You need to ground your thinking in some reality. You're only hurting the games longevity with this attitude. Matchmaking would never affect you. As far as people whining about "Nerfing" Raids, please remember that most players will not even visit the forums. They might get a bump from the whole clan BS but the vast majority of people could care less. You also seem to forget that many people are still moving onto new consoles, some people switching console brand for the first time in 8 years. This is already a problem for a lot of people. Then there's the fact that, after almost a year of no AAA games being released, they're suddenly flooding the market this fall/winter meaning the player base will drop further as people move on to other games. That's the thing you really need to understand here: The amount of people playing Raids at the beginning is only a portion of the people who bought the game. The overall number will drop once the average buyer learns of the restrictions to even access the mode. The player base will drop even further once the other titles begin to drop. It's almost comical to think about what it will look like when games like the Division start to populate the market. The point here is the player base is only going to go down, not up. Restricting access to your game at the start is a bad business move if you want it to have longevity and continued support. Players WILL move onto other games that allow them to play the way they want, with the friends they have. It's absurd to think Luke Smith is the end all Emperor of Fun Gameplay Design and that only playing it his way (or yours) is fun and rewarding. Given Destiny's lofty goal of "a 10 year game" and Luke Smith's "We hope the gear is what keeps you coming back to Raids", restricting access in any way flies in the face of these two statements. It really doesn't matter to me, simply because there are tons of great games on the horizon and if Bungie decides to screw over longtime fans (Marathon on Mac) by restricting access to paid content, I'll move my money and support elsewhere. A lot of people will. And if you and Bungie are happy with only the "hardest of the hardcore" playing the game, then that's great. Maybe they always intended it to be a 10 year game for a small group instead of everyone who's interested in it. The only thing its doing at the moment is alienating long time fans of the company.