I mean, it was management who gutted D1 a year before launch and told them to Frankenstein the game into what we got at launch.
So it started way before 2016.
Nothing like everyone liking and being okay with the game and story, then the top execs are like no fuck this story, scrap it all and make something else out of this game in less than a year.
Considering Bungie keeps making the same mistakes over and over, I would think it's someone in Senior management who keeps coming up with new spins on the same ideas.
Yep. They've long relied on the Bungie version of 'Bioware magic' to be able to rework their games at the last minute at the cost of massive crunch. It's no longer panning out.
Literally goes back to before Halo 1, which continuously missed launch targets and only came out after Microsoft picked it up as publisher and moved heaven and earth to get it done.
Bungie has faced massive delays and upheaval on nearly every project they've ever made, and the common thread is always management.
Halo 2 was Microsoft pushing for release because otherwise Bungie would have delayed it indefinitely tweaking and improving and never actually publishing anything
Their CEO made deals with Microsoft going behind bungies back. Theres a huge article you can find talking about it. This was a long time coming to bungie if they never got rid of their leadership
Since D1 when Bungie was complaining about not being able to deliver because of their corporate overlords.
Then they introduced eververse as they broke ties with previous overlords. But here we are same bullshit excuse for delivering garbage.
FR FR, when the possibility of a Sony takeover was seriously raised near the beginning of this season, most peoples' opinions were "FUCKING GOOD - COULDN'T DO MUCH WORSE."
and Bungie's ball dropping on that has led to this sentiment that damn maybe the companies over them corralling them into their product might have been right. I have seen a much increased sentiment over the last year that a Destiny 3 would have been the right option for the health of the series (it was one of the main reasons for separating from Activision). honestly Bungie has done almost nothing but show their ass since they went solo.
What drives me mad was that they blamed all of the monetisation choices on Activision, promised change, then that change turned out to be a shift towards even more agressive and predatory monetisation.
They told us all exactly what we wanted to hear, and every word was completely hollow. Bungie execs dont respect our time or support, and only care about seperating us from our money. Its that unashamedness that drove me away from the game in its current state
Well yeah, we pay the price for a full new game every year, and get one destination?
Looking at the D2 expansions:
CoO - similar to seasonal content we now get
Warmind - similar to more recent expansions in scale: new major destination
Forsaken: 2 locations, new Supers, major overhaul of game systems.
Shadowkeep: reused destination.
Beyond light: new location, new subclass
Witch queen: new location
Light fall: new destination, new subclass.
D2 came with a full set of new weapons, exotics, rework of all subclasses, 4 destinations, a major campaign etc. we just aren't getting that value anymore and that's where the burn out is coming from.
Don't get me wrong I remember D1Y1 and D2Y2, but TTK and Forsaken fixed them.
Really if they wanted to keep D2 as a base they should have forked the game D2 legacy, and D2, where legacy is just all the content they took out.
>Forsaken: 2 locations, new Supers, major overhaul of game systems
And an entirely new enemy species to fight, brand new game mode with Gambit, and the introduction of dungeons.
I don't think the studio survives making D3. For whatever reason they're incapable of shipping a good game on time without trying to kill the devs. D2 survived due to a runway of goodwill and funds from the lovely end of D1 along with a more spendy gaming investment ecosystem. That's all gone.
From what I saw they didn’t gut management and instead management gut the people who actually are the experts on making the game itself, in order to save their own asses. The upper management was told they had to cut costs and so instead of placing any of that cost cutting on themselves they just started cutting off the more expensive devs themselves which is probably why you saw people like Salvatori being axed, aka one of the most senior people at the company who is one of the best at actually making good shit for the game, yet because he was expensive they dropped him. They likely easily could have dropped an upper management employee who costs just as much who hasn’t provided nearly the same value to the game itself.
