
Bungie departs from Activision - kposehn
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/10/bungie-takes-back-its-destiny-and-departs-from-activision/
======
stuart78
Just one opinion here, but I've played a /ton/ of Destiny in a fairly casual
but consistent way (e.g. no raids or Mic) since launch, and I think it is
fairy underrated at this point. There were definitely droughts along the way,
but at this point it is a solid game, which when played on Xbox One X is IMHO
the finest looking game on consoles. The semi-multiplayer modes are great fun
and they've tuned the weekly reset cycle to a point where pretty much every
play session is rewarding in some way or another.

I'm glad for their independence and look forward to what the future brings,
and I do hope that further investment in Destiny (3 or continuation of 2) is
part of that picture.

~~~
izzydata
I do enjoy the game, but I can't agree with this insane pricing model. Just on
principle I refuse to pay $60 for a game and $40 for DLC and then $20 for more
DLC then $40 for an expansion and then $40 for DLC to the expansion. I'd play
it if there was just a single cost that was reasonable. Until the game stops
getting paid DLC and there is just a flat cost to play the rest of the games I
am not going to get back into it.

You vote for this kind of nonsense with your money and people keep buying it
then this will never stop.

~~~
sbarre
So how do you pay for all the additional content then?

The sheer amount of art assets that have gone into these expansions can't be
produced for free.

Leaving aside arguments about the gameplay provided (some liked it, some
didn't), there has to be a funding model for this.

Maybe the model doesn't give you what you're looking for out of this game, and
that's fair - you can just move on to a game you do enjoy.

But for some of us, the additional zones, weapons, gear, raids, encounters,
enemies, vehicles, quests, mechanics, maps and modes that come with the paid
DLC are worth the money.

I don't think it's "nonsense", I think it's fair value for the time I spend,
and the enjoyment I get, out of the game.

~~~
izzydata
The ratio of cost per amount of content seems very low to me in comparison to
other large scale games. Maybe that is just what it takes to create a game as
polished as this. If that is the case then it doesn't seem economical to
develop.

If you compare it to how much content is added to each major expansion of
World of Warcraft and the cost per year of always being up to date then
Destiny falls very short.

~~~
hombre_fatal
World of Warcraft costs $180 per year (a required $15/month). It's also 14
years old, so you're playing all the onion layers of content added by
expansions which were funded over the years by people paying a $60 initial
purchase (the initial purchase was finally removed last year) and again on
each expansion.

Your comparison to WoW only seems to make the point that content is expensive
and Destiny is much cheaper.

~~~
notSupplied
On top of the subscription, you also have to buy the WoW expansion for $40 to
stay on the cutting edgr with the content. Essentially WoW is having their
cake and eating it too.

I feel bad for Destiny. They're asking $70-80 per year to stay caught up on
content and people are complaining it is too expensive, yet WoW can ask for
$220. The visual fidelity of their content is top tier, if not THE best, right
next to God of War. That is incredibly expensive to produce and games at this
level of visual fidelity are usually produced on a 4 to 5 year cycle, not
actively maintained MMOs with seasonal content.

So they command about 1/3 the annual price of WoW, yet they are expected to
deliver the content quantity of an MMO with the visual fidelity of God of War.
This is the world's most expensive content treadmill.

------
dbg31415
2019 marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Marathon.

* Marathon (video game) - Wikipedia || [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_\(video_game\))

I remember running AppleTalk network cables (the ones with the phone line
adapters) out of windows between dorm rooms in the winter. Risking life and
limb to crawl out on ice-covered ledges just to build a network that allowed
us to play Marathon.

Modding the game was really fun too, we'd build guns that were more powerful,
or guns that shot out drones that could help you. I remember setting one of
the enemies to create a clone of itself -- introduction to loops right there
as my Macintosh Performa ran out of RAM.

I still feel like, even to date, the immersive story telling in this game was
some of the best I've seen. Impressive given they were working on computers
that had less power than today's phones -- like 1/1,000th of the power of
today's phones. I remember running the game on a Color Classic with 33 MHZ and
4 MB of RAM.

------
jrobn
My first Bungie game was Myth. I absolutely loved the series. First time I was
drawn into the story and characters. I loved being able give names to the
characters and keep them alive. It was slow paced but surprising suspenseful.
Online multiplayer in later titles was hilarious.

I also remember the teaser to what would become halo. I think originally Halo
was going to be a lot more like Destiny...Then the xbox came along and
microsoft bought Bungie.

