Bungie says it’s reduced communication with players due to ‘real threats’ towards staff

Bungie has stated that it’s reduced the amount of communication it has with its player base due to harassment and threats.

In a reaction to a Reddit post noting that Bungie was responding to users far less frequently, one user replied: “That’s what happens when developers receive harassment and death threats over a video game.”

When another user suggested that the focus on “the rude minority” was “a deliberate PR-driven attempt to reduce communication without backlash”, Bungie community manager ‘Dmg04’ claimed that the situation had gone beyond merely rude remarks and had escalated to threats.

“Here’s the thing, the harassment we’ve spoken to isn’t just rude replies on twitter or vague comments,” Dmg04 wrote. “There have been real threats towards our people and our studio.”

They added: “We’re taking them seriously, which is leading to an amount of reduced communications as the team plans future protections / strategies to help avoid these sorts of things.

“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. 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.”

Noting that this did have an impact on the decent players who were now lacking the ability to communicate with developers, they added: “None of [this] is meant to be a punishment to the people who can leave clear and respectful feedback for our developers, mind you.

“There are no instances at Bungie where people actively look at a conversation and plan retaliatory actions towards our playerbase via hotfixes, updates, or comms strategies. 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. 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.

“I agree – it’s a bummer that we don’t have as much interaction here as of late. The team is planning ways in which to communicate with you all – some of these plans I’m really looking forward to when I get back in. I can assure you that many on the team are checking out threads each day and talking about your feedback.”

Further reading

Bungie has sued a Destiny 2 streamer accused of fraud, cheating and harassment

"That combination of conduct makes Bungie’s decision to bring this lawsuit easy," it says

Earlier this month Bungie filed a lawsuit against Destiny 2 streamer Luca Leone, who the studio accused of being a serial cheater and committer of fraud and harassment.

“Leone has repeatedly made threats targeting Bungie and its employees, tweeting about his desire to ‘burn down’ Bungie’s office building and declaring that specific Bungie employees were ‘not safe’ given Leone’s intent to move into their neighborhood,” the lawsuit reads.