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Destiny 2 Former Community Manager Says Harassment from Players Is Inevitable

Destiny 2's former community manager, dmg04, reflects on his tenure with the game, its community, and Bungie, explaining player harassment.

gamerant.com

Destiny 2's former community manager, Dylan Gafner, who is better known under his in-game alias of dmg04, said that it's virtually impossible to avoid harassment from the player base. Having officially been hired as a community manager in 2017, during the time of the game's Curse of Osiris expansion, Gafner has spent a fair bit of time with the game's community, learning how it breathes and behaves.

Now that Gafner is stepping down as a Destiny 2 community manager, he has had the opportunity to discuss some of the things he's experienced during his tenure at Bungie, and he's done so in a candid interview. Though mainly positive about his former job, dmg04 didn't mince any words when it came to explaining how important mental health is, providing valuable advice to other community managers and beyond.

"If you're lucky enough to work at a studio that openly stands for equality, stands against hate, and is continuing to build better equity and diversity for its people," said Gafner, "you can and likely will become a target of harassment." One of the more recent examples of dmg04 publicly taking a stand against player harassment came up in July 2022, when Bungie was forced to address Destiny harassment issues after individuals hurled death threats and abuse at one of the developers on Twitter. In his interview with Forbes' Paul Tassi, Gafner explained the importance of boundaries and not letting oneself get consumed with the job of being a community manager. He explained how important it is to be able to block toxic members of the community and build rapport with those who are genuinely constructive in their criticism.

Following Destiny 2's Twilight Garrison harassment incident, the developer that was targeted by certain members of the community ended up temporarily closing down their social media. The bigger problem for the community at large, however, was that Bungie as a whole decided to reduce its communications with the player base to protect its workers.

The developer of Destiny isn't always as passive as it was in that particular case, it's worth pointing out. Though Gafner didn't reflect upon this particular case of dev harassment, Bungie recently sued a Destiny 2 streamer who threatened to burn down the studio, making it clear just how seriously the issue is taken. Gafner did say that he will "forever" be thankful to Bungie for how it handled some problems he had personally experienced in 2022, implying that more such examples might've gone down in the background.

 

[PonyStation4]

People aren't harassing Bungie because they're standing for "equality, against hate, equity and diversity", they're doing it because of managements decisions with the game. Whether that's constant bugs or removed content. The blame lies with the CEO Parsons, hiding behind a bush while his employees get rocks thrown at them for decisions he's making.

If Bungies management really cared, they'd come out to the public and explain why the development of the game is so horrible instead of letting developers and community managers take the blame.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Similar to Twitter and YT trolls, I cant see how the average video game community manager or company (Bungie suing a guy for claiming he'll burn down the studio??? lol) cant just brush off the trolls as assheads and move on. Ignore them, block them, do whatever. If they guy returns under a different account block again. If it's that bad, treat them like annoying email spam or telemarketing calls. Just ignore them.

Despite some people getting all emotional their YT account gets bombed with comments like You Suck or Your Video Is Fucking Trash, pretty sure 99% of people uploading videos dont give a shit. If someone is going to go ape shit because random people from the 8 billion people on Earth rag on them, you got to cut the cord and get off social media.

I find it similar to CSRs. When I sat beside one at an old job, she got so many junky calls from angry customers with some with unreasonable demands wanting free product after 5 years it gets to a point to just shrug it off. There would be times she'd look at me, pull the headset off her head and smirk at me. Thats when I knew she had an irate caller. Give in or deny, but gets to a point its a job and you brush it off. Pretty sure her or the company isnt going around suing people or taking it personal. I'm sure she got her share of people telling her to fuck off. She didnt care. And this is getting flak from people directly on the phone. Much different than reading text.

It's like they take all of this so seriously, when in reality it's almost all angry anonymous people who are probably drunk or on drugs half the time trolling. It's video games people.

It's gets to a point it's a parody of laughs. Similar to when I posted on Yahoo stock boards during the 2000 dot com era. While the bank and oil company boards were all mellow, the tech boards had the most vile, cussing, doxxing (ya it happened even back then) threads you saw. There was zero moderation back then too. Nobody gave a shit. It gets to a point everyone is harassing certain people (big time longs and shorts), nobody cared. Even those resident users everyone knew hating or supporting the company would laugh it off

 

[YCoCg]

 

[j0hnnix]

diversity for its people

 

[Rhazkul]

Reality Check 101: some people are a**holes. Grow a thicker skin and get over it. You can't just pretend hate doesn't exist and live in your hippie fantasy bubble.

 

[MiguelItUp]

In Community you have to know how to talk to players, and how to take what they're saying without taking it to heart. I mean, you're essentially the messenger and body armor for the rest of the team when it comes to all forms of communication with the players. I was a Community Manager on game not nearly as large as the Destiny IP, but I still definitely dealt with trolls, assholes, etc. Even had a couple of random folks get incredibly toxic (name calling and all) towards me for no real reason at all, it made absolutely zero sense. But I never let any of that bother me. I mean, it's just like working Customer Service, just more engaging (depending on the position) and majority of it is digital. In Customer Service you'll deal with great customers, and sometimes a real piece of shit. But you have to learn to not let it affect you, Community really isn't much different in that regard.

This sounds overdramatic, lol.

 

[Meicyn]

Such a good show.