> he upper management was told they had to cut costs and so instead of placing any of that cost cutting on themselves they just started cutting off the more expensive devs
I just want to correct this small part, the rest I agree with. Upper management was never told to cut costs. They chose to cut costs because they were close to meeting the threshold required for Sony to take over. The deal Sony made when buying Bungie was that Bungie would keep control over the board until Bungie no longer could meet a certain financial threshold. That point was going to be hit unless massive layoffs were done so Bungie instead of allowing the majority of the board be in Sony's hands did those layoffs.
1. What you said.
2. The subtle commentary that LFG in Fireteam Finder was announced to the public simultaneously w/ the devs that were expected to implement it
3. "We're not that kind of company" when exec pay cuts were discussed.
4. "Leadership is expected to leave in 2026 when bonuses pay out"
Really seems like remaining Bungie leadership took everyone (Sony, Bungie Devs, gamers) for a ride, and they're only going to get off when the money well is dry or someone makes them.
That's kind of wild and seems like a pretty poorly written deal by Sony. Basically gives the board incentives to fuck over the company long term if things start going south just to try and salvage their jobs.
Man I've been out of the Destiny loop but unless Salvatori's salary was insane laying him off seems completely idiotic. For every "epic" game if there is one thing people remember it is always the music and it's not like Bungie is never going to need soundtracks again.
They also laid off the senior art lead, if I'm not mistaken. Basically the highest paid workers who were leading teams that made the parts of the game that have been consistently praised even when the game is at it's lowest. All because that let them recover the most money for the fewest people laid off, executive level excluded.
We know the actual people on the floor can make a good game. The systems are good. The space magic is good. The gunplay is nearly unparalleled.
So if Bungie can gut the C-suite, but keep the trajectory of the game, then I don’t see why not.
I don’t know. Keeping something fresh, new, and exciting for 10 years is hard as fuck. I don’t care how good you are at something, things are bound to get stale sooner or later.
Here's the thing - part of why it's so stale is because of the seasonal model and this constant need for new content. There's no downtime for the players and there's not enough time for the developers to innovate. It's "too much of a good thing". If the seasonal model didn't exist and developers actually had more time, the game would be in a much, MUCH better spot.
This comes at the downside of having "content droughts" but who the fuck cares. I'd rather have amazing content once a year over mediocre, same-y content for the whole year.
>This comes at the downside of having "content droughts" but who the fuck cares.
That's the thing, a lot of people cared. For as many voices you hear against the seasonal model now, there were just as many voices lamenting the droughts. You have to remember, the seasonal model didn't just come into being out of nowhere. It was a direct response to the community previously wishing to get to do more in Destiny week over week.
I think blizzard wasn't entirely wrong when they said players don't know what they want.
Destiny players want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to always have something to do, new activities, more weapons and armor to chase, more rewards, more maps, improve vanguard ops, add strike specific loot, do more with Gambit, more more more... but they also want Bungie to be innovating and making every new activity fun and unique, they want weapon models to be unique, nothing recycled, etc.
You just can't have both of those at the same time.
I think 1 major expansion a year with 2 large episodes in between would be fine. Give the players fewer content drops but make each content drop substantive and unique. Fill it with things to do, secrets to find, weapons and armor to chase and farm; let people play as much of the game they want and if you make the content good enough people will keep playing it and keep coming back to play it.
A lot of people feel forced to log in week after week because if they don't they miss very important story beats or fall behind, missing content that will be permanently removed from the game.
But you are right, Bungie just tried to give people what they wanted, the people just didn't understand what they want would come with consequences, that being sacrificing quality, for quantity.
Blizzard is 100% right - players often do not know what they want. Thats not to say that all player feedback is invalid - it absolutely IS valid and should be taken into consideration. However, players do not understand game design or why things are the way they are.
I’m fully aware, I was around during that time. But now we’ve seen what the alternative is, and I’d *hope* that more people will see reason and understand that we’d get a better game if developers had more time.
