Support NeoGAF

[yurinka]

Bungie have a long history of appalling project management.

No, Bungie has a long history of successfully releasing insanely successful Halo and Destiny games.

Which ones?

Fuck, I now remember having this exact conversation with you last year, but again, that section was pretty much full of examples, while the GaaS one ONLY had one game included, which should leave space for several more. I don't know who you are trying to fool, lol.

Do you realize that if this was the case, they would have put it, anyway?

Sony was working on 12 GaaS and only had MLB there, meaning the other 11 were missing (unreleased, understandable not to include them there). Plus Sony had previous GaaS such as PlayStation Destruction All Stars (failure, understandable not to include it there), GT Sports ,PS Home, LBP etc (too old, understandable not to include them there).

In addition to the GaaS ones I mentioned, I don't remember the single player part of the chart right now but in the single player/non-GaaS part there were many big Sony IPs missing there too, they obviously just added there the currently more relevant and successful ones as few examples. I mean, things like The Order, Until Dawn or Killzone were SP focused and not GaaS but maybe were too old and not successful enough to list them as examples specially when they didn't have enough space and weren't making an complete list.

Do you realize that if this was the case, they would have put it, anyway?

As I said before, the goal of the table was to highlight that they were mostly focused on SP before and now they want to bet harder on MP GaaS, so chosen a few clear examples to illustrate it.

They didn't have space to put all the games and wasn't needed to include all the game. GT7 pretty likely wasn't included because in the left column wasn't a good example of a single player non-GaaS because it's GaaS and also has multiplayer, and also wasn't a good example for the column of their new GaaS efforts because GT already was a GaaS before, unlike MLB didn't become GaaS as part of this push.

 

[Jack Package]

No, Bungie has a long history of successfully releasing insanely successful Halo and Destiny games.

That doesn't contradict what I stated.

 

[Hawkeye2890]

All they have to do is make Destiny 3 with an easy hop-on point for new players and they will make a ton of money.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

Supporting Japan Studio

Buying the most woke studio in Bellevue

Japan Studio was a money burner. It’s replacement is way better.

 

[FingerBang]

Well, they are a fantastic studio that has been trying its best to squeeze the most money out of its live service, but it's been doing worse and worse, and the boss wants a return on investment. They should have released either Destiny 3 and/or a different, non-live service game in the last couple of years. Destiny 2 is unplayable for new players and people who haven't played in a while.

ha, it’s funny when Microsoft worked with Bungie it was “MS BAD, BUNGIE NO HAVE CREATIVE FREEDOM”

Now Sony have bought them and within around 2 years, are looking to do a hostile takeover.

Bungie flourished under Microsoft, flourished some more after Microsoft let them go and now Sony have them, they look to be going under pretty quick.

Insane way to gloss over the Activision years, the "ACTIVISION BAD, BUNGIE HAS NO FREEDOM" and the many years of Bungie proving time and time again they are the source of their own fucking problems

 

[vaibhavpisal]

3.5 billion investment…. A lost cause, which executive thinks like that? They themselves will be fired if they uttered it.

 

[Solarstrike]

Have to admit though and it's probably been said already quite a bit, the gunplay and net code (fluidity of online gameplay and functionality) of Destiny/Destiny 2 is still some of the best if not the best in the business. And level/map designers as well are top notch talent. The net code stuff will pay for itself. Imagine an open world/multiplayer Killzone or Resistance game utilizing the tech. Good times ahead

 

[nial]

Sony was working on 12 GaaS and only had MLB there, meaning the other 11 were missing (unreleased, understandable not to include them there).

Because they weren't still announced...?
Man, it's so simple, if they considered GT7 to be GaaS, they would have put It there, but they didn't.

but in the single player/non-GaaS part there were many big Sony IPs missing there too, they obviously just added there the currently more relevant and successful ones as few examples. I mean, things like The Order, Until Dawn or Killzone were SP focused and not GaaS

Old and irrelevant, I mean, you may as well also include some shit like Genshi no Kotoba at that point.

and also wasn't a good example for the column of their new GaaS efforts because GT already was a GaaS before, unlike MLB didn't become GaaS as part of this push.

