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[raphier]

Sooo...

Destiny I - Fall 2013
Comet I - Fall 2014
Destiny II - Fall 2015
Comet II - Fall 2016
Destiny III - Fall 2017
Comet III - Fall 2018
Destiny IV - Fall 2019
Comet IV - Fall 2020

With smatterings of DLC (presumably) everywhere. Seems a little... I don't know, crazy? Hitching your wagon to Activision until 2020, at that kind of workload, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in terms of the quality Bungie will be able to impart on these games, and of their ability to hang onto their company culture and sanity if and when things get tight. I hope everything goes flawlessly for them.

Don't tell they are working on Call of Duty: Space Warfare.

 

[Infinite Justice]

I really don't understand why they left Microsoft.

Owning their IP is the best bet.

 

[snoopeasystreet]

By the way, chums. Back to my question, is there a good chance this'll show at E Tri?

If we don't see it at Microsoft's conference we won't see it at all and if we do, it'll be a cg trailer at most. They won't show off a 360 version with a 720 one in development.

 

[butter_stick]

Probably the biggest issue (realistically) is that review scores =/= sales. Like someone pointed out earlier, Fallout New Vegas sold millions of copies and was undoubtedly hugely profitable for Betheseda, but no bonuses were paid to the developer because they were one point short on Metacritic.

Yeah, but, i mean, it's a bonus. I'm sure the contract is good enough that they don't need the bonus. People have bonuses for arbitrary things in all walks of life.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

There's a difference between what bungie wants and what people want bungie to want.

 

[bangai-o]

I really don't understand why they left Microsoft.

moneyhat.jpg

 

[Conor 419]

If we don't see it at Microsoft's conference we won't see it at all and if we do, it'll be a cg trailer at most. They won't show off a 360 version with a 720 one in development.

Good point, chums.

 

[Nirolak]

Owning their IP is the best bet.

I imagine they didn't have royalties like this either.

 

[Barry Burton]

Activision FPS. 8 releases in 8 years. Yep, sounds familiar.

 

[yurinka]

It's a different thing now, though, because it's been made public. Game reviewers who read this story will now have that at the back of their heads when they start writing the review in 2 years. I'm not even suggesting there will be pressure from Bungie on them; but reviewers who have positive feelings for Bungie and want to see them succeed might feel an indirect obligation to inflate the score; those who for whatever reason don't and want to spite them might feel the opposite. This grants them a degree of indirect control over the developer's financials. And given the typical objectivity, maturity, and fanboyish tendencies of most game reviewers, I'm not sure that's a good thing.

True

 

[maquiladora]

Why is it disgraceful to have a bonus for a well reviewed game? I feel like I'm missing something. It may not be a perfect science but it's as close as we're gonna get to judging if a game is "good" or not in the eyes of critics.

Only takes one lazy reviewer for some small French gaming site to give a gave a shit score for whatever arbitrary reason and suddenly the average metacritic score is knocked down because of it, despite the rest of the reviews being postive. And thats a fair deciding factor for whether a bonus should be awarded or not? C'mon.

 

[AgentChris]

Again, Bungie's last game on a single platform sold 3.3 million in the first month and that is *only* counting North America.

A little game called HALO...

 

[stalker]

Personally as a customer I am totally ok with the Gamerankings bonus. The contract does not say that if below 90 they get no bonuses. What they lose is a especific bonus that is strcitly tied to the Gamerankings average.

By the way, with a similar contract, Treyarch and IW would have not received the "quality" bonus for Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3.

 

[OverHeat]

What if Halo 4 get ranked better then Destiny...?

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Leaks of stuff releasing up until 2020, lol, holy shit....

King of Leaks all up in this thread.

Not surprised, don't most companies have a 10 year plan? And it seems that when CoD does decline Bungie and Destiny are that 10 year plan.

 

[NullPointer]

I really don't understand why they left Microsoft.

Lets see how Halo 4 shapes up first.

There's a difference between what bungie wants and what people want bungie to want.

*thumbs up*

 

[Mama Robotnik]

I really don't understand why they left Microsoft.

I think they wanted to own their own IP, which is fair enough.

They'll own it now. They'll also be contractually obliged to release a dozen iterations of their new IP by 2020 on a strictly regimented timetable, which will ironically probably make them completely sick to death of it.

They'll own the IP during and after this development gauntlet. I can't imagine they'll care for it very much by the end though. If I was working on the same franchise, year in year out, for that long, I'd want to desperately move on.

 

[Boney]

marathon being cockblocked

 

[Htown]

Sure hope you guys aren't tired of playing shooters!

Holy shit.

1 a year plus DLC, plus timed exclusivity.

ACTIVISION

 

[Woorloog]

A little game called HALO...

Bungie has a good name due to Halo now, Destiny may perform very well even on single platform because of that.

 

[yurinka]

Is that Microsoft or is it Bungie learning the PS3 for ONE game?

Maybe it's pretty easy to move code and assets from PS3 to PS4, as happens with Vita.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Sure hope you guys aren't tired of playing shooters!

Holy shit.

1 a year plus DLC, plus timed exclusivity.

ACTIVISION

Four games releasing in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019.

Uh? Expansion packs aren't games.

 

[volturnus]

Selling 5 million units in 6 months shouldn't be that hard a task, specially with a talented studio such as Bungie and massive marketing backed by Activision, but it's going to be a 360-exclusive, so I think it will be quite hard to pull off.
I looked for some numbers and here's what I found out:
-Four 360-exclusives reached such milestone: Halo 3, Halo Reach, Gears 1 and Gears 2.
(Not enough info about Gears 3 yet, but it shipped 3 million in its first month)

- Only Halo 3 and Gears 2 did it within 6 months, though. Reach took more than a year to reach 5 million
EDIT:
Link was about US sales alone; couldn't find anything about worldwide sales within such period.

