Bungie, which has just joined PlayStation Studios (but is still operating as a multiplatform studio), has had its community manager explain why the studio, most recently known for Destiny, isn’t talking to its players much.

One of the threads on Reddit explained how much they miss Bungie answering their questions. To it, one user posted a to-the-point response (“That’s what happens when developers receive harassment and death threats over a video game.”). One respondent said it was a vocal minority and a PR attempt to reduce Bungie’s communication with gamers without backlash. The company’s community manager, who registered on Reddit as DMG04, stepped in. We’ll quote their response:

Here’s the thing, the harassment we’ve spoken to isn’t just rude replies on Twitter or vague comments. There have been real threats towards our people and our studio. We’re taking them seriously, leading to 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 because it’s helped me personally after some severe harassment towards my family and me. 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 it didn’t happen.

None of [this] is meant to punish 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 conversations and plan retaliatory actions towards our player base via hotfixes, updates, or comms strategies. Sometimes, we need to take some time to get things straightened out.

It can take weeks or months – just like any development pipeline, as we want what’s best for our players and 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 to communicate with you all – some of these plans I’m 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.”

That sounds severe…

Source: VGC