I don't see anything pointing at this being the case, but whatever.

 

[yurinka]

That doesn't contradict what I stated.

Yes, it contradicts what you stated.

You were mentioning normal things in game development such as bugs, delays or developments getting rebooted as management issues as examples of bad management, when they aren't issues and in most cases have nothing to do with management.

The management duty is to manage their teams to deliver successful products, which is what they consistently did with all their games with huge success to the point they have been one of the most influential teams on their gaming area.

Because they weren't still announced...?
Man, it's so simple, if they considered GT7 to be GaaS, they would have put It there, but they didn't.

So according to you out of the 12 GaaS + older PS Studios GaaS titles + Bungie suff Sony only considers to be a GaaS MLB because it was the only one there.

Old and irrelevant, I mean, you may as well also include some shit like Genshi no Kotoba at that point.

I don't see anything pointing at this being the case, but whatever.

According to you such game isn't considered by Sony to be either a single player game or a GaaS title because isn't listed there.

 

[Reallink]

At the time seemed like a great acquisition, but I gotta stick with Sony on this on.

Destiny 2 has been around for too long.

LOL no it didn't, the overwhelming consensus was mouth agaped shock at the comically inflated price, with ample wishcrafting that Sony executives "must have seen and been wildly impressed by Destiny 3", which it's very clear at this point, doesn't exist

 

[bender]

“Fans” didn’t support Japan Studio when they were releasing games and now they want them back, really?

You don't know what you have until it is gone. Further, even had they sold better, Sony's current expectations for "fan support" far exceed what those type of titles could produce.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

You mean it took hard journalism to figure out something obvious like this? You can look at the finances and numbers and make this up for yourself. It's great to have the discussion and we know it's been quite the whiff on an otherwise really solid track record of nurturing and properly acquiring studios on Sony's behalf. For their sake, I hope marathon is a really good game because I am rooting for them but I'm not the biggest destiny or even Halo fan so I never really looked at Bungie is some premier studio.

 

[nial]

You don't know what you have until it is gone. Further, even had they sold better, Sony's current expectations for "fan support" far exceed what those type of titles could produce.

I still think Housemarque's acquisition contradicts that.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Yes, it contradicts what you stated.

You were mentioning normal things in game development such as bugs, delays or developments getting rebooted as management issues as examples of bad management, when they aren't issues and in most cases have nothing to do with management.

The management duty is to manage their teams to deliver successful products, which is what they consistently did with all their games with huge success to the point they have been one of the most influential teams on their gaming area.


So according to you out of the 12 GaaS + older PS Studios GaaS titles + Bungie suff Sony only considers to be a GaaS MLB because it was the only one there.

Both Destiny and Destiny went through development hell due to reboots a year before release.

Destiny 1 took a long time to get back on track and when they completely nailed it by the time The Taken King released, they dropped the ball big time with D2 due to aforementioned reboot.
Then they scrapped half the game post-release.

Played Destiny 1 for 2864 hours, dropped D2 after a month because it was a major step down from D1 The Taken King.

How anyone can say Bungie didn't have management issues regarding the Destiny-franchise is beyond me.
 

 

[mckmas8808]

Gran Turismo 7 is not GaaS and it launched 4 months before Bungie was acquired. MLB follows a clear, yearly model, so I don't know about that.
I do agree with Helldivers 2, though. Bungie was involved in that game for 1.5 years.

GT7 really is one of the best versions of GaaS actually.

 

[Solarstrike]

 

[mckmas8808]

Day 1 on PC makes sense from a sales perspective. Sony doesn't JUST want to sell consoles, they don't make money on that.

Yes they do make money selling consoles. Why is this new narrative being created lately?

 

[DeaDPo0L84]

Watching the stream now, they still have pronouns under their names when being introduced lol.

 

[bender]

I still think Housemarque's acquisition contradicts that.

