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[Killjoy-NL]

If people have been play testing that slop for 6 years that means it's been in development for 7-8 years which I refuse to believe because it means its going to be a costlier bomb than concord.

Depends on what they were testing at the time. Might have been a very early concept for a game.

Maybe I misheard, but I'm pretty certain he stated 6 years.

Edit:

No idea what Concord has to do with it? Sony didn't acquire Bungie until 3 years ago.

 

[yurinka]

You keep bringing up Discord numbers like they are a holy grail. The same Discord numbers you brought up that has Valorant first, Fortnite second and Marathon has more Discord subs than PUBG. I'm pretty sure Fortnite is played the most by a mile.

I never said they are the holy grail, but they show they built there a big ass community just to try to get access to a NA limited closed alpha, of a size similar/superior/close to many super successful games.

I post it because like the Youtube or Twitch viewship it's measurable, objective, factual data that shows the interest in the game.

If there's so many people itching to play the alpha why did the Steam count go from 6,919 on day one and dropped like a rock by the next day?

Because players can't freely access it and Bungie is who decides how many users they did put there each day to test whatever they had to test with their servers.

If Bungie would have decided to add more players than the previous one each day instead, the graph would be growing each day. Same goes with the amount of players, if Bungie would have decided to open it to more people or to make it an open alpha the number of players would've been way higher.

But it was supposed to be just a tech test closed alpha limited to NA to mostly test some server stuff and get some extra feedback.

 

[MayauMiao]

Pretty sure they played a big role in it being canceled.

Bungie Reportedly Reviewed 'The Last Of Us Factions' And Found It Lacking
"Sony has invested heavily in "games as a service," or video games designed to be monetized beyond their initial sales through ongoing purchases. As part of that push it asked another of its video-game studios, Seattle-based Bungie, to evaluate the games across its portfolio. Bungie raised questions about the The Last of Us multiplayer project's ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time, which led to the reassessment."

Bungie thinks they can find something lacking for other games yet couldn't figure it out for their Marathon.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Bungie was the main pioneer of GaaS in console and continues being one of the top GaaS players in console, plus in PC Destiny 2 continues being a one of the top 3 (or top 10) top grossing games of the year every year. Broke records creating IPs like Halo and Destiny.

To buy them for $2.4B was a very cheap price specially considering that Bungie itself was going to be producing a lot of money, but on top of that they could use their knowledge and expertise in GaaS/MP/FPS/new IP creation to add it on top of the ones their other teams have.

After a couple years of integration, removing redundancies, reorganizations they'll start to make a difference and in the mid/long term will be seen as the best SIE acquisition. It's a very good acquisition.

While I lean towards your position more than the other side, I still think your position is unnecessary.

You don't judge a 2.4 billion dollar purchase before they release a single new game. That's what crazy people do.

You start judging a 2.4 billion dollar purchase about 10 years after the fact because that's when you really see what the fruits of the purchase look like.

The people who desperately want to judge them can't be taken seriously.

 

[Darchaos]

I never said they are the holy grail, but they show they built there a big ass community just to try to get access to a NA limited closed alpha, of a size similar/superior/close to many super successful games.

I post it because like the Youtube or Twitch viewship it's measurable, objective, factual data that shows the interest in the game.


Because players can't freely access it and Bungie is who decides how many users they did put there each day to test whatever they had to test with their servers.

If Bungie would have decided to add more players than the previous one each day instead, the graph would be growing each day. Same goes with the amount of players, if Bungie would have decided to open it to more people or to make it an open alpha the number of players would've been way higher.

But it was supposed to be just a tech test closed alpha limited to NA to mostly test some server stuff and get some extra feedback.

You are such a fuckin troll, gtfo! And the reason that it went from a high off 6919 down to hardly 300 a couple of days later is what? Spin this for me Mr magic. There was about 20k alpha testers in the alpha testing channel on theire discord. So atleast 20k testers. Either you troll or you smoke the best crack in the world.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

 

[rm082e]

You don't judge a 2.4 billion dollar purchase before they release a single new game. That's what crazy people do.

You start judging a 2.4 billion dollar purchase about 10 years after the fact because that's when you really see what the fruits of the purchase look like.

So by this logic:

• We can only judge whether Microsoft buying Minecraft was a good move for them starting in September of last year?
• We can't judge whether Microsoft buying Bethesda was a good move or not until 2030?
• We have to wait until 2032 to judge whether Sony buying Bungie was a good move?