~~~
selimthegrim
Myth had a plot quality and replay value way beyond what I expected for the
price point. Not really comparable to even the AI in Shogun, but still more
replayable.

~~~
abakker
Agree. There was a real story going on inside Myth and Myth 2. Both genuine
efforts of creativity beyond just the gameplay.

~~~
saberience
Remembering the story in Myth and Myth 2, the music, and so on, still gives me
major nostalgia. I loved the story of the Heron Guard in Myth 2, amazing.

~~~
abakker
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hTgvNsqb9Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hTgvNsqb9Y)
I love how that track ended up in Halo, also.

------
danaliv
I remember when Bungie first sold to Microsoft. In one of the levels in Halo,
there’s a bulletin board on a wall with a flyer that reads: FOR SALE - CHICAGO
OFFICE - INTEGRITY

Glad to see them fully independent again, even if it took almost two decades.

~~~
jfoutz
I never played marathon. Halo was amazing. I have no problems with the
versions I played (1-3). Maybe Microsoft became a bad steward?

~~~
maroonblazer
Marathon was amazing too. It was the first game I played where I glimpsed the
possibilities of what video games could eventually become. The feeling I
experienced being not-quite-alone on that ship is still quite vivid. I loved
Halo and tried to - but couldn't - get into Destiny.

Hoping for the best for/from Bungie.

~~~
saberience
I loved, loved, loved the feeling I got from playing Marathon.

It's so hard to explain now but those games had a level of atmosphere and
story that I still find almost uncomparable in gaming. I remember playing the
Marathon 2 demo again and again because I loved it so much. Something about
that feeling of being alone in a very mysterious world and getting sucked
deeper into the story...

------
cryptonerd2212
Blizzard would do well to do the same, but I'm afraid that too many of the
people that made Warcraft and Diablo franchises great have already left.

~~~
beezischillin
According to one of their community managers, Blizzard is making their own
choices independently so all of their trouble is of their own making.

[https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/activision-and-
blizz...](https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/activision-and-blizzard-
relationship/68419/26)

~~~
Crosseye_Jack
I remember Jeff Kaplin saying in an interview they had to go to activision and
get the go ahead to make Overwatch and it been nerve wrecking. iirc this was
after the mmo had been cancelled internally and the team had given them selfs
3 weeks or so to come up with something or move onto other things.

I’ll see if I can dig it out.

EDIT: I would swore I saw the info in video interview with in, but in the
brief time searching I couldn't find it (Though I haven't had any coffee yet,
so i'm not on my game just yet) but I did find an text interview[0] / \- Under
"Selling Overwatch to the Execs"

> It was an easy sell to Blizzard, but pitching it to Activision left the team
> nervous. After all, they were about to tell the makers of Call of Duty that
> they had a great idea for a brand new game: a shooter! (Something Kaplan
> says he only thought about after the fact.) Kaplan ran through the slides of
> Team 4’s Overwatch presentation to a silent audience, until Activision CEO
> Bobby Kotick stopped him and asked him to go back three slides.

> “I’m thinking ‘Oh no, what was back three slides?'” Kaplan said.

> It turned out to be the original hero lineup, which will look familiar to
> any Overwatch fan: a row of heroes on a white background. The heroes don’t
> look quite the same as they do today, but the style is already Overwatch.
> “This is going to be an amazing universe,” Kotick said, and the rest is
> history.

