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Kotaku: "Destiny Review Scores May Cost Bungie $2.5 Million"
- Thread starter Hip Hop
- Start date
what?
Mario/Zelda haven't lasted this long for their story. Halo/CoD haven't been around for a decade because of it's story.
The most important thing for a game is to be fun and have content that brings people back. Story is probably the least important thing.
mercenar1e
Member
I thought retailers can return any item that sat on the shelves for too long.. they can try keeping it for sales during black friday and other promotions as well.
ShinMaruku
Member
Should anybody get bonuses like that?
I've had Activision contracts where it was required to put some of the development budget into the "bonus pool", making it a sort of perverse gamble/guarantee on quality. In that case, if you didn't measure up to the agreed minimum, then you wouldn't receive the full development budget and it would "cost" the developer money.
That being said, I doubt that is the case here, though I haven't read the contract.
Aggregating review was always silly because even reputable critics are giving a subjective evaluation, and in many cases there are incentives for them to disagree with consensus opinion. Take the movie critic Armond White as an example; White often gives movies that receive nearly universal praise bad reviews because it impacts how they do on Rotten Tomatoes, and that allowed him to draw a great deal of attention to himself. He was virtually unknown before he started doing it, but know people actively hate him, and on the internet it doesnt matter why people click your articles-the clicks are enough.
It hardly ever happens with AAA games, though.
Interesting read. Didn't even know about all the others hooks in the contract. Kinda crazy.
PrivateWHudson
Member
They should have just dropped the story altogether and called it multiplayer only. Would have put them up to 86%.
ScatheZombie
Member
So, quick couple of things I noticed right away being tossed around:
1) Destiny did not make $500 million in profit. It brought in $500 million in revenue. A lot of publications are incorrectly associating approx. 10 million sales at approx. $50 a pop (which isn't an accurate revenue per copy, btw) to mean that they have already recouped $500 million in development and marketing costs. They likely haven't. And they certainly haven't brought in enough money to turn a massive profit that some are suggesting or assuming.
2) Bungie does not get all the money. They don't even get most of the money. Even with Bungie owning the IP, Activision takes all the money. Literally. All of it. All revenue is funneled through the publisher first. And then distributed to Bungie via bonuses and budgeted funding for, I presume, Destiny 2. So, yes, $2.5 million in lost bonuses is a huge blow to Bungie, especially the average developer.
3) Tying Metacritic or other aggregate review scores to bonuses is a relatively common industry practice. It's one reason that developers at major studios/publishers have a very love/hate relationship with game journalists. When one or two extreme reviews (like 2/5 or 40/100) can deny you tens of thousands of dollars in income - and usually from decisions that were made completely out of your control - the relationship is tenuous at best. Our last project had a similar contractual stipulation and we did not hit our target. I lost out on probably $15k because our game scored 4 points below what our publisher wanted - even though our sales were higher than their projections. Yes, that's right, critical perception was valued over net revenue to determine bonuses. For real. That happened.
1) Destiny did not make $500 million in profit. It brought in $500 million in revenue. A lot of publications are incorrectly associating approx. 10 million sales at approx. $50 a pop (which isn't an accurate revenue per copy, btw) to mean that they have already recouped $500 million in development and marketing costs. They likely haven't. And they certainly haven't brought in enough money to turn a massive profit that some are suggesting or assuming.
2) Bungie does not get all the money. They don't even get most of the money. Even with Bungie owning the IP, Activision takes all the money. Literally. All of it. All revenue is funneled through the publisher first. And then distributed to Bungie via bonuses and budgeted funding for, I presume, Destiny 2. So, yes, $2.5 million in lost bonuses is a huge blow to Bungie, especially the average developer.
3) Tying Metacritic or other aggregate review scores to bonuses is a relatively common industry practice. It's one reason that developers at major studios/publishers have a very love/hate relationship with game journalists. When one or two extreme reviews (like 2/5 or 40/100) can deny you tens of thousands of dollars in income - and usually from decisions that were made completely out of your control - the relationship is tenuous at best. Our last project had a similar contractual stipulation and we did not hit our target. I lost out on probably $15k because our game scored 4 points below what our publisher wanted - even though our sales were higher than their projections. Yes, that's right, critical perception was valued over net revenue to determine bonuses. For real. That happened.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
For all the money being spent, you'd think they would have spent a bit more on less haphazard public relations and communications team.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Yea, yea, don't get cocky. Back to work!