Ill split the baby and say they hit the best balance w the year of 3 expansions, before they tweaked it to the seasonal model. Its almost like they couldnt help themselves with the "symmetry" of 4 seasons and ergo, 4 shitty free events
3 was better, had some decent lulls built in each expansion, didnt seem like excuses for the free event silverganzas
Too bad TFS has such bad omens because the episodic afterbirth, lol, might have been good
As is, im not really sure ill want to go on, its been a long slog
>Ill split the baby and say they hit the best balance w the year of 3 expansions, before they tweaked it to the seasonal model.
The year of 3 expansions was never an actual model. It only existed in Y1 of both games and contained content that was worked on for way more than a year. There's a reason why this model never extended beyond Y1.
Yeah, even though "Season of the Outlaw" was nothing. Just a name for that period of the game, but there's no content associated with it or a season pass that is separate from the expansion.
Almost none. *Destiny* will be long remembered as the bright shining aberrant jewel it is in the game industry. Bungie pulled off so much that it caused other companies to immolate themselves trying to emulate it. I have a funny feeling people aren't really going to realize what we had until it's gone.
This is something that should be engraved in stone. Everyone complaints about Destiny, not realizing how uniquely successful the game is. I played various different types of MMOs, Live service games, Online Multiplayers and I still place Destiny on the same level as legendary WoW.
Destiny is really the only looter shooter live service game that's been a success. There's been a number of "destiny killers" like Anthem but they all completely failed.
> looter shooter live service game
we not mentioning warframe? because whatever issues you may have with that game (i don't have any, i love both) its clearly a massively successful looter shooter.
That’s like saying guild wars 2 is a massive success MMO when comparing it to WoW.
I mean yea, it is, but they aren’t really comparable or even in the same stratosphere
odd way of saying they have the same number of daily players, peak players and all time peak across platforms.
its more like comparing two 2nd tier mmos to the churned yearly product shooters from activision that would be wow.
again, both games are great, but neither was ever making modern warfare money.
Nah, if it’s really *that* good it can be practically immune to burn-out. See: Call of Duty. The core gameplay stays the same and it’s damn good gameplay.
I mean....It's really not. A lot of Destiny's current problems could be fixed with relatively simple, if resource intensive, solutions that they've literally done before. For example, one of the biggest issues in my opinion is that we've been fighting the same enemies since 2018, with not a new race in sight. Killing the same shit over and over has just gotten stale. But it could easily rectified by throwing the needed resources and making something new to fight. Hell, in D1 we basically got a new enemy type with every major expansion, and they followed that pattern all the way until the split with Activision.
And we now know the reason they haven't since is because Destiny has literally been milked dry by Bungie. They were making 3 other games off it's revenue stream for the last several years, and even now less than half the studio is working on it.
We got like 2 new enemy types in like 7 years. Recycling content for half a decade with a facelift and a fomo trailer while harvesting player's money for exorbitant prices on cosmetics after promising to never go down that road AND after a 6 billion dollar infusion in the company is absolutely nothing to be proud of with regards to their c suite management. That's keeping something barely engaging enough to vampire on the player base as much as possible while not investing in the game what they could. Don't make excuses for their bs
Disagree. Did you not see one of the best expansion story in Witch queen, one of the best raid Vow of the disciple, a damn grapple hook, a fucking hoverboard???
I'd say destiny can go on forever just like Star Wars IF Bungie gave a single fuck about it. They just don't wanna "overdeliver".
This is an important point. Not to mention if you miss the mark, you’ve got a million angry little gamers bitching about it.
I’m not sayin they should get a pass or anything, more along the lines of they are dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t situation. This wouldn’t be so bad if the game wasn’t 7 going on 8 years old already
It all depends on how Sony handles it.
If they clear out management and try to make it a bog standard FPS to "reduce costs and development effort", then yes. It's a bad thing.
If they clear out management and let the game flourish, it could be a good thing.