[0]
[https://blizzardwatch.com/2017/11/05/blizzcon-2017-overwatch...](https://blizzardwatch.com/2017/11/05/blizzcon-2017-overwatch-
rose-titans-failure)

I mean Activision ovb didn't kick up much of a fuss as you know we actually
have Overwatch :-P but it was just a point that Blizz's first new IP in years
still had to go past the CEO of Activision before getting the green light to
go into full dev.

~~~
Crosseye_Jack
Unable to edit so replying to myself. Remembered where I saw it. It was at
BlizzCon 2017 -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqvXDi6blys&t=1096](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqvXDi6blys&t=1096)
(a YT Rip of the talk at the correct Timestamp)

------
ProfessorLayton
Does anybody have any thoughts on how this separation squares with Bungie's
recent 100M investment from NetEase? [1]. IIRC this is the same company behind
Activision/Blizzard's Diablo mobile game.

It would seem that the biggest change here is that Bungie cut out the
middleman.

[1] [https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/1/17418862/bungie-netease-
inv...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/1/17418862/bungie-netease-investment)

~~~
alexland
I'd think that the NetEase investment gave them the confidence boost they
needed to try out on their own and self-publish in most of the world. As with
every non-Chinese game company the question is how they can get a piece of the
Chinese market, and now Bungie has their answer.

~~~
madeofpalk
Or, they took that investment knowing that they’re going to split Destiny from
Activision and self-publish in the ‘near’ future

------
Waterluvian
I wish they'd revisit Pathways into Darkness. One of the greatest games of all
time that nobody has played.

How can you not be intrigued by an FPS adventure horror RPG text-based
adventure?

~~~
germinalphrase
That was a great game. I’ve never been fascinated by the secondary world of a
game quite like I was with Pathways into Darkness.

~~~
ethbro
PiD and Marathon show just how far ahead of the market Bungie was.

Halo was most people's introduction, but there are amazing ideas all through
their back catalog.

~~~
germinalphrase
That Marathon Infinity came with an object/level editor was a nice gesture.
Had lots of fun with that.

------
oddevan
Welp, that means we won’t be able to blame Activision for any stupid decisions
from here on out...

I do wish Bungie the best here. I also suspect that the next installment will
be more of a “$x/month for everything” instead of the “$x for the game and $x
for the expansions” they’ve been doing.

------
Traster
I see a tonne of people making statements along the lines of "That's great,
now Bungie can back to being the company that makes games like Halo". But can
someone explain to me why they think that could ever happen? The Microsoft
acquisition was a key part of what made Halo, Bungie was a way smaller company
back then and a huge amount of the talent will have moved on. How many
companies churn out great series decades apart? I just think people are
setting themselves up for a HL3 situation again- huge expectations that never
get delivered on.

------
wmichelin
Hopefully we see Bungie put out a game at the quality of the original Halo
games

~~~
crushcrashcrush
I agree. Halo: CE was an absolute masterpiece.

~~~
ezekg
I still play CE from time to time. Such a great game.

~~~
aaronmdjones
You should check out Halo SPv3 -- Halo 1 campaign, but Halo 2 & 3
weapons/vehicles/enemies, massively expanded Pillar of Autumn & Assault On The
Control Room levels, and a whole new reimagined The Silent Cartographer.

------
iFred
I worked there for a bit and as its been a few years since I last swiped my
badge in Bellevue, but I think there are a few tidbits I can add.

\- Independence has always been a priority for Bungie, the leaked contract and
the relationships with Activision/Blizzard/HalfMoon were always "at most we
are peers". Bungie got what they wanted out of this deal, a bit of a mentor
relationship with Blizzard and some knowhow on large scale publishing and
marketing from Activision. I dont think the endgame was anything less of
getting out after Destiny 4+

\- Leaving might have to do more with sunsetting and moving on from the
Destiny franchise than creative freedom for it. I still have a few friends
(Hey guys!) there and there has been a bit of burnout. The community will
either reward you with riches and praise for something as simple as a cool
looking weapon or dump hate and death threats for what should be a needed
stats nerf. So people's eyes started to wander on other things. After the
departure of the long time studio head onto his garage game experiment, you
saw a lot of exits and shuffling.

\- Destiny was slated for 4 milestone releases, each with point releases. This
was laid out on a conference whiteboard at one point, where every two years
you saw a new Destiny release with a core gameplay mechanic added (dogfighting
spaceships in the expanses past Pluto?) and point releases that seem to dance
from one race story to another. Something about having your future lined up
and being contractually obligated to draw out an already gutted story over
8-10 years can be a bit draining, especially when revenue takes a significant
hit after Fortnite and you are still expected to maintain the same AAA dev
costs.

\- Some of the old timers hate being known as the "Halo" company and departing
means that they don't have to just be the "Destiny" company. These designers,
from Jason, down to the tester who makes sure you dont get nausea from an
ingame fall, care more about the art and experience than the microtransaction
potential. They would rather build new IP that sold itself than something that
keeps you on the treadmill.

\- The culture there was easily the best in the industry for a studio of its
size. They put a serious effort to bring everyone to the table, from the
Pentathlon and playing some random Wii game with a Senior Executive and
getting a bit tipsy, to having lunch and probing questions with Jason as he
mowed down a bowl of frozen peaches and quinoa. Bungie did what it could to
make you feel like you were a part of the family, even if you didnt work on
HaloX or if you were just a Tester, or if you were just a tester. When I was
there, I never felt like I was a part of Activision, and from what I gathered
in the years since, that hasn't changed much. Artists, designers, and
engineers always came before the marketing and profiters.

I know they are building something new, and given the frustrations they had
with Activision and the lessons learned on Destiny2, its going to be a piece
of fun art.