In what sense do you use the word "judge" there? Are you talking from a financial/business angle, or quality of games produced and released under the new owner?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

So by this logic:

• We can only judge whether Microsoft buying Minecraft was a good move for them starting in September of last year?
• We can't judge whether Microsoft buying Bethesda was a good move or not until 2030?
• We have to wait until 2032 to judge whether Sony buying Bungie was a good move?

In what sense do you use the word "judge" there? Are you talking from a financial/business angle, or quality of games produced and released under the new owner?

You plant a 2.4 billion dollar seed because you expect it to produce 10 billion dollar profit (eventually).

If the seed sprouts 10 billion quickly - good purchase.

If the seed sprouts 10 billion slowly - good purchase.

People are just deranged about this stuff so they'll use any excuse to sling mud. They are the pigs of people.

 

[Kvally]

I guess I am not on the same page as some here. I thought that Factions 2 was actually gonna be pretty sweet based on what they had revealed about it. Factions 1 was actually decent.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Bungie was the main pioneer of GaaS in console and continues being one of the top GaaS players in console, plus in PC Destiny 2 continues being a one of the top 3 (or top 10) top grossing games of the year every year. Broke records creating IPs like Halo and Destiny.

To buy them for $2.4B was a very cheap price specially considering that Bungie itself was going to be producing a lot of money, but on top of that they could use their knowledge and expertise in GaaS/MP/FPS/new IP creation to add it on top of the ones their other teams have.

After a couple years of integration, removing redundancies, reorganizations they'll start to make a difference and in the mid/long term will be seen as the best SIE acquisition. It's a very good acquisition.

$3.6 billion.

 

[Alebrije]

Bungie was the main pioneer of GaaS in console and continues being one of the top GaaS players in console, plus in PC Destiny 2 continues being a one of the top 3 (or top 10) top grossing games of the year every year. Broke records creating IPs like Halo and Destiny.

To buy them for $2.4B was a very cheap price specially considering that Bungie itself was going to be producing a lot of money, but on top of that they could use their knowledge and expertise in GaaS/MP/FPS/new IP creation to add it on top of the ones their other teams have.

After a couple years of integration, removing redundancies, reorganizations they'll start to make a difference and in the mid/long term will be seen as the best SIE acquisition. It's a very good acquisition.

Bungie was, but will it be?

Really hope they deliver something at the level of original Destiny at least....

 

[Mattyp]

Depends on what they were testing at the time. Might have been a very early concept for a game.

Maybe I misheard, but I'm pretty certain he stated 6 years.

Edit:

No idea what Concord has to do with it? Sony didn't acquire Bungie until 3 years ago.

It's become their debt on the sheets, those balance sheets are looked at in purchase of new X game recouping that negative.

I'll grant Sony but it's not their bomb but if it's been in development for 6 years. This to me I honestly thought was something that had been thrown together in the last few years, they have the engine, they have the artists, just seems mind blowing to have taken that long from what we've seen to date.

Unless the majority of their studio is working on something else? We've got no idea I guess.

 

[BbMajor7th]

You plant a 2.4 billion dollar seed because you expect it to produce 10 billion dollar profit (eventually).

If the seed sprouts 10 billion quickly - good purchase.

If the seed sprouts 10 billion slowly - good purchase.

People are just deranged about this stuff so they'll use any excuse to sling mud. They are the pigs of people.

We're living in an era of quarterly capitalism - businesses expect immediate results or they panic and bail. It's why promising studios, authors and performers will routinely get dropped after thier first game, book or album only does well, rather than hitting a home run on the first swing.

Companies never used to operate like that, but these days, everything is about the next quarter, half or fiscal. It's why big companies struggle with GaaS - it's more rock and roll. You gotta play the dive bars and build a following before you can start trying to fill an arena, but gaming companies want GaaS games that roll out like ready made rock stars.

 

[Felessan]

You keep bringing up Discord numbers like they are a holy grail. The same Discord numbers you brought up that has Valorant first, Fortnite second and Marathon has more Discord subs than PUBG. I'm pretty sure Fortnite is played the most by a mile.