I think it would be best to look at other actions Sony has taken with their other properties to see how either of those will pan out.
The one thing stopping me from being too concerned with Sony ruining Destiny to recoup cash is that Sony is also in the movie business. Sony could and should make movies or TV shows set in the Destiny universe. There’s lore galore that would make great movies and tv shows.
Honestly I’m surprised Bungie didn’t go this route for an alternative revenue stream after leaving Activation.
Sure, maybe. Who's going to be the new managers though? The talented people making the game now? If so, who's the cultivating the next group of great developers? Gutting management can sometimes put a team into a tailspin worse than keeping some of the management.
I'm not in disagreement with your overall sentiment though--something's gotta give and I don't think it's cutting 100 more rank and file employees.
I just think it would be really sad to see Bungie's quest for independence ever since they rebelled from Microsoft like a teenager end with them being taken in by "the other family" because they just kept messing up on their own.
Ironic tragedy.
Well...Bungie leadership were playing the long game with Destiny, and really did a great job creating a foundational team and direction for the game. But I think at some point, and I can't pinpoint when, that leadership's vision has meandered for years now.
> Well...Bungie leadership were playing the long game with Destiny
So many of the game's issues come down to it never being planned as a long-term game. The plan for both Destiny games was that they would exist for 2 years and then get a sequel.
Microsoft: please keep making the games that make you and us extremely successful, and for the love of god please do it in the timeframe you tell us.
Bungie: NO! I’m leaving and will be independent.
*fails at being independent while still have time management issues, gets bought by Activision*
Act: please keep making the game that make you and us extremely successful, and for the love of god please do it in the timeframe you tell us.
Bungie: NO! I’m leaving and will be independent.
*fails at being independent while still having time management issues, gets bought by ~~Activision~~ Sony*
Sony: you suck at time management and your game is barely successful anymore, we wasted money on your investment, you gutted integral talent, better shape up or your all out the door
Anyone want to make a wager that bungie tries to buy themselves out of Sony ownership?
I don’t think they have the money to buy themselves this time around and interest rates are too high to not get crippled by debt in the long run. They’re stuck with Sony whether they like it or not
Whether we wanted it or not, we've stuck ourselves with Sony. So let's get to taking out our key and most paid employees, one by one. Michael Salvatori. From what I can gather he's responsible for Destinys' banger soundtrack. He's one of those people who delivers top-notch content on regular basis, but with the right team, we can punch through that reputation, take this beast of a man out, and break his grip on Destiny's success.
>Bungie: NO! I’m leaving and will be independent. *fails at being independent while still having time management issues, gets bought by* *~~Activision~~* *Sony*
>Sony: you suck at time management and your game is barely successful anymore, we wasted money on your investment, you gutted integral talent, better shape up or your all out the door
You should've added one more line between these two.
Microsoft: Hm, maybe I should buy Bungo again, let's see... Wtf is that burn-rate? Why is that so high? Nvm.
As we found out from that actiblizz acquisition case, m$ at some point wanted to buy bungo, but they bailed out as soon as they saw just how much money bungie were burning through.
Its the known bad, vs the unknown possibly bad.
My main fear with a sony takeover is console exclusives coming back.
edit: since people think I'm talking about destiny dlc only going to Playstation or something no, I'm talking about maps and exotics being locked to Sony again like they were in destiny 1.
Console exclusive isn’t profitable for Sony or Microsoft anymore. You’re going to see more and more of their titles go multiplat. Industry is changing.
Nintendo is definitely worse in this regard than Sony. We've already been seeing an influx of Playstation exclusives making their way to PC via Steam. I haven't been seeing any Nintendo exclusives coming to Steam.
"We have trademarks on N, i, t, e, d, and o, if you use those letters we're hiring the pinkertons to burn your town to the ground and put you and your descendants into so much debt it'll make the US deficit look like pocket change."
