explained that this decision was made after Bungie and its individual developers started to receive constant threats from a number of users. According to him, by saying "harassment" the studio means serious threats and not just some kind of rude and offensive answers on social media and websites like Reddit.
"I will be very clear in saying that I appreciate the studio in the amount that's it's helped me personally after some serious harassment towards me and my family," Gafner wrote. "I'm taking time off in part because of this. Just because you can't see it directly in a given tweet or forum reply doesn't mean that it didn't happen."
However, he noted that Bungie doesn't want this to look like a punishment to the part of the audience that leaves "clear and respectful feedback", so the studio plans to rethink communication and find new, better ways to communicate with fans.
"Sometimes, we just need to take some time to get things straightened out. Can take weeks, can take months – just like any given development pipeline, as we want what's best for our players AND our employees," Gafner said. "That said, we can't just move about 'business as usual' until things are resolved. It sucks, but we want to be sure that folks are safe and taken care of."