Yeah.
Anyone that has had to deal with angry fanboys defending "their" game probably understands why. On a related note, while I'm sure that a desire to please AAA developers does exist at gaming journalism sites I think that it rarely impacts scores as much as fanboys do.
Jaw literally dropped open upon reading this.
Neuromancer
Member
I'm pretty sure Bungie never got handed a check for $500 million to do whatever they wanted with it.
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
You might want to figure out what context means and see how it's applied when people speak/write. You sound like someone that gets easily offended at just about everything. I found his statement silly myself but not for the ridiculous reason you did.
Yea. Fuck them. No one deserves a second chance at all. /s
$500m invested towards Destiny as a franchise, not a single game.
Neuromancer
Member
Yeah you may be right.
CosmicQueso
Member
I've had a ton of fun too... but I can understand why the reviews are where they are. Then again, some of my favorite games ever have been rated under 80.
Anton Sugar
Member
If the contract is still in effect as the post assumes, you can read there Bungie gets 20% to 35% in royalties in addition to bonuses. Also, they have hefty revenue-based bonuses that are twenty times bigger than the 2.5 one, and those are likely to have been reached already.
The contract is extremely good for the developer compared to industry standards. They also reserve for themselves the right to do a Marathon shooter after Destiny (any other Bungie shooter would breach an anti-competitive clause).
Elysium-777
Member
Overall, I don't think this will hurt them in the long run. With amount of money the game
is making, they have much to be proud about, and I'm sure they will get the funding to make
the second a much better game.
is making, they have much to be proud about, and I'm sure they will get the funding to make
the second a much better game.
ChrisMahoney
Banned
That's ~$5,000 per employee on average. (Obviously the higher ups get a much bigger chunk).
Jawmuncher
Member
Damn they weren't even close to 90%.
I hadn't looked at the average until now.
Actually kinda sad that Bungie review wise didn't hit it out of the park.
I hadn't looked at the average until now.
Actually kinda sad that Bungie review wise didn't hit it out of the park.
ratcliffja
Member
Sure, why not undercut a game that reportedly cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make/advertise, hurting the series' overall sales potential, just to save $2.5 million dollars. No, I don't think they did that.
Moral Panic
Member
Cool to have an actual dev weigh in.
Unless you happen to be a Sci-Fi RPG with lofty goals of being included among the likes of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Dumb.
This amused me greatly.
It's pretty common. This has been planned as a series since the get go, so bad reviews matter. Destiny 2 can be hurt by these bad reviews. I think it will be fine, but Bungie is going to have to prove that they're listening to the complaints now.
If D2 comes out and is the same repetitive gameplay, non-existent story, and lacking matchmaking as this one they'll be fucked. People are going to be more forgiving with the first, especially this early in the generation when we're all hungry for hot new shit to play.
I bet the employees would have liked the bonus.
ScatheZombie
Member
And yet, there are a ton of subtle, yet extremely important parameters to that.
First, is that none of them are revenue-based. They are based on Operating Income, which is Gross Revenue minus Costs (basically, it is based on profits).
Second is that royalties are calculated per quarter, against the per quarter Operating Income. So it's likely that quarterly profits won't be more than $100m per quarter and thus always 20% or nothing at all (since Operating Costs include Activision overhead and Bungie operation costs). Then, you have the penalties - every quarter than Destiny was delayed, they lose 2% of that 20% - and when/if Development Advances exceed $140m (which it almost certainly did) they lose 2%.
And third, as mentioned above, their Threshold Bonuses are based on Operating Income of $750m and $1b to pay out $25m and another $25m respectively. Destiny has not reached $750m in profit. Not even close. Maybe after the first expansion comes out. Maybe.
Kagoshima_Luke
Gold Member
Hope they are judicious about what complaints they listen to. Last thing I want is a CoD campaign and an avalanche of easy to get loot for everyone.