It will be interesting to see how Housemarque fair long term. I don't think Returnal burned up the sales charts on PS5 or PC but the budget also had to have been tiny compared to most other first party offerings. The acquisition was probably convenient for both as Housemarque always delivered quality but seemed to struggle financially and the cost of acquiring them was probably meager.

 

[RickMasters]

Call me crazy but Sony should sell bungie to Microsoft

I doubt MS would want them, these days. The people that made halo great at bungie left long ago, joined other teams or stuck around with 343i.


I started to view them differently after they left ABK, and just doubled down on their agressive MTX and DLC approach….. the core game is fun but you can’t really do raids or dungeons unless you are playing with people who know what the hell they are doing…. They can’t be done solo. And what’s left for people who buy the season passes and content is just rinse wash and repeat shit with new weapons you have to grind out for far too long for….. the moment I realised it was THEM who don’t respect their players time, I knew it was time for me to check out. Destiny 2 is a game with a fantastic combat loop, but buried under repetition, and rewards that are never really worth the time. A lot os the time the seasonal weapons just deal like reskins. The weapon and armour mods that become useless as a new season comes around, only for them to offer you pretty much the same mods…… had to leave that game alone.



After typing that last paragraph and seeing how well helldivers 2 has turned out….. bungie was a bad investment for Sony.

 

[Nydius]

After all these years, wasn’t M$ or activision take would take bungie and destroy them. Gonna look like Sony. Who would had guess that 10 years ago

Fashionably late to the thread and still reading so maybe it's already been said but:

Sony isn't destroying Bungie, Bungie is destroying Bungie. They were mired in controversies about mediocre content and monetization schemes long before Sony decided to buy them. Everyone thought Activision was the problem, but it turned out that Bungie was the problem all along because after leaving ACTI they ramped up their monetization and greedy schemes while content, outside of base Witch Queen, took a nose dive in quality.

That was why many of us were utterly baffled when Sony decided to acquire them. There were plenty of other options to try to push for GaaS content models that didn't involve a money sink studio that had a lot of negativity surrounding it.

They were going under on their own, messing up two launches and terrible handling of D2.

They still work independently under Sony.

You're kind of being a revisionist.

ETA: This. People seem to forget that D1 was a clusterfuck at launch and took a year to course correct with Taken King. Everyone blamed Activision. Then Eververse launched, which rankled the ire of people but, again, people blamed Activision. D2 was such a shitshow at launch that it nearly sunk Bungie entirely and it took them until Forsaken to get back on track. Damn Activision!

Then Bungie split from Activision and we learned that it was never Activision's fault; All those decisions were made by Bungie and they doubled or tripled down on their recycled content, removing content, and monetization schemes.

Bungie hasn't "flourished", they just got lucky no one was competing with them with a better product at the time and have been a benefactor of sunk cost fallacy ever since. Even that has run its course as a lot of their fans have turned against them over the aggressive paywalls and the vaulting of content.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Sony isn't destroying Bungie, Bungie is destroying Bungie.

Sony isn't destroying Bungir. Bungie isn't destroying Bungie. The media is destroying gamers by feeding them cheaply fabricated clickbait articles that makes them dumber.

 

[Jack Package]

Yes, it contradicts what you stated.

You were mentioning normal things in game development such as bugs, delays or developments getting rebooted as management issues as examples of bad management, when they aren't issues and in most cases have nothing to do with management.

The management duty is to manage their teams to deliver successful products, which is what they consistently did with all their games with huge success to the point they have been one of the most influential teams on their gaming area.


So according to you out of the 12 GaaS + older PS Studios GaaS titles + Bungie suff Sony only considers to be a GaaS MLB because it was the only one there.



According to you such game isn't considered by Sony to be either a single player game or a GaaS title because isn't listed there

Yes, the games did well but it doesn't mean Bungie did a good job of developing them.
Having a long-serving member of staff get fired then successfully sue you is not "normal development".
Jones is an imbecile at best and a shyster at worst. The truth is, Bungie have succeeded despite themselves.