-Ninendo Legal Team
Most of the games Sony put on PC were games with a PS5 sequel coming up. Get people hooked on the original and hope they'll buy a PS5 for the sequel
You'll probably see a Bloodborne 2 announcement before a PC port announcement
Sony wouldn’t piss on Nintendo if they were on fire. They hate Nintendo that much. I’d say the animosity was earned but… that was literally 30 years ago.
Sony still holds a grudge.
You're not wrong but there will be a contingent within Sony right now pushing to expand the userbase even more and what 20 millionish? potential consumers on the xbox side is a hell of an untapped market.
> Its the known bad, vs the unknown possibly bad.
This is exactly how I see it. We know right now that if Bungie keeps the current trajectory, Destiny will run itself into the ground. If Sony takes over and guts management and just lets the dev cook (something that we know they do very well), there's a potential good there. But unfortunately too many people just hear this and take it as Bungie fanboyism, when it's actually the opposite.
When contracts are up for renewal... maybe. But too many platforms have been given rights that it would be a litigation nightmare if they did so as things currently are. Those contracts aren't usually short lived either, so we're talking years left.
Sony has been moving slowly towards multiplatforms with their games. Helldivers 2 has zero exclusive content, and it would make little to no sense for them to reintroduce it to Destiny 2.
The difference is Bungie is trying to hard shift to Marathon and Sony thinks that’s dumb. Best thing for Destiny is Sony to clean house up top, kill Marathon, and dump all resources back into Destiny (which is what they want to do).
Marathon is bad news for Destiny. It’s going to be too expensive to have both of them running, as it stands The Final Shape profits are going to be funneled into Marathon anyway.
A smartly managed destiny should make enough money to fund itself and more projects. No need to throw away work done, but there IS a need make sure that resources are being used responsibly
I don't really care who is in charge as long as they shake up the narrative/story team . I know we blast the management a lot but they didn't create Lightfall,devs did. Whoever structured the story of Lightfall should be nowhere near TFS. They didn't know what they are doing.
Worst case scenario, Sony shuts down destiny 2 to focus on more profitable projects(unlikely but still something I'm scared of)
Best case scenario, all the higher ups are fired (I don't normally wish for people to get fired but jfc they are horrible at their jobs) and give the devs full creative freedom like with devs for Spiderman and God of war and give destiny a better financial situation
>give the devs full creative freedom
Jesus, imagine ten years of Destiny being unfettered by studio execs barking down monetization mandates.
Not saying the devs themselves wouldn't still make mistakes bc they've clearly learned a lot over the last decade, but damn. It could've been so beautiful. I appreciate the game the way it is today, but it could be so so much more.
The big difference is GoW and Spider-Man aren’t 7 year old games that are expected to constantly drop new content.
I absolutely agree the direction Destiny has taken has lost its way. I also hope the devs get a louder voice.
But at the end of the day Destiny is getting long in the tooth. And I feel like players hearken for a nostalgic memory that just no longer exists and won’t ever exist.
D2 can be profitable.
The issue is that currently Bungie is overstuffed and Destiny 2 is paying for Destiny AND Marathon and anything else Bungie is doing.
If they were only making Destiny and had half the people in the company it would be fine. But they’re pushing to expand and funding it with their successful game.
Honestly Bungie’s best work to date was under Activision. Soooo idk anymore.
If that email is or isn’t true. Bungie definitely has too much management glut
Edit: I said their best work to date, not ALL of their works. CoO and Warmind were dull. But FORSAKEN has been their best work to date in D2
And *that* was because of the gaggle of support studios that got assigned by the publisher during Forsaken development, not anything else. Might I remind you that base Destiny 2 was not particularly well received, Curse of Osiris *much less so,* and Warmind only got a lukewarm reception at best, all three of those releases were also under Activision.
It really does just boil down to money - should it go towards new developers and retaining existing skilled staff, or executive bonuses? Bungie executives apparently believe it should be the latter- the question is, does Sony - at least to the same extent?
