I think it's a decent option to have in our back pocket, though I understand the other points where if Halo 5 fails to launch that it might be the end no matter what for communities like ours.
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That's when we use Plan C to murder them all.
It's a legitimate concern after two games that have largely been considered a disappointment. It's good to have contingency plans, however planning in the case of "Halo 5 failing" involves a lot of what-if questions that we can't really answer or even guess at right now. If the game sucks but we get a lot of new members is that a failure? How about if the game is really popular but there's a lack of interest in warsim customs? What if it has great gameplay but is broken at launch?
Those are all examples of Halo 5 failing in some way, but I think it's unlikely that our response to each problem would be the same "Plan B". If a problem like those (or others) arises with the launch of Halo 5 we will have to weigh the state of the game, our community, and the general Halo population to decide what the best course of action will be. We just can't really do that ahead of time.
As to your particular suggestion to use backwards compatibility, I don't think that will ever really be the best course of action. Recruiting on an old game will always be more difficult than recruiting on the newest game, IMO. As much as people hate Halo 4, it worked at launch and because of that we got a huge influx of recruits that have helped keep the community afloat ever since. As long as Halo 5 isn't totally broken when it launches (which after MCC I doubt Microsoft would allow it) then I think we will be just fine.
Plan B needs to just be CS: GO
Halo 5 Won't Fail. They could give me the Beta for another month while they fix it and I'd play the hell out of it