Epic Games CEO suggests Destiny 2 could have ‘thrived’ if Bungie used GenAI

For better, but mostly for worse, Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney is one of the most vocal CEOs in the video games space, with the Fortnite maker letting his opinions be known no matter the topic. When it comes to GenAI, Sweeney has been firmly in favour of the controversial technology – so much so that he has now suggested that Destiny 2 would not have had to shut down had Bungie embraced this “newfangled technology.”

Known Bungie insider Paul Tassi recently took to Forbes to release a report on why Destiny 2 Died. Amongst the list of bullet points, Tassi’s first claim stated that “because of the enormous scale of content that had to be produced nonstop, lest fans revolt against its scarcity, Destiny was only very rarely profitable during its entire lifespan.”

This in and of itself is nothing too surprising, with the reports from years back claiming that Destiny 2 suffered from high overheads. According to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney however, the solution had been staring PlyStation / Bungie right in the face, taking to Twitter to state:

“If only some sort of newfangled technology could come along and make it possible to overcome bullet point #1 and enable games like Destiny to thrive!”

While not outwardly stated, Sweeney is of course referring to Generative AI, the controversial technology which has been increasingly embraced by Epic Games over the past couple years.

This is far from Sweeney’s first contentious take on the matter, with the CEO as recently as one week ago claiming that Valve’s AI disclosure policy is “irresponsible” as it “makes it much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success. You have to choose from either not using tools that can make you way more productive, and probably failing due to competition that does.”

As always, Sweeney is missing one core point: That being the fact that most consumers in the industry do not like GenAI, and would rather Destiny 2 have died than be turned into a ‘slop’ machine.

Either way, Sweeney is unlikely to stay quiet any time soon, and so it will be interesting to see how the CEO’s opinions change (or don’t) over time.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Sweeney’s statement? Do you agree? Would you have rather Destiny 2 embraced AI, or died as it has – being a work of human creation? Let us know down below.

Become a Patron!