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[Einchy]

Oh wow, I guess all those rumors were true.

 

[KageMaru]

I can't wait to see what this turns out to be. Feel sorry for bungie that this was leaked. IMO they'll reach their milestone just fine, they have a huge and dedicated following.

A bit surprised that the first game may be a 360 exclusive. They have been hiring ps3 devs for a while now. Maybe they ran into some issues porting their 360-centric engine to the ps3 since I heard that's usually a nightmare. They may have not been able to work around these issues with their tight development schedule.

Also excited about the Marathon news =)

Oh and lol at the bitterness earlier in the thread.

 

[GarthVaderUK]

Then why don't we see more contracts like these appear? Contracts between devs and publishers are made all the time.

Here you go:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...-activision-contract-20120521,0,3463781.story

 

[Kit Airwave]

Oh another FPS? No thanks.

Yeah, but it's their specialty and it's an MMO.

What would we want from them? 3PS, RTS, Dungeon Crawler, etc?

 

[Tagg9]

Then why don't we see more contracts like these appear? Contracts between devs and publishers are made all the time.

Because not all publishers are sued by their devs.

 

[funkystudent]

Microsoft probably paid them a good chunk of change.

I wouldn't even say that.

My guess is this exclusive deal was part of the original Bungie - MS split.



on the plus side now we know 1 e3 surprise when Bungie announces there new game is xbox only and a future e3 betrayalaton when its announced for the ps4 / whatever.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

lol why is Valva the example? they are the wore example if not Team Ico.

They were saying that not even Valve could pump out quality under that amount of pressure.

 

[bigtroyjon]

Then why don't we see more contracts like these appear? Contracts between devs and publishers are made all the time.

Is it really that hard to read the OP?

Details of video game publisherActivision Blizzard Inc.'s high-profile deal in 2010 with Bungie Inc. to make an original game series has been made public for the first time as part of a separate lawsuit involving the Call of Duty game franchise.

A bit surprised that the first game may be a 360 exclusive. They have been hiring ps3 devs for a while now. Maybe they ran into some issues porting their 360-centric engine to the ps3 since I heard that's usually a nightmare. They may have not been able to work around these issues with their tight development schedule.

This contract is prior to them hiring the PS3 devs, by about a year.

 

[Choc]

how the heck did this get revealed via the call of duty suit?

it has NOTHING to do with that series? wtf :|

*popcorn* though

 

[Alex]

Aren't they kinda aiming too high. I think they are overestimating how much sellingpower studionames have. Even Nintendo doesn't have the guarentee to sell 5 mil+ of a new IP.

x developer makes CoD = 20mil+ sales
Infinity Ward makes x game = have to be lucky to get 10% of CoD sales.

I think the only risky part is opening it up as an exclusive. If it had at least a PC version in addition, then it'd be much safer. If Bungie can produce a good game, between their own solid fanbase and Activisions advertising/distribution arm, it'd be an easy bet. People may hate Activision (for good reason) but they're a good partner for this sort of thing if you can deliver.

I remember saying that Bungie sold their souls to the devil, when they first announced that they partnered with Activision for their new IP.

Partnering up with a monolithic publisher, known for vaporizing it's internal studios to work on a single franchise for eight years .. that sounds familiar.

Well, at least now they get royalties!

What would we want from them? 3PS, RTS, Dungeon Crawler, etc?

I wouldn't mind another Myth, some day.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

how the heck did this get revealed via the call of duty suit?

it has NOTHING to do with that series? wtf :|

*popcorn* though

My guess is that it's being alleged that Activision did what they did because they knew that they would be going into this deal with Bungie.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

The game has in-game game masters.

This is presumably like a regular ass MMO in many ways.

Well that's interesting. It definitely implies certain features, so they couldn't possibly be breaking the MMO mold too much.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

It's Bungie. It will move 5 million in a week.

Like Oni!


come on, we all know HALO sells, but something "just Bungie" might as well have "potential turd" written on it. I'm not saying that to hate on Bungie, but because they got very lucky with Halo and we have no idea how much of that was MS being awesome support (they seem to do that when people make them money. Also: the Gears novel thing actually worked out, unlike EA's similar attempt with ME3. MS seems to appreciate certain difficulties more than other publishers for some reason) and how much of it was Bungie.

Just because you want it have been Bungie doesn't mean it was, or that it will be as good in the future. New IP by the creators of Halo? It better work, or the backlash will kill the contract right there and then.
And considering the Halo crowd, I'm guessing MMO is basically the next best thing to a Massive turd alert incoming. Halo players seem to like certain things about Halo, MMO (not be confused with social interaction like Waypoint) is not one of them.

