The shooter series Destiny had a present community manager for 12 years, with whom players could talk on Twitter. Previously it was DeeJ, in recent years Dylan “dmg04” Gaffner took over the job at Destiny 2. However, dmg04 received death threats on Twitter and quit his job in December 2022. Now there is no one left, and the players are not pleased with that.
These were the known community managers at Bungie:
From 2011 to 2020, David “Deej” Dague was the face and frontman of Bungie. He had a dry sense of humor, was not a typical shooter player, and was involved in 2 legendary moments at Destiny, where he did not come off well.
Although DeeJ seemed reliable for 10 years and acted as if he took the pressures of the job lightly, he sounded quite bitter towards the end of his time at Bungie. He said: We listen to players, but we won’t let ourselves be ridden like ponies.
For a long time, he was supported by Cozmo. He previously led the reddit for Destiny, but since he started working at Bungie, he always seemed more like DeeJ’s intern and kept a low profile. Meanwhile, Cozmo is now the “Global Community Lead” at Bungie.
The actual successor to Deej as the frontman of the game was Dylan Gafner in 2020. He also always seemed approachable, someone who really knew the game.
However, the community subjected him to personal attacks to the extent that he had to seek mental help. Some angry players even issued death threats against him and his family. That was probably too much.
Again and again he urged players to be reasonable and respect boundaries. He warned players that soon no one would speak to them if they continued to behave so toxically.
Ultimately, he quit his job in December 2022. He did not specify any exact reasons, nor did he have a new job to switch to, like DeeJ did before.
Bungie introduced Liana “Hippy” Ruppert as Community Manager & Co-Lead of Accessibility. However, even though she interacts with players in some cases, she is significantly quieter than her predecessors and mainly fulfills other tasks, such as writing the weekly Destiny blog “This Week in Destiny”.
Some players of Destiny 2 then acknowledged their guilt: The departure of dmg04 was probably the fault of the community. Some apparently pushed him to quit with their personal threats (via reddit). Although he was, as everyone agreed, actually a really good person and ideal for the job.
Players of Destiny are permanently looking for someone they can personally attack
What was the problem with each community manager? Since Destiny came out, it has been a hobby of the players to scold the community manager or developers who speak publicly about how terrible Destiny currently is, what horrible mistakes are ruining the game, and that the developers have no idea and are generally lazy.
Individual developers were made scapegoats for the development of the whole game: Luke Smith became an absolute hate figure, because he was identified as a greedy manager based on a single quote (“throwing money at the monitor”), whereas he is actually a gaming nerd who was responsible for the best moments of Destiny.
Most recently, the developer Kevin Yanes was the target: He received a shitstorm for an ironic remark about Titans. Destiny players do not understand fun at all when it comes to their favorite class; everything is immediately deadly serious.
However, the standard scapegoat at Destiny has always been the community managers: Players often rightly get upset with Bungie, but sometimes also without cause about Bungie, and the community managers take the brunt of it. They are accused of having no idea about the game, only responding in empty phrases, and being generally useless.
At Bungie, an anonymous Twitter account replaces the personal community manager
How is it at Bungie now? After the departure of dmg04, Bungie no longer has a present community manager as it did for 12 years, but has opened a general Twitter account to communicate with players.
Through “Destiny 2 Teams” they now share facelessly and impersonally the things that the community manager used to do personally. The good thing: if no one is put forward, no one will be pelted with tomatoes or threatened.
Significantly less vulnerable:
Is it working? No, on Reddit there is now a thread with over 3.6k upvotes and around 700 comments.
The core. The Twitter account is nice, but now it feels like there is no longer any relationship between Destiny 2 and the community. Although the account is successful in limiting hatred against individuals, it creates no lasting bond.
There is now a lack of communication from person to person.
Well, the community kind of brought this on themselves after certain individuals went after every developer who showed their face.
Anyone who spoke personally with toxic Destiny players regretted it in many cases.
Now, after 12 years, apparently no one is eager to take over as a permanent lightning rod, as DeeJ and dmg04 did for 12 years.
Destiny 2: Titans insult developers, threaten with death – Now he makes his appearance