NullPointer
Member
I fear they wouldn't want it tied to player retention, either.
The item tables and drop rates are bad, I agree.
Maintenance
Member
Poor Bungie, if only their game didn't got a 500 million sold-in in the first 24 hours...oh wait.
Yes, I understand that this money will probably go to the suits, but even if they get a small %, it still is a shitload of money. If it wasn't so clichéd I would post that Woody Harrelson wiping tears with money gif.
Yes, I understand that this money will probably go to the suits, but even if they get a small %, it still is a shitload of money. If it wasn't so clichéd I would post that Woody Harrelson wiping tears with money gif.
Ahh, I'm just bummed they didn't hit home-run with their first title, mostly because this was our first impression of this new IP but also because I think Destiny 2 will lose something significant without O'Donnel's music :/
Of all the things that bring Destiny down, Marty's music is one of the few things that just subtly makes the game much more enjoyable. It's not even a very striking score except for the orbit music and the intro theme etc. but it has an incredible atmosphere mixed with Marty's signature style of dissonant strings and stuff. Lots of good composers in our industry but Marty is like the Thomas Newman of gaming. His music moves me.
Of all the things that bring Destiny down, Marty's music is one of the few things that just subtly makes the game much more enjoyable. It's not even a very striking score except for the orbit music and the intro theme etc. but it has an incredible atmosphere mixed with Marty's signature style of dissonant strings and stuff. Lots of good composers in our industry but Marty is like the Thomas Newman of gaming. His music moves me.
What does it say about me, when the game I most enjoyed in this image is the lowest ranked? Oni is still the most interesting and best thing they've ever done.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
I don't imagine the average employee gets any percentage of the sales (that'd be a lot of percentages given the number of people who work at Bungie). The game selling well means they get to keep their normal paychecks instead of getting fired.
The way I see it is this: A review has two primary purposes, right? One is to offer criticism that can enhance our understanding of a piece of art and give us an insightful, thorough assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. I think we can all agree that it'd be very tough if not impossible to write something like that after spending two days with a game.
The second purpose is to tell people whether or not a game is worth their time/money. I'd argue that review scores don't do a very good job of accomplishing that. They create the illusion of definitive, authoritative criticism, when really they're just arbitrary numbers that mean totally different things to different people. (A 7 at Game Informer, for example, is way different than a 7 at Edge.) To give a review score at all feels silly, but to give one to a game like this after just a few days seems unfair to your readers.
More and more I'm thinking that Destiny feels more akin to something like WoW or even Dota than it does to a traditional video game, and I question the value in providing some sort of definitive quantitative assessment (aka: review score) of a game that will be drastically different in months if not weeks. It's fair for reviewers to want to tell their readers what they think of the game, of course. But scores feel definitive and misleading right now.
I think that review scores are actively hurting video games -- for evidence of that, read this article: http://kotaku.com/metacritic-matters-how-review-scores-hurt-video-games-472462218 -- and I sympathize with the level designers and artists and programmers who may have very well done stellar jobs, putting in countless hours every day just to ship the game, only to miss out on bonuses because someone cranked through the game in two days and decided it was "worth" a 6. I'm baffled and frustrated by the insistence on trying to give quantitative assessments to personal, subjective experiences.
There are rare cases when a game is "objectively" bad -- it's broken, it doesn't function properly, it doesn't do what it promised, etc. Aliens: Colonial Marines comes to mind. It's pretty easy to give that game a 1 and be done with it. But usually, video games deserve so much more than numbers. They really do.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
I'm with you on the scores hurting video games. But, I think it's fair for reviewers to put out their (scored) reviews already. If someone is trying to decide whether they should spend their hard earned $60 on a game or not, why should they give a fuck what the game might be like in 6 months, they want to know what the game is like now. This is the product Bungie chose to sell, it's the product that should be reviewed.
How do you put a score on World of Warcraft? How do you score Hearthstone? Dota? League of Legends? The way to assess these games is through interesting writing, not review scores. And even if you do believe a review score has value to readers, I don't think there's value to offering such a nuance-free evaluation so early.
Let me put it this way: I think review scores are useless, but I think they're even more useless for a game like this, especially after such a short time period.