~~~
theandrewbailey
> Leaving might have to do more with sunsetting and moving on from the Destiny
> franchise than creative freedom for it.

I'm tempted to say the same, but they're taking Destiny with them, so someone
must have ideas for it. When they left Microsoft, they left Halo. I'm inclined
to say that was intentional rather than a mistake (Bungie hasn't been hurting
for lack of Halo).

~~~
WorldMaker
Supposedly, Microsoft would never have let Bungie go if they wanted Halo, too.
Microsoft would probably have been more likely to see Bungie shut down
entirely than lose the Halo IP.

Bungie making sure they always retain ownership of Destiny seems a "lessons
learned" adjustment from losing Halo as much as anything. I'm not sure yet if
it means they plan to continue Destiny though. The comment above may be
correct that Bungie may just want to move on to the next IP.

------
dasKrokodil
I wish they'd do a successor to Oni, this time with multiplayer (which was
promised for the first time, but not delivered).

~~~
Dragonai
I love seeing Oni mentioned in discussions about Bungie. It's always held a
special place in my heart.

Did you ever check out the Anniversary Edition mod? It's a massive community-
made enhancement to the base game that adds a ton of fixes alongside a really
dope mod framework. The reason I bring this up is because it allows for stuff
like Oni Team Arena[0], a fake multiplayer mode that lets you basically play
team deathmatch with bots. It's super fun and when I first played it, it
breathed a whole new life into the game for me.

[0]: [https://wiki.oni2.net/AE:OTA](https://wiki.oni2.net/AE:OTA)

------
ebg13
I wish they'd take back the Myth franchise. :\

~~~
nikdaheratik
I don't know if they could do much more with it, but that was a darn enjoyable
video game.

I've recently read some of Glen Cook's "Chronicles of the Black Company" and I
think that was very much in line with the story in Myth in some ways. It was
kind of like reading a novelisation of the game, only to find out the novel
was written 15+ years ahead of the game!

~~~
mikeash
I’m pretty sure the developers read Cook and that was the direct inspiration
for Myth’s story.

~~~
abakker
Its definitely a thing there.

[http://myth.bungie.org/legends/delusions/blackcompany.html](http://myth.bungie.org/legends/delusions/blackcompany.html)

Thats a pretty great and detailed page about the parallels. Reading into TBC
gave a lot of us a lot of fun when playing Myth and endlessly debating the
story canon back in the day.

------
matchbok
Interesting. Hopefully they start producing quality stuff, but really, the
people who made the best games (Marathon, Halo) don't even work there anymore.

~~~
hannasanarion
That's true, but institutional memory is a thing. Those people established and
influenced systems that persist.