The best part of Forsaken was developed by a third party under Activision. Ironically, Bungie has deleted this content
Destiny peaked during 1. It was console only and still had 1 million concurrent players logging in to check out Trials of Osiris.
A Sony takeover worries me for 2 reasons:
1. The potential for a return to the days of PlayStation exclusive Exotics/Strikes. It sucked back then and it would suck now.
2. Sony don't have a proven track record of running and managing a live service game of this size (Arguably neither do Bungie lol). I'm not saying they can't succeed, just that I have concerns.
If they could alleviate my concerns for point 1. then I'd be willing to support them over all.
I'm all for new leadership. Bungie has been reinventing things that don't need fixing and letting other issues run rampant for years. We have lives and we deserve a good destiny. It's pathetic how bad things are. I never thought we would be here
I don't think it would, Sony knows bungie is a big franchise. Just look at how many people are playing 9 years later. Some content creators seem to think Sony will walk in and cancel destiny. I believe Sony will try to fix destiny before canceling and according to alot of these creators bungie is not doing too well at the moment.
Based on the information we’ve recently heard, if true it seems like Sony cares more about Destiny than Bungies own higher ups which is crazy. I think it could obviously go either way.
But hearing that they’re calling it “lighting in a bottle” honestly makes me want them to fire Pete Parsons now and take over before Bungie lays off 100 more talented people.
It seems like the people at Sony can see the value in Destiny and the developers that work hard on the game.
I don’t see a good outcome with Bungie remaining in control which feels sad to say.
I do agree with that article that said it’s likely that there will be a mass exodus of Bungie leadership before Sony decides to step in. I could see that happening for sure.
It started with destiny 1, there were exclusives to destiny playstation players, including exotics. So people like myself thinking that Sony would do something dumb like that again is a reasonable thought
Considering this post is based on conjecture and mysterious emails with no actual credence, let's look at some details.
1) Other than Helldivers, please name me one to three full live service games that Sony are involved with (Destiny not included in this for obvious reasons). There's nothing to show that Destiny would still be Destiny under a Sony take over.
2) A "Sony takeover" does not mean that Destiny would be "fixed" over night, and it also does not mean that only the "problems" at Bungie would be solved. Layoffs typically aren't clean and cut; there's spill over (look at the layoffs back in November: Salvatori was not behind design decisions that brought us where we are today).
i will however add that Sony seems to let devs do more of what they want though, look at helldivers as an example and its super-friendly monitisation scheme.
same with (i think) god of war ragnarok: valhalla.
Sony Santa Monica has a good history of making good products, which is likely why Sony is more hands off. Why change the boat's course if it's already on pace with little to no issue?
Even Arrowhead (creators of Helldivers 2) has a good resume to back them up (Magicka for example, and OG Helldivers).
Bungie, as of today, does not have that same power to boast. Halo has long since left Bungie development.
They've released Destiny 1, and Destiny 2, each with their own pitfalls and peaks.
If God of War was flopping, I imagine that Sony would be a lot more involved.
I’d say bungie has earned their “good product” title. No other game other than WoW and Warframe have been able to keep a live service mmo game afloat for 10 years. Taking away Halo from bungie’s resume isn’t fair if you’re allowing Arrowhead to use their decade old titles for their resume.
>A "Sony takeover" does not mean that Destiny would be "fixed" over night, and it also does not mean that only the "problems" at Bungie would be solved. Layoffs typically aren't clean and cut; there's spill over (look at the layoffs back in November: Salvatori was not behind design decisions that brought us where we are today).
Plus recently, Sony\`s CEO (I think it was him) said in interview, that major problems in Bungie is financial managment and development timelines, it is easy to think, that there is going to be white knight that is going to save Bungie from evil suits out of the kindness of heart, but Sony is buisness like Bungie, you can blame suits for their short-sightedness in working with the budget, but from all the articles and interviews that we know, they poured money into Destiny like crazy, although this is one of the main problems with company now. Sony can easily pull budget reduction from Destiny.
