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Rumor: Sony leadership feels that Bungie is a failed investment

Killjoy-NL

Banned
I dont think Bungie games have that kinda pull anymore. Their games are expensive and a lot greater risk than some AA games that japan studios was known for.

Even under ms bungie was a shitshow. They somehow made good games before their deadlines but their development was always troubled. It's a bad studio.
Due to bad management.
 

Roberts

Member
It sucks if it is true and has come to this. I enjoyed playing Destiny 2 main game and the first DLC but it was clear the lore has gotten way too convoluted for its own good and probably makes sense only to the most hardcore of the fans. But the gameplay mechanics were top shelf stuff and I wish they could have told other stories in other universes.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
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wipeout364

Member
If Bobby Kotick couldn’t get these jokers in line and in the end simply washed his hands of them, do you really think Sony has any hope of turning them around.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
It sucks if it is true and has come to this. I enjoyed playing Destiny 2 main game and the first DLC but it was clear the lore has gotten way too convoluted for its own good and probably makes sense only to the most hardcore of the fans. But the gameplay mechanics were top shelf stuff and I wish they could have told other stories in other universes.
I thought was already was convoluted in the first game with things like "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain". Unless the DLCs started explaining things?

 

Killjoy-NL

Banned
"I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain".
This was the result of the idiots of Bungie management firing the writer of the Destiny 1 story a year before release, so they were left with a universe without a story.

Those same geniuses then managed to do a complete reboot of development a year before Destiny 2 released.
 
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Roberts

Member
I thought was already was convoluted in the first game with things like "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain". Unless the DLCs started explaining things?


I only played the first game for a few hours. I don't know, I thought I got the gist of the universe and the main conflict when playing Destiny 2 main game, but then it all become too muddled and when I tried to get back to it after a few DLCs it lost me completely.
 
Bungie have a long history of appalling project management.

I think Jason Jones is responsible for much of their fuck ups. The guy failed successfully throughout Bungie's life.

Myth II shipped with a bug that wiped hard drives.

Halo 1 was rebooted at least 3 times.

Halo 2 was too much for an xbox to handle, no one checked this til about 8 months before launch, and development was restarted using assets they had made 6 months before release. The game we got was missing it's final mission.

Halo 3 was delayed a couple of times, still had a good chunk cut out.

ODST was originally a DLC for H3, but to get out of their MS deal that had two games left they managed to get it changed to a full release.

Reach (my personal favourite) was made purely to finish the deal.

Bungie then make a huge deal about being "free from Microsoft" then immediately sign up with Activision, claiming they were still free under their umbrella (lie).

Destiny 1 is delayed as the old guard of Bungie break out into a civil war. This results in Joe Staten, the writer leaving, and Marty O'Donnell too, after basing a lot of D1's hype around Marty working with Paul McCartney for the OST, This leads to it's own saga, with Marty suing Bungie for unfair dismissal and money owed successfully.
Jones is now the only original bungie guy left, which makes future development an even bigger mess.

D1 is delayed since they scrapped the story Staten wrote, and the campaign is now restarted from scratch; a hodge podge of the ideas from the original story, which is now broken up to be turned into DLCs and the campaign story is, to be generous, a fucking embarrassment.

They have a leak showing the Destiny plan: D1 > 2 x "Comet" expansions > D2 > Expansion > D3. This is immediately binned as Destiny 1 is delayed, the first expansions come out, Dark below and House of Wolves, and add next to nothing. Fans complain. Bungie decide instead of D2, there is a major expansion the next year. D1 players are left with their first content drought.

The Taken King is released after a slight delay. It's good, but it's about half the length of D1's mess of a campaign.

That's it until Rise of Iron about a year later - a fantastic expansion that fans loved, with great updates thereafter adding some great ideas to the game that Bungie have ignored since. Ironic that the filler expansion is thought of so highly.

D2 launches after delays and is a mess. The new weapon set up of two primaries and a heavy is hated by the community and quickly changed to D1's set up within 8 months of launch.
The first mission of the game is the showpiece one and has loads of things happen in it that are then completely unused throughout the rest of D2's life.

Honestly, I don't have the patience to go through the various disasters of D2, the introduction of MTX to D1 in year 3 that were then doubled down on in D2, or the mess that Lightfall is, and how they cut Beyond Light in half to make it.

Jones needs removed. He's responsible for Bungie's direction as the man in charge, and the only reason his company hasn't died is down to unsavoury business practices like last year's mass layoff, which was a desperate attempt to stop Sony taking over. I wonder how he'll get out of this one?
 

solidus12

Member
here’s what I would do if I was in charge:

I would get Arrowhead, I would negotiate with Oculus team to get Ready At Dawn back, and I would acquire Quantic Dream.

That way I would have secured a cheap competent Gaas team. A team with experience in the VR space that can also work on a cinematic game (The order 1886) and a studio that makes choice based games with amazing graphics and production values.

That’s a diverse portfolio.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Shocked Patrick Stewart GIF


Maybe next time don't waste money on purchasing companies full of bloated purple haired whales.
This has nothing to do with purple whales. Bungie has been trash since The Taken King came out in 2014. Destiny 2 was trash and was given 7 years??? Why?

This is on the leadership. The core gameplay guys and artists are fine, but no one with that caliber of dev should be wasting their time on GaaS. They shouldve gone back to Halo style traditional games but now they are making an extraction shooter.
 