You should Google the meaning of "contradiction".

 

[ClosBSAS]

They are not wrong...trash acquisition

 

[DrFigs]

Sony isn't destroying Bungir. Bungie isn't destroying Bungie. The media is destroying gamers by feeding them cheaply fabricated clickbait articles that makes them dumber.

I agree with you, but I also want to propose that: gamers are destroying gamers with their lack of critical thinking.

maybe this anonymous message to this literally-who youtuber isn't an unimpeachable source. Maybe the fact that they're just repeating already widely circulated commentary and providing no new information (like concrete numbers about what preorders are) is a little suspicious.

but people have this insane hate boner for live service games and an infatuation w/ any negative news, so they'll swallow it up anyway.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Paul Tassi responding like...

 

[BouncyFrag]

Current vibe at Sony:

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Sony isn't destroying Bungir. Bungie isn't destroying Bungie. The media is destroying gamers by feeding them cheaply fabricated clickbait articles that makes them dumber.

Totoki himself publicly said that Bungie had to do better. When your boss makes a statement like this, you'd better update your resume and Linkedin profile.

 

[Aenima]

Anyone could see it.

- Overpriced studio
- Kept self publishing / not a part of Playstation Studios / Releasing multiplatform games
- Served as a consultant / advisor on how to monetize GAAS, when players dont really like the kind monetisation Bungie uses.
- Purchased as a response to MS Bethesda purchase. / Rushed Purchase

Sony can still profit from them if Marathon becomes the next Destiny when Destiny was on its prime, but thats alot of money on something that might not happen.

 

[Fabieter]

Every single -fully owned or not- subsidiary company of every single corporation operate independently because they are companies themselves.

But being a subsidiary means they have a boss who they have to obey and follow the strategy and whatever that boss decide.

In this case, Sony wanted to grow in the MP, GaaS, shooters areas and get revenue and profits from non-PS platforms. Plus also to get GaaS top expertise and knowledge. So bought Bungie for that. The strategies and goals of both were aligned, so didn't change anything at Bungie and did include them as a SIE subsidiary with their own publishing label but not under PS Studios, to differentiate that Bungie games will continue in rival consoles while PS Studios will remain console exclusive.

As a fully owned subsidiary, SIE can do whatever they want with them. If tomorrow Jim Ryan or whoever his successor is after Totoki's interim CEO period want to change something in Bungie, like to cancel all their games and to put them to make Knack VR games instead they'll do it because it's their fully owned subsidiary.


Totoki said that Bungie firing around 100 people was something Bungie already had planned since they closed the acquisition due to acquisition related redundancies.

Meaning, Sony already have people in areas like marketing, publishing, HR, CM, QA, IT etc for all their games, so Bungie could reduce their internal teams for these and other areas because Sony already have people doing that job.

When Bungie was acquired they were around 900 people. Kept growing and when made that layoff decreased from around 1200 to around 1100. Since then they kept growing and now are around 1500-1600.

So there's no overhiring or actions or firings, or signs of supposed inefficient production. Destiny 2 kept releasing their yearly expansions, and had a small delay on the next one and appaarently Marathon too, normal things in game development.

That's like 3 times the headcount of insomniac which will release their fourth full game by the time marathon might come along. Why do they have so many people compared to other studios which release more games more regularly.

 

[DrFigs]

That's like 3 times the headcount of insomniac which will release their fourth full game by the time marathon might come along. Why do they have so many people compared to other studios which release more games more regularly.

their games are more profitable, they have substantially more content in them, they're supported for longer periods of times.

 

[Fabieter]

their games are more profitable, they have substantially more content in them, they're supported for longer periods of times.

Their revenue dropped considerably and their games probably costs more money to maintain and develop than any insomniac games. Sony also like good reviewed games which bungie also lacks the.

 

[MDSLKTR]

Paul Tassi responding like...

 

[DrFigs]

Their revenue dropped considerably and their games probably costs more money to maintain and develop than any insomniac games. Sony also like good reviewed games which bungie also lacks the.