There isn't anybody in the US government who was there for the 1970s, but the
US is still fundamentally the same entity that does the same things the same
way

------
m0zg
How do they manage to "depart" from acquisitions and take the IP with them?
How does that work, lawyer-wise?

~~~
javagram
Bungie wasn’t acquired by activision, they were an independent developer that
had a publishing contract for the Destiny franchise with activision. Seems
like the contract was renegotiated at the request of one side or the other.

------
bliblah
So how does this benefit Activision? It seems everyone is focusing on Bungie
but not asking how in the world Activision allowed this to pass. Did bungie
just give them a bunch of cash? Giving up destiny is still a huge cash cow
with the franchise bringing in well over $500 million since it was released in
2014.

------
dcow
I hope I live to see the death of publishers.

~~~
SeanBoocock
I'm curious why. As a developer who has worked for a big publisher at an
internal studio and worked with publishers as an independent developer,
publishers still have an important role to play. On the smaller scale,
publishers are one, and often the best, way to service tasks that a small team
would not be able to fulfill themselves (marketing, pr, QA, localization,
etc). As you scale up the size of project, it becomes harder to find the level
of investment required outside of a publisher relationship.

Not all publishers are created equal and even a "good" publisher might not be
the best fit for your team or project. However, I don't see the idea of
publishers as some anachronism or necessary evil, and I hope to work with them
long into the future.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Do publishers have influence over monetization strategies? Are they typically
the ones asking for gimmicks like loot boxes? I have heard mixed things on
this, but had the impression that the development studio generally dislikes
these mechanics, and publishers generally force them to include them.

------
JohnJamesRambo
And I’m suddenly interested again.

------
monocasa
How much of the Bungie staff is left from the early 2000s?

~~~
javagram
It’s a year and half out of date by now, but
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/672n45/what_the_peop...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/672n45/what_the_people_who_made_halo_2_are_up_to_now/)

A decent number still at bungie, a lot have moved on to other places of
course.

------
skilled
Now if only Blizzard had the balls to do the same.

~~~
Aromasin
Blizzard and Bungie have a completely different relationship to Activision.
Bungie was a game developer with Activision as the publisher; Blizzard was
bought by Activision, and merged to become 'Activision Blizzard studios'.
We're not going to see anything of the same from Blizzard.

------
ponco
I remember listening to the Bungie podcast many many years ago right as they
sold to MS. For me, the saddest part was the bastardisation of the Halo
series. 343i have just never quite had the same spark.

Destiny & Activision just showed me to that the creative forces behind the
Myth/Halo series were well and truly gone.

This is an exciting new dawn. Can't wait for what's next.

------
miguelmota
Hoping they bring back the gameplay quality back that Halo 3 had. Halo 3 was
one of the best games ever made

------
CoryG89
Unrelated, but probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a video game
is someone getting killed by a hyper-accelerated traffic cone on this Halo 3
map from Bungie:

Traffic cone ownage

[https://youtu.be/ym0BtwmCvoc](https://youtu.be/ym0BtwmCvoc)

~~~
ezekg
This brings me back.

------
2bitencryption
> Bungie and Activision teamed up all those years ago essentially because the
> former needed a jump-start to develop Destiny

Jump start? I thought Bungie was one of the most wildly successful video game
studios out there, at the time? Did they need a jump start?

~~~
manfredo
Being a self published studio isn't just about having a lot of money (though
that's often a prerequisite, at least for AAA games). There's also experience
with marketing, relationships with console manufacturers, market research,
negotiating platform pricing. Publishers' knowledge of these things make it
useful for a studio to still team up with a publisher even if the studio is
swimming in cash.

------
cde-v
Fingers crossed that Destiny 3 is good, but definitely not pre-ordering
anything.

~~~
p1necone
I'm still annoyed that there even was a Destiny 2, when the first one was
announced I was promised a shooter in a persistent world with mmo progression
that would be supported for years, not a series of sequels I had to buy again
and make a new character.

~~~
sergiotapia
It's the reason I quit playing about 7 months ago. I have a _lot_ of raids
under my belt. I used to speedrun them with randos for fun. I have yet to
attempt the latest raid because I thought to myself: "When Destiny 3 comes
out, this won't matter."

[https://raid.report/pc/4611686018467283801](https://raid.report/pc/4611686018467283801)

The only way they can bring me back is by announcing a rename of Destiny 2 to
Destiny, and confirm there will be no stand-alone sequels.