Active playerbase and Discord is a good measure of it is a lifeblood of any live service.
It doesn't show the full picture as ration between hardcore (who more inclined to join dicord) and casual (who usually ignore it) is different between games. But having a big interest from hardcore community is a good sign as hardcore usually serve as a core players for any live service game.
The core of any live service game is aquisition and retention of players, story, gameplay mechanics and gameplay loop is just means for that.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

It's become their debt on the sheets, those balance sheets are looked at in purchase of new X game recouping that negative.

I'll grant Sony but it's not their bomb but if it's been in development for 6 years. This to me I honestly thought was something that had been thrown together in the last few years, they have the engine, they have the artists, just seems mind blowing to have taken that long from what we've seen to date.

Afaik it has been in active development for 4 years or so? We can only speculate, I guess.

I might try to find the specific video where he talked about it.

Unless the majority of their studio is working on something else? We've got no idea I guess.

They have 300 people working on Marathon out of the ~850 working at Bungie.

 

[yurinka]

Bungie was, but will it be?

Who knows, but as of now last year Destiny 2 was -like every year- one of the top 3 money maker games of the year in Steam, maybe isn't on its prime but it's still in very good shape. And Marathon's early numbers we have available (Youtube, Twitch and Discord) show there's a bigger than usual interest on it. Their new IP team that spun off just got announced.

They are still integrating within SIE -the integration seems almost complete- but seem to be well positioned for the future.

Really hope they deliver something at the level of original Destiny at least....

Being GaaS, most of their games will start with a relatively small scope and will expand/scale over time after launch depending on performance and what the genre / game type / focus allows. AAA are super expensive, so it's better for them do it in that way because by doing so allows them to axe it when they still didn't deploy their full vision and when already got money back.

Marathon being an extraction shooter implies a relatively hardcore, survival PvP focus. Meaning, on purpose they seem to leave SP/PvE only/casual friendly aside maybe to don't compete with/parasite Destiny and help to differentiate them.

The 'gummy bears' project seems to be way more ambitious regarding originality and scope because seems to mix elements of LoL, Smash Bros, Fall Guys, and I assume either Animal Crossing or Sims. And I assume will target a way wider and more casual/kids friendly audience.

 

[yurinka]

$3.6 billion.

The acquisition price (so what it did cost to buy the company) was $2.4B.

The other $1.2B were for retention bonuses, meaning money paid to key staff of the company that is paid to each one of them only if they remain in the company for a certain amount of years and depending on the case (depending on the acquisition sometimes is signed and sometimes doesn't, or sometimes it only applies to execs) if the acquired company achieves certain numbers on its first years.

While I lean towards your position more than the other side, I still think your position is unnecessary.

You don't judge a 2.4 billion dollar purchase before they release a single new game. That's what crazy people do.

You start judging a 2.4 billion dollar purchase about 10 years after the fact because that's when you really see what the fruits of the purchase look like.

The people who desperately want to judge them can't be taken seriously.

Big acquisitions are made looking at a long term plan, specially in a business like the current AAA gamedev scenario where games take around or over half a decade to be made.

Obviously performance keeps tracked periodically and constantly, but when acquisitions are made they take for granted that the first years are just for integrating the team to the workflow and many different things of the acquirer, many changes and adjustments are made and there's a learling process for both sides, plus are also a period where pre-acquisition projects are still being done and released and sometimes they aren't given the same attention or support than later projects already started since the start within the acquirer.

Meaning, acquired companies are normally given by the acquirer a certain free pass or special treatment during some years if there isn't any big red flag. It's normally in the mid term (around 3-5 years after acquisition) when they start to get serious about achieving very ambitious goals to justify the acquisition and recoup the investment, which normally isn't achieved before the first 5-10 years (some of them are never recouped and it's fine for them).

So yes, unless there's some 'apocalypse', they won't take conclusions until almost 10 years or so. They will want to see how the end tail of Destiny 2 worked, how Marathon, 'gummy bears' and Destiny mobile game performed, plus pretty likely some movie/tv adaptations they may have in the work and a game or two more that they may have released by then, plus also the support they given to the non-Bungie SIE GaaS titles.

I'm pretty sure that with all this combined they'll have recouped the acquisition in less than 10 years and will be happy with them.

 

[yurinka]

You are such a fuckin troll, gtfo!

If something you are the troll, not me. Learn to read.

 

[Darchaos]

If something you are the troll, not me. Learn to read.

Obvious troll is Obvious, nice answer though Mr magic.