 

[Tunavi]

I really don't understand why they left Microsoft.

MS wanted more Halo from Bungie. Bungie was sick of Halo.

 

[Alex]

Personally I find it kind of surprising that the majority of GAF doesn't own all 3 consoles at this point.

I know most people who play games don't buy that many games a year but this is GAF.

Are there still a lot of people loyal to one console maker?

A decade ago this would have had more merit. Nowadays buying another platform is pretty much solely because of 1-2 stray titles or first party fandoms, so it's hardly a necessity. Most people also have way more to play than they can handle as is. It's not even slightly surprising someone even huge into the medium could easily get by on just a 360 or a PS3.

I'd probably go PC only if I wasn't so terrible with purchases, but I'm weak and there's always something to tempt me.

More on topic, I'm really curious about this game even though I haven't really enjoyed a Bungie title post the original Halo. I hope it's more of a genuine swing at an MMOFPS or at least something more creative than a traditional corridor type game with scant MMO elements. Things like Planetside had LOTS of potential.

 

[Sydle]

Sweet fucking irony, that is awesome.

 

[Nirolak]

Not surprised, don't most companies have a 10 year plan? And it seems that when CoD does decline Bungie and Destiny are that 10 year plan.

Usually product slates are 3 years long, but it isn't unheard of to plan 10 years out for important brands.

 

[Tomat]

So Bungie leaves MS because MS had them by the balls, only to get their balls scooped by Activision.

Hmm...

 

[Im_So_Pringles]

I'm still gonna call BS on this one. I don't think they would want to crank out that many games/expansions. That's just waaayyy too intense IMO.

 

[phosphor112]

That's absolutely disgusting info.

Will not buy.

Activision going to run another company into the fucking ground.

 

[OverHeat]

Bungie has a good name due to Halo now, Destiny may perform very well even on single platform because of that.

How will they market this with "from the creator of Halo" now that 343i is in charge of the franchise :s

 

[Shiggy]

MS wanted more Halo from Bungie. Bungie was sick of Halo.

Now they'll produce Destiny games every year? I would've expected that they want to work on different titles.

 

[Grecco]

Sounds awesome. Cant Wait.

 

[funkystudent]

Targeting 5 million in the first 6 months might be pushing it just a bit.

If it was 360,ps3,PC I could see it getting 5-7 million but 5 million only on Xbox and its a new IP at the tail end of a generation when the new systems will be announced and maybe even released. ehhhh.


I hope they wont be disappointed if it only sells 3-4 million.

 

[gdt]

Hot damn one of the biggest leaks of all time. This is fascinating.

 

[Mama Robotnik]

I'm still gonna call BS on this one. I don't think they would want to crank out that many games/expansions. That's just waaayyy too intense IMO.

If this is a legally binding contract, what are you defining as "BS"?

 

[Woorloog]

How will they market this with "from the creator of Halo" now that 343i is in charge of the franchise :s

"From the Creator of Halo Combat Evolved" or something like that. No need to mention Halo 4.

 

[Infinite Justice]

I imagine they didn't have royalties like this either.

I guess so.



Wait so Activision can cancel the deal if Comet 2 is released and their reasoning can be anything? lol

 

[Thoraxes]

Woah that bonus thing about the 90 gamerankings.com/metacritic section.

 

[GarthVaderUK]

Reach took more than a year to reach 5 million

That's US only. It did 3.3 million in the US in the first month.

 

[snoopeasystreet]

I'm still gonna call BS on this one. I don't think they would want to crank out that many games/expansions. That's just waaayyy too intense IMO.

This isn't a rumor.

 

[bigtroyjon]

Looks like the budget for the first game is $140 million including marketing as they mention it in connection with overages.

 

[bangai-o]

does Bungie own the rights for toys, books, comics, movies and et cetera? If so then good deal.

 

[DMeisterJ]

5 million in 6 months when the video game industry is on a downward slope and your exclusive to one platform? Not a smart idea. I could see if it was HD consoles/PC/720 but 360/720 when a lot of the people that own a 720 being overlap may be quite a bit tougher.

And it's an MMO.

Good luck.

 

[Boney]

Now they'll produce Destiny games every year? I would've expected that they want to work on different titles.

Only the lucky 5%

 

[kingocfs]

What's with the reaction to the metacritic/gamerankings bonus? Isn't that standard practice these days?

 

[Mama Robotnik]

Woah that bonus thing about the 90 gamerankings.com/metacritic section.

When the game comes to press, the reviewers will now explicitly know the score they must grade it in order for Bungie to get their bonus.

I can't think of a situation where this has happened before. Its fucking fascinating.

 

[Demoncarnotaur]

So, this is kinda crazy. Does it basically confirm the 720 for 2013?

Anyways, as far as contracts goes, I dunno how 'good' this is for Bungie, it reads to be very limiting.. maybe its because they own the IP with it?

Destiny will be a very interesting game, I really hope it shows up at e3.. Also, Marathon? Holy shit, that should be its own thread also. wow. Lots of info..I wonder what else can be dug out..

How did this leak out?

 

[rdrr gnr]

This is the most interesting gaming leak I think I've have ever read. This is what money does to people. I just don't see this being as successful as they want without tens of millions of dollars of marketing. I also love how Activision can just cancel contract. I 'd love to see Respawn's deal with EA.

 

[Deadly Joker]

2013 means it probably won't release the same year as a mainline halo (assuming 343 are on a 2 year development cycle).

I thought 343 would be on a 3 year cycle like Bungie was for 1,2,3, and Reach.