Bungie receives “real threats” to staff, reduces communication with fans

Bungie has announced that it will reduce the amount of communication it has with its player base, due to threats levied at its staff.

In a Reddit post (via VGC), one user complained about Bungie not talking to its players as much these days. Another user replied, “That’s what happens when developers receive harassment and death threats over a video game.”

A Bungie community manager, who goes by the designation “Dmg04,” also spoke up:

“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, which is leading to an amount of reduced communications as the team plans future protections / strategies to help avoid these sorts of things.”

This sort of thing, besides being spiritually draining and endlessly sad, is a shame for a number of reasons. Not least that communication between a celebrated developer and its passionate fans has to be reduced. But the safety and wellbeing of developers is, of course, the more important.

Dmg04 then said:

“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.”

But then did touch on the many positive and decent people out there that love Bungie:

“None of [this] is meant to be a punishment to the people who can leave clear and respectful feedback for our developers, mind you.”