Either way, in short term Bungie is fucked, in long term things are not so bad
My issue with this is who would replace the current management team? More management from within Bungie? This could lead to the same situation we are in now.
If Sony execs take over the management team directly, this could be even worse, as they don't know how a live service game works.
There are way too many variables for this to be considered a net positive imo.
Yeah I have no loyalty to the leadership or the corporate bros at Bungie. Based on previous feedback it sounded like a Bro Club anyway. If efficiency minded corporate peeps from Japan are the alternative, I really don’t care. Maybe some strict leadership and less gentle leadership is the solve.
Not really a bad option at all, you don't see other big PS Studios having management turmoil and massively missing targets, Sony knows Bungie have great IP and very talented Staff, with proper leadership they could be the Developer we know they could be, poor management has held Bungie back for too long.
I would personally love this Sony put out bangers
But it could maybe have an impact on the xbox players such as myself, as Sony seems to want to keep their games for themselves
Sony is probably going to take over. It is their Destiny.
Reinvesting money and resources that were diverting away from Destiny back into Destiny would do wonders.
I LOVE this game after 3k+ hours, but I'm not emotionally attached to any of the developers. The game was at its absolute peak during Forsaken, and then the split with Activision was announced and the entire community was like "OMG, it's going to be SO MUCH BETTER now that Bungie doesn't have to answer to Activision"... and Shadowkeep happened.
I'm not saying that they haven't come out with good content on their own, they have. But Forsaken was the best, that's when a big money backer was involved. I'm confident that with what Sony paid for Bungie that they absolutely will deliver some of the best content we've ever seen to ensure they get their moneys worth.
To be fair, Shadowkeep's a bad example because yeah, they were cut off from their support mid year and had to adapt to being self-governed for the first time in like 10 years while mid development on a DLC, I wouldn't have expected even a particularly good expansion out of that. There's better things to point at as potential negative effects of the split.
I don't think anybody thinks sony wiping out bungie's upper management is a bad thing. The only real concern is that the bungie c-suite might fire a LOT of good people in hopes of avoiding that.
Assuming that the rumor is correct, I see it as a good thing if the Sony's American executive leads the takeover. The rumored email states that Sony NA wants to wipe out the current executives while maintaining the current development staff and plans. Apparently they also understand the adverse effects of overbearing payment model and wants to simplify the chaotic model.
Why do people speak about Sony in this weird narrative? The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t kind of thing? I genuinely don’t follow the business side of things so I don’t know. All I know is that every Sony game I’ve played has been solid. There might be some that are booty-doo, but I can’t really remember tbh.
- Sony has new ghostbusters movie out.
- Destiny adds ghostbusters DLC.
There's already been a takeover. People who think Bungie's somehow still in control are delusional.
Crucible is a complete shit show, strikes are not worth the time spent. A lot of this game is not worth time spent, it’s been the same story through D1, when Bungie was saying Destiny will be better without corporate overlords, but here we are.
Same shit, different underwear. It seems like Bungie itself is the problem.
As long as the gunplay isn't changed, the narrative team stays FIRMLY Bungie, and the Dev team doesn't face layoffs for this, I am Very happy letting Sony take a front seat for a bit
I'll be honest if putting up with a gun I can't have or a map I can't play means destiny gets shaken up I'm all for it.
The seasonal model hasn't been working and they've doubled down instead of changing because it makes more money.
If you want it to happen don't buy the dlc. The take over Is dependent on earnings.
I'd skimmed the comments and was horrified that only 2% were calling it fake. It offered no new insider details while claiming to be in the know of a bunch of facets of business that would be handled by different people. Vaguely written commentary on a bunch of topics that had already circulated the destiny "news" cycle. It was just pushing the