I agree that missing their targets for lightfall was bad, but that was one piece of dlc that led to a bad year. the success of destiny 2 isn't defined by the one year, nor is their potential as a developer defined by it. maybe if preorders for the next expansion were terrible, it would be a sign of future problems w/ bungie. but we don't actually know that they are terrible. the news stories about it rely on dubious data and the person sending this email to this youtuber didn't seem to know anything about it.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Totoki himself publicly said that Bungie had to do better. When your boss makes a statement like this, you'd better update your resume and Linkedin profile.

Bill Belicheck said the same thing about Tom Brady. Phil Jackson said the same thing about Jordan.

High performing team, groups, entities are constantly identifying weaknesses and trying to correct them. I wouldn't blow it out of proportion. Bungie is a premier GAAS studio at the start of the GAAS era.

 

[Fabieter]

I agree that missing their targets for lightfall was bad, but that was one piece of dlc that led to a bad year. the success of destiny 2 isn't defined by the one year, nor is their potential as a developer defined by it. maybe if preorders for the next expansion were terrible, it would be a sign of future problems w/ bungie. but we don't actually know that they are terrible. the news stories about it rely on dubious data and the person sending this email to this youtuber didn't seem to know anything about it.

Alot of people also lost trust in bungies gaas games. They lost alot of goodwill with the bad milking of d2.

 

[Nydius]

Sony can still profit from them if Marathon becomes the next Destiny when Destiny was on its prime, but thats alot of money on something that might not happen.

I don't see a lot of overlap between Destiny fans and future Marathon players outside of the very small Destiny community that only plays PVP.

Destiny is largely popular due to its pseudo-MMO PVE content with quests and dungeons (strikes), raids, and clans. Even when everyone I knew was playing Destiny at its height, PVP was largely a secondary thought. I can't imagine many of the people I played D1 or D2 with jumping for joy over the idea of playing an F2P extraction shooter that's just a larger version of The Division's Dark Zone with more GaaS elements.

 

[Proelite]

After all these years, wasn’t M$ or activision take would take bungie and destroy them. Gonna look like Sony. Who would had guess that 10 years ago

The third time's happening, you're the asshole.

It's Bungie. They're just not in that top tier of studios anymore.

 

[Puscifer]

I don't think this is a rumor to be honest.

Pretty much, this was 100% a retaliation acquisition. The best minds have largely left and who's left aren't the brains to be ones running the show like that. This was a top 5 blunder from Sony for sure

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Paul Tassi responding like...

Paul tassi, stories from his assi

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Stop falling for fake news people.

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

It really is the equivalent of Microsoft expecting to get Donkey Kong from Rare.

 

[Elios83]

Anonymous mail

I don't really know how the impact of Bungie can be judged before they release Marathon or another IP.
Destiny is still huge and profitable but it has also run its course imo.
It will be Bungie's ability to create an other hit that will define if they were a good purchase or not.
In any case either they perform well by themselves or their contract states that Sony will basically clean house and will run the company as they want.
So in both cases Sony has something to be happy.

 

[Ceadeus]

Bungie...how the mighty have fallen

I thought you left Gaf? you changed your mind?

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Nothing to see here, I guess.

 

[WitchHunter]

Youtube is phenomenal. I write an authentic sounding letter to someone and the yter makes a video from it...

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Anonymous mail

I don't really know how the impact of Bungie can be judged before they release Marathon or another IP.
Destiny is still huge and profitable but it has also run its course imo.

I am constantly amazed at how easily duped people are. If they want to believe something, they really don't need much evidence to convince themselves of it.

They judge Bungie early because it feels good, not because there's any rational thought behind it. Led by emotion exclusively.

 

[Rat Rage]

Sony's leadership is a failed investment.

 

[JCK75]

Truth, also Rare was in a downward spiral when MS bought them... Activision/Bliz in a downward spiral as well..

 

[OverHeat]

I thought you left Gaf? you changed your mind?

Yep