Eververse is so big in Destiny 2 not because Activision wanted it to be... But because Bungie decided to "do a smaller or drip feed of smaller stuff and [...] to put up the Eververse and make money that way".
All that because "it's just hard to make content in general".
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/7nubxe/according_to_jason_schreier_of_kotaku_there_was_a/
This may not be true, but Jason Schreier is usually reliable when it comes to getting information on the gaming industry.
Now, I'd like to adress this "it's hard to make content" thing...
Final Fantasy XIV is an MMO that manages to release a major update every 3 months, with a team of about 274 people.
Warframe gets constant updates as well, with around 170 people working at Digital Extremes.
Latest numbers put the number of employees at Bungie at around 750.
So it's too hard for 750 people to create meaningful content, but not for 274 people or even 170?
I understand that mistakes were probably made during the game's development. From Bungie's statements, it seems that their engine is pretty hard to use, and I can understand that. There's also been a shift in the direction of the game 16 months before release, and that can also play on the lack of content. I get it.
But giving Eververse all the the focus because of it? Instead of trying to prove that you can actually get back on your feet? Instead of apologising and doing your best to make Destiny 2 as fun and filled with content as possible, you decide that Eververse is going to be your emergency exit? Your way to make money without actually making content, because "it's just hard to make content in general"?
Maybe this is all wrong. Maybe that's not what happened. But Bungie has been so opaque about everything in the last few years that there's no other source to trust. Everything that already happened, and now this, simply show that Bungie lost it's touch with the community. They live in their own bubble, far away from those they used to make games for.
Realistically, Eververse is making money. It's making [i]loads[/i] of money. From a business standpoint, it seems like their plan is working, at least for now. But if this is their vision for the Destiny franchise, maybe it isn't worth following anymore.
I don't believe the thing about D2 was scrapped and worked on from scratch mid development cycle. It seems like a dmg control to me.
D2 was developed for the casual from the grounds up including eververse.
To me Eververse is not the the problem it's this list below.
1- same old engine
2- reskin heaven
3-old exotic coming back as "content"
4-the abilities and supers nerfs
5- dumping down the game
6-new weapon system for PVE
7-vault space
8-no end game content
9-starting D2 as a new game but D1 stuff are coming back
10-power fantasy removed
11-glitches heaven for the raid (didn't play CoO so I don't know about the raid lair)
12-Prestige is just bullet sponge heaven + glitches
13-mod system is extremely underwhelming
14-The token-ised Destiny
15-clan raid/Trials engram + raid/trials tokens
16-prestige rewards is not worth the cheap difficulty implemented.
17-D2 was crated according to them to push content on a regular and consistent basis. That was a lie.
18-the slow game pace in both PVE and PVP.
19-the 4v4 PVP to all game mods and removing the option to choose which game type.
I could go on but I only mentioned the problems not what I expected D2 to improve on.
In a nutshell D2 is game created from the grounds up for casual including Eververse and everything else just reskin because we are lazy.