The Destiny universe is my favorite in-game universe. I could go on for hours!
Did Rasputin cripple the Traveller because he was going to abandon us like he
did the Fallen? Is Rasputin benevolent or indifferent?

I hope dearly they try to bring me back. I miss it.

~~~
maxsilver
I would be happy if they rename Destiny 3 to "Destiny United" or similar, and
just allow us to import our old D1 and D2 characters (weapons, armor, etc)
into it all at once.

But the constant, repeated trashing of earned stuff (and recently, the massive
spike in grind-wasting-time required) turned me off. Warmind + Forsaken was
peak Destiny 2, but with Black Armory they're already sliding away from that
again.

I don't blame Bungie for it. I get that everyone on Reddit complained there
wasn't enough time wasting, so Bungie added a bunch of time wasting, to make
Reddit happy. But it's just too much. I can't imagine what Destiny will look
like in 6 months if they keep on this path. "Do 100 hours of homework first,
and then we'll let you play with the cool thing you just bought".

------
bovermyer
So... what does this mean for Destiny 2's presence in the Blizzard Launcher?

~~~
shiburizu
press is reporting there won't be any changes and launcher will still show
Destiny. Safe to assume D2 is on its deathbed so they don't have to stick
around too long.

~~~
Svoka
I think it was there after they was giving it away for a month and still no
one wanted to play it.

------
rubayeet
I wish BioWare would have done the same. EA Games pushed them to make Mass
Effect Andromeda a Multi Player Shooter. The result was a mess.

~~~
JeremyReimer
Mass Effect Andromeda was no more a multiplayer shooter than Mass Effect 3
was. The multiplayer was optional. Andromeda had other problems, but it wasn't
quite as bad a game as the Internet made it out to be. It just wasn't nearly
as good as the opening game of the original series.

~~~
caconym_
Not quite optional... I only found after finishing the story of ME3 that since
I had not played any multiplayer I'd been denied the best ending, even though
I was meticulous in securing the best outcomes in the single player quests,
storylines, etc.

It absolutely was not clear that multiplayer alone could make that difference,
and I was furious. I know they released more content to improve the ending,
but I could never go back, because the story was _finished_. A story I'd been
invested in for years, and they pulled the rug out at the last second.

My problem with Andromeda was that it was essentially exactly the same setup
as the first trilogy but copy-pasted into a new setting, which forced them to
scrap all the lore except as it pertained to what the crew brought with them.
Why not a prequel, instead? That, or tell a new story.

------
crushcrashcrush
I can't believe how far they've fallen. Take a look at the brilliance of the
first Halo to the clusterfuck that is Destiny - I have such vivid memories of
the pacing, art style, music that is Halo. All abandoned for a game completely
lacking any story (or backstory!) designed as a MMO money grab grind.

Excited to see what's next.

~~~
devmunchies
Halo 2 was peak halo. Its simplicity was why it was so good. Its like pickup
game of basketball, just get a few guys together and be the first team to 50
kills. No special equipment, no special abilities, very little complexity.

That's why it was the perfect MLG game. Every shooter these days is more and
more complex.

~~~
phaus
You don't call teleporting across the map for free melee kills with the stupid
sword thing a special ability? The introduction of that one item almost ruined
the entire genre for about 10 years.

~~~
hombre_fatal
No worse than the rocket launcher or sniper rifle or having the higher ground
or any other advantage you need to strategically fight over in a game.

The fight for asymmetry is what makes the game fun.

------
tql
I thought Destiny 2 had bombed, given that they gave away copies of it (in
December?) if you had a Battle.net account

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
It was a way to increase sales of the expansion that came out only about a
month before that.

~~~
EpicEng
Which was done because sales were disappointing.

------
mscasts
I hope they can start to make good games again. Game companies seems too
politically correct to cater to gamers though.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I'm not sure what you mean by "too politically correct to cater to gamers"
here. Series like Hotline Miami, GTA, RDR, Duke Nukem etc don't seem to agree.

------
minimaxir
Direct link to announcement blog:
[https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/47569](https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/47569)

(which I submitted hours ago but didn't get any upvotes due to a bad title)

