Destiny's creators made the game less addictive – and players rebelled

What's the difference between a game that's compulsive and one that's merely fun? After an attempt to cut game time, Destiny 2: Forsaken lets players decide

Online sci-fi shooter Destiny, released in 2014, had a strange effect on some of its players. Unlike World of Warcraft, or most other games that people play every day, it didn't have hundreds of hours' worth of different planets to visit, enemies to defeat or characters to get to know. You could play through the entirety of Destiny's story in 10 hours; beyond that, it offered only a small selection of daily "strike" missions and an arena to challenge other players in shootouts. Yet people played for hours every day. A significant portion of players spent a thousand hours or more with the game over two or three years, as recorded by the ironically titled WastedOnDestiny.com.

Aside from the draw of spending time with friends, this compulsive factor stemmed from Destiny's loot system. Sure, you'd be playing the exact same missions, strikes and raids, in the same places, shooting the same enemies. But every time you did, there was a small chance you'd get lucky and score a covetable weapon or piece of armour.