But we'll see. Hey, I liked Oni too.

 

[KageMaru]

Oh also, this isn't the first time a dev had been offered a bonus by hitting a certain review score average ;-)

 

[AgentChris]

FPS MMO. As a PS and Nintendo owner I have no interest in this.

 

[GarthVaderUK]

how the heck did this get revealed via the call of duty suit?

it has NOTHING to do with that series? wtf :|

*popcorn* though

What does this have to do with the Call of Duty case?

Plenty, argued West and Zampella's attorney, Robert M. Schwartz. In a brief filed May 1, Schwartz wrote that his clients took a smaller royalty, relative to similar contracts with top talent such as Bungie, in exchange for having more creative control over the Call of Duty franchise. West and Zampella, Schwartz argued, are entitled to compensation for the value of that creative authority, which could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars depending on how the royalties are calculated. Activision and Schwartz's clients each are alleging total damages of as much as $1 billion.

Of course, the two highly complex contracts are apples and oranges. Among the many differences is that West and Zampella were employees of Activision, while Bungie is an independent developer operating under a publishing deal with Activision. In addition, Bungie owns the intellectual property for the Destiny and Comet games, whereas Activision owns the Call of Duty franchise.

Should the case go to trial as planned May 29, it will ultimately be up to a jury to go through the contracts and decide who will end up having to pay out.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...-activision-contract-20120521,0,3463781.story

 

[deadlast]

When can I preorder this?

 

[Grayman]

Can you link to the respective section of the contract? $140 million seems a lot, but not altogether unreasonable given they are building a new IP from the ground up (and possibly developing a next-gen engine).

Most bugets tossed around do not include the marketing costs which the $140 seems to.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

That's absolutely disgusting info.

Will not buy.

Activision going to run another company into the fucking ground.

I love Bungie but I hate Activision more.

 

[Deleted member 81567]

How will the 360 have an MMO? Isn't that impossible with their shitty policy?

 

[dragonflys545]

Yeah, but it's their specialty and it's an MMO.

What would we want from them? 3PS, RTS, Dungeon Crawler, etc?

Uh yea...

 

[Nirolak]

Okay I think the OP includes all the major highlights.

If people want something else included just shout.

 

[Mrbob]

I think the only risky part is opening it up as an exclusive. If it had at least a PC version in addition, then it'd be much safer. If Bungie can produce a good game, between their own solid fanbase and Activisions advertising/distribution arm, it'd be an easy bet. People may hate Activision (for good reason) but they're a good partner for this sort of thing if you can deliver.

This is the one reason I'm puzzled the game will start out as an exclusive. Does the industry not learn from others mistakes? RE4 was an aberration. Look at franchises like Bioshock and Mass Effect, they do really well but both series failed badly to expand their user bases to other platforms. Now Mass Effect is more of a unique situation, but if you don't get the user based hyped from day one it's hard to pull them in at all. Compare this with Assassin's Creed which has had healthy sales on both consoles.

It's not impossible, but it makes things tougher to make headway onto other platforms.

 

[Kit Airwave]

Most bugets tossed around do not include the marketing costs which the $140 seems to.

I kind of assumed "Tiger" was their engine; I would guess that would be a pricey purchase.

 

[butter_stick]

the same reason people should not have to depend on tips to get their full wage.

the same reason monetary incentives do not actually work quite as well as the theoretical models say they should: because when you have enough and you're treated like shit: the bonus from the shitty ass company can go to hell.

It's a simple extortion practice to deny workers the money that they have rightfully earned. "Selling" is not even dependent on the developer or their investment, so why should someone go trough crunchtime, lose friends and possibly even worse over it, FOR SOMETHING THEY CANNOT CONTROL??

Sorry, just finished watching Angry Joe review battleship, another Activision classic! His anger kinda rubbed off on me.

(PR, marketing and other management -line management- branches like to pretend that they know what they are doing and that everything is predictable. This is absolute nonsense. No matter what you do, there will be things that bomb or do something completely different for no apparent or even re-traceable reason at all.
The management cult -this is a fair word to use at this point, imho- has a systematic and catastrophic lack of appreciation for the concept of a black swan, and refuses to change accordingly. As a result, it drags itself from crisis to crisis, without end, until the company dies.
Or, in the big version: the economy. But that's another story)

It's a bonus.

I'm sure they wouldn't be struggling for money even if they missed the target. Also they agreed to the damn contract so they must be comfortable with it. All these bleeding hearts are making me chuckle.

 

[volturnus]

Okay I think the OP includes all the major highlights.

