The biggest YouTuber for the MMO shooter Destiny looks back at the last 4 years. Why Destiny is such a success despite all difficulties, even he does not know.
For 4 years, Stefan Jonke has been following Destiny, he is known as “Datto”. In a large video, he looks back at 4 years of Destiny and his own career.
It’s an interesting video because it reflects where Datto’s career stands at each point of Destiny’s history. Before Destiny, Datto only made a few Call of Duty videos and was an insignificant YouTuber, as he says.
With the game, his channel should also bloom, but he didn’t know that 4 years ago.
A career linked to a game of which one knows nothing
Even before the release, Datto suspects that he has the opportunity to play a key role in Destiny with his channel. He wants to approach the game from the “MMO” side. Analytically dissecting Destiny with his experience as a WoW player, providing viewers with valuable tips and tricks. He speaks of a channel with an educational mandate, an instructive channel.
Early on, Datto receives support from Bungie, is invited to exclusive events, and has early successes.
That’s why he decides to do YouTube “full-time” and gives up the chance to take a job in his day job that he had worked years for.
In the run-up to the release, as the hype increases, interest in his channel also swells.
Is that all there is?
When he then sees a lot of gameplay, he wonders: Is that all there is?
Upon release, the disillusionment: Destiny is not a game with many MMO elements. Most video concepts he has thought of are useless because Destiny is so simple at release that no explanations are needed: There are no big statistics, no “theory-crafting”, nothing that really needs to be explained – strikes are so simple that they don’t need explaining – there are no boss mechanics, no gameplay mechanics that need to be explained in a video.
The loot cave: throw fire in and you get loot. No video guide needed.
A glimmer of hope is the first raid “Glass Chamber” and the “Hard Mode” – but Datto expected 5, 10, or 15 bosses, not just 2.
Other channels and sites offer to pay him four-digit sums for “raid guide” videos, but Datto turns down these offers and brings the videos to his channel.
Year 1 brings content, but Destiny doesn’t really progress. According to Datto, Bungie always stops just before it could really get good. However, Datto’s channel makes progress, he finds his audience and establishes his way of accompanying Destiny.
Content crisis during “House of Wolves”
During the time of “House of Wolves”, Destiny and Datto experience a first content crisis – ideas for videos are lacking, motivation is waning.
Datto again questions whether it was so sensible to bet on this Destiny horse – he is already stretching out to new things.
King of the Taken – Destiny at its peak
Then comes “King of the Taken” and everything gets much better. This is the expansion Datto has been waiting for. His channel experiences a surge, outstanding growth for months. His YouTube career is temporarily secured. The Oryx raid is said to be the raid that most resembles an MMO. Golgoroth is a clear “MMO boss”.
A highlight of Datto’s career was the raids and solving the “Outbreak Primus”, where his community helped him.
2017 the worst Destiny time yet
In 2016 and 2017, Destiny and Datto’s channel fell into several content holes for long stretches. Destiny is now at the fifth or sixth content hole, by his count. Datto tries out other games, but they don’t attract viewers. He then creates “own content”, comes up with challenges for strikes, and scrapes through to Destiny 2.
Once he goes 9 days without a Destiny video, which he cannot reconcile with his self-image. No one should think he has no more ideas.
From January to March 2017, Datto experienced the worst Destiny time since the launch, even now in the first half of May it is still dark. But now with the gameplay reveal, E3, betas, and the launch, things should go upward again. Now important Destiny events would come every month. The time between these phases is just “rough”.
Datto sounds surprisingly disillusioned
Overall, the tone of the video is rather disillusioned. Some experiments went wrong, plans didn’t work out, sometimes he faced an icy headwind. Datto also seems to wonder what kind of stupid topics other Destiny channels are generating clicks with.
Datto had to change and make compromises over time. He has accepted that his opinion as a “Hardcore PvE player” is not the opinion of all his viewers. However, his Destiny life has always been helped by the community, for which he is thankful. He emphasizes this repeatedly.
Bungie has no credit left for Destiny 2
Interestingly, Datto himself does not really know why his channel and Destiny generate so much attention and so much success. He says: According to all rules, neither Destiny nor my channel should exist anymore. But somehow … Destiny and his channel still exist – along with 100 other content creators for Destiny.
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Despite all problems, interest in Destiny remains high. Many see the potential in Destiny and do not want to give up. And Destiny is still there, still going on. But Bungie has lost all credibility. With Destiny 2, the studio must deliver.
Datto has no specific wishes for Destiny 2. It just needs to be good.
My MMO: Many parallels to us
My MMO states: It’s a great video. Although we rarely use Datto as a source for our articles, we have quite a lot in common with him due to our MMO background. In our articles, we have also perceived and accompanied the content “ups and downs” of Destiny just as Datto did.
Even for us, interest in Destiny was at an all-time low in early 2017 and at an all-time high during “King of the Taken”.
The interesting thing is the situation that Datto has tied his professional existence to a game about which he had no idea whether it would succeed. For YouTubers, it is much harder to broaden their scope and become a “multi-game” channel.
In the position of “information channel for only one game”, he and many other YouTubers depend on the fact that this game is developing well. In 2014, it was impossible to foresee that for Destiny. Understandably, Datto has often doubted his decision.
Objectively, it is hard to explain why Destiny still generates so much interest despite a disillusioning release, a weak year 1, and a 2-year content pause. But it is undoubtedly the case.
The MMO shooter Destiny combines the action-packed gameplay of a top shooter with the long-term enjoyment and character development of a classic MMO since 2014 ...
