Destiny 2 developer Bungie is struggling with a toxicity problem within its community. This has not been a secret, at least since community manager Dylan 'dmg04' Gafner left the studio in 2022 after he and his family received death threats. While dmg04 has now joined Riot Games' VALORANT team, Bungie have still not presented a new community manager – and chances are that they never will.
While toxicity in video games is not a new concept – especially when these games have a competitive aspect – there are not many developers who struggle with toxicity towards the developers as badly as Bungie does with Destiny 2. Gafner's exit from Bungie was a consequence of players promising to "move near you, and then it will no longer be safe for you". Since then, Bungie never officially presented another community manager and instead introduced an anonymous team account.
Destiny 2 players have now called out that Bungie is also not communicating via that account. Bungie have now reacted to this in a Reddit comment, stating that devs who are not even working in community management are still being harassed simply because they are working on Destiny 2. They also state they want to avoid their community managers having targets on their backs for abuse from toxic community members.
dmg04 Joins Riot Games – Will Bungie Ever Go Back To Normal?
Comment by u/BNGHelp from discussion Bungie: you literally made the Teams accounts so you can provide safety for your CMs as they continue to do their jobs. Please actually use the account. in DestinyTheGame
While Bungie keep their public interactions low, they promise that they are still looking through all the feedback. According to the Reddit comment, they tend to respond more in their own forums. It appears that they also share their upcoming plans with their stakeholders, which makes sense as there is a lot of financial interest on the table.
Dylan Gafner has now joined Riot Games and will start his new job as their Principal Global Community Strategist for VALORANT on July 31. It seems like after a seven-month break from the video game industry, he has finally found a project that will keep him entertained. The Destiny 2 community, on the other hand, will have to wait for things to go back to normal, "until everyone can feel safe again".
Good morning. Overjoyed to announce that starting 7/31, I'll be joining Riot Games. The official title: Principal Global Community Strategist.I'll be joining some ridiculously talented folks on the VALORANT team serving a worldwide community. pic.twitter.com/4qsUufDwsd
— dmg04 (@A_dmg04) July 17, 2023