If people want something else included just shout.

This, perhaps?

 

[-PXG-]

So it's basically court ordered, preemptive damage control in order to put things in plain sight so no one can start shit later.

 

[Kit Airwave]

Uh yea...

Uh yeah what?

They have to make another type of game because they've already done a FPS?

 

[Nirolak]

This, perhaps?

For that one I feel it's better to just bump the old thread.

 

[KageMaru]

This contract is prior to them hiring the PS3 devs, by about a year.

hmmm didn't realize this. Maybe I'm off on some timing.

 

[ii Stryker]

So perhaps we get a teaser at Microsofts E3 presser this year.

 

[ProXimity]

Is Bungie's 20% royalty claim decent or is Activision pissing down their throats with that one?

 

[Spawnling]

So perhaps we get a teaser at Microsofts E3 presser this year.

This and a new update to Bungie.net itself

 

[bangai-o]

it could be a Space Channel 5 clone.

 

[Nirolak]

This, perhaps?

For that one I feel it's better to just bump the old thread.

All right, here's the thread if anyone wants to discuss the contractor issue: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=421988

Is Bungie's 20% royalty claim decent or is Activision pissing down their throats with that one?

The traditional royalty rate for independent developers is effectively 0%, so this would be fantastic.

 

[Osaka15]

All they have to do is say, "Halo and Call of duty next big game." Or something like that, and it will reach it's selling point.

I am not expecting anything great as Bungie and Activision are mediocre developers that thrive on one hit wonders. However, I will reserve this judgement until more information become available....looking forward to more information .

 

[shintoki]

Is Bungie's 20% royalty claim decent or is Activision pissing down their throats with that one?

Obsidian got paid a flat amount with 0% Royalty and only a bonus if it got over 85% on Metacritic, which it didn't.

So Bungie probably got some of the best terms possible.

 

[GarthVaderUK]

Was it really a joke then?
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/05/bungie-mmo-announcement-during-gdc-panel-was-a-joke/

an industrious journalist noticed the final slide from David’s GDC deck which apparently proclaimed that we were hiring for a "massively…multiplayer action game." Ruh oh.

Now, in rehearsal Aldridge was convinced that everybody got the joke. It was all in the delivery, he assured us, and he was certain it was clear that he was playfully riffing off of the recent rumors. Unfortunately, most people can’t figure David out – they can’t process him. And we don’t expect them to. You can’t process David Aldridge with a normal brain. You’d need tiger blood and Adonis DNA.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=30859

 

[OldJadedGamer]

All they have to do is say, "Halo and Call of duty next big game." Or something like that, and it will reach it's selling point.

"A new MMO/FPS from the creators of the Halo series and the publisher of World of Warcraft and Call of Duty comes a brand new game called Destiny!"

Pre-order now!!!

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

It's a bonus.

I'm sure they wouldn't be struggling for money even if they missed the target. Also they agreed to the damn contract so they must be comfortable with it. All these bleeding hearts are making me chuckle.

fair enough. Bungie might be in a position where this is true.

But very few others are, including Obsidian. So even if they could achieve it, it just continues a very bad premise. That alone should be enough reason not to sign such ridiculous terms.

 

[TAJ]

Is this isn't proof that Bungie straight-up fucked MS, then I don't know what would be.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Is this isn't proof that Bungie straight-up fucked MS, then I don't know what would be.

Wait, what?

 

[Mileena]

Is this isn't proof that Bungie straight-up fucked MS, then I don't know what would be.

For giving them a timed exclusive?

 

[thatbox]

This is seriously the best deal Bungie could get? Really?

 

[TAJ]

Wait, what?

"Bububu we're being stifled artistically. They just want us to be a Halo factory. Whaaaaaaa!"

/MS releases them
/They promptly make Ring In Space

 

[Elginer]

So perhaps we get a teaser at Microsofts E3 presser this year.

Pretty much.

 

[TAJ]

For giving them a timed exclusive?

I'm sure they paid for that.
Do you really think Activision would be publishing this if MS hadn't used up their first right of refusal?

 

[Mileena]

I'm sure they paid for that.
Do you really think Activision would be publishing this if MS hadn't used up their first right of refusal?

Well it's MS, of course they paid for it. Activision and Bungie are just screwing PS3 users as usual.

 

[Zeal]

"Bububu we're being stifled artistically. They just want us to be a Halo factory. Whaaaaaaa!"

/MS releases them
/They promptly make Ring In Space

This is more or less accurate.

 

[KageMaru]

Well it's MS, of course they paid for it. Activision and Bungie are just screwing PS3 users as usual.

Lol wow at this post.