Katatonic

Member
Gimme a break, more like after Helldivers 2, the competition is REALLY afraid of what Bungie's cooking and are getting ahead of it with this FUD.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
So,... let me get this straight...

sleepy-spongebob-thinking-hmm-h9j62biguqh31mbk.gif


Some stupid exec idiots at Sony decided to buy a studio with rotten to the bone, terrible and greedy af leadership which made only the wrong decisions while being at Activision (and even more so after, but before that everyone thought it was Activison and in the end it was not true at all, surprise!) and then realized, that they've made an idiotic, terrible mistake and now trying to cover their asses and at the same time recoup the cost of a terrible deal while being super quiet and sneaky about it? Wooooooow.... That's modern Sony in the nut-effin'-shell for ya.

I want Jack Tretton back along with his whole era at Sony!

former-playstation-boss-reveals-his-best-and-worst-e3-moment_hzhf.1200.jpg


Fuck modern Sony execs(n):messenger_angry:
 

Fabieter

Member
Due to bad management.

Well must be bad mangement that japan studio wasn't profitable.

Sony literally saved bungie and they got nothing in return. Imagine alot of succesfull studios got hit by layoffs and they still have so many people at bungie. I know they had layoffs too but they have trimmed that far way more than they did.
 

Killjoy-NL

Banned
Well must be bad mangement that japan studio wasn't profitable.

The games just don't sell amazingly well.
That's all there's to it.
Sony literally saved bungie and they got nothing in return. Imagine alot of succesfull studios got hit by layoffs and they still have so many people at bungie. I know they had layoffs too but they have trimmed that far way more than they did.
What do you mean they got nothing in return?

Their first game under Sony is still in development and has to be released first.
 
Yep, the moment I saw what they were doing to Marathon I knew they were a lost cause.

It's disgraceful to shit all over a legacy IP like that, and it shows the current group of people working at the studio don't have a clue.

How are they shitting over its legacy, which hardly anyone played to begin with?

There’s so many rush to judgment comments.
 

Lunarorbit

Member
After all that money spent retaining talent. Sounds like there's only 1 OG executive left and he seems to be the connective tissue to all the delays and shitty product
 

Shubh_C63

Member
Bungie was better when Activition was calling the shots.
Bungie will be amazing with Sony calling the shots.

I don't have a hate boner for current Bungie (except the Lightfall fiasco), but I still maintain Destiny is an addicting game and watch people flock to it AGAIN once TFS releases.
 

Kerotan

Member
You are correct. The problem is Sony and their shareholders want that return now and may not be patient enough for the next project.
They have no choice and it's tough shit you can't buy in at year 6 or 7 expecting results like that.

Witch queen was good and lightfall benefit from its momentum. That's the only reason it's pre orders were high.

It was well known lightfall wasn't the best so naturally Final Shape will lose momentum.
 

Kerotan

Member
Sony please use this opportunity to fire all the blue haired woke freaks. Do it across your entire company while you're at it.
 

Fabieter

Member
The games just don't sell amazingly well.
That's all there's to it.

What do you mean they got nothing in return?

Their first game under Sony is still in development and has to be released first.

They have 1.3k devs and besides some shitty d2 expansions and a big drop in revenue since they bought them sony got nothing in 3 years. Will be 4 or 5 when bungie gets the next game out of the door. That's insane and can't just be said its mangement issues. They over hired and dont work efficiently.
 

yurinka

Member
It's fake due to several reasons:
  • "Sony may takeover": Fake news, Sony already did two years ago buying the 100% of Bungie, which means Sony has full control and all their important decisions and strategy must align with whatever Sony wants
  • "Sony considers it a failed investment": Fake news, acquisitions or large investments are always thought to be recouped in a long term plan, never in a year or two. I mean, they have minimum 3 games under development plus movie/tv adaptations in the works. We're years away from seeing their results and consider if their first projects were a failure or not
  • "Sony leadership wants to nurture Destiny 2": Fake news, this years ends the original 10 year roadmap of the Destiny trilogy that ended being merged in two games. Destiny 2 is 8 years old so logically is sunseting, so in addition to move their focus to Marathon and their next IP (Matter?) they'll want to continue with the Destiny IP but with a new and fresh new game because after 8 years some things can't be changed and improved in that old game and require to be made in a new one.
  • "Recent Bungie layoff made to compensate bad results": Fake news, Totoki said that Bungie fired around 100 people, something Bungie already had planned when were acquired because of redundancies (Sony already having people doing that same job).
  • "Bungie not being able to advise Sony [GaaS] teams": Fake news, we know they did it and the first GaaS released after it, Helldivers 2, has been a great success. MLB and GT7, also released around when they were acquired also are a big success. There are some projects cancelled, but that's normal in game development and doesn't mean anything is wrong.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
Personally I never understood the investment, but Destiny is also not my cup of tea. I just felt like it was such a gamble no matter how "successful" Destiny was/is. So, I'm sure this is true. I mean, since Sony made the move, I don't feel like Bungie has been some unstoppable force or something.
 
Honestly it never sat right with me that they were so desperate to be independent from Activision Blizzard, but then turn around not long after and desperately take Sony's money to be acquired again by a giant publisher.

They're not good at making games on a steady schedule, and they've been stuck on Destiny 2 far too long. They should've released a new game by now.
 
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It's fake due to several reasons:
  • "Sony may takeover": Fake news, Sony already did two years ago buying the 100% of Bungie, which means Sony has full control and all their important decisions and strategy must align with whatever Sony wants
This actually isn't true.


"Though it’s now under the Sony umbrella, Bungie will “continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games,” Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said in a blog post from the original announcement of the acquisition. And future games in development won’t be PlayStation exclusives, Bungie’s Joe Blackburn and Justin Truman said."

The looming threat to Bungie is that Sony will at some point in time (this is happening now in real time) will become displeased with Bungie after the honeymoon period is over, and begin to assert creative and financial control over them, which they didn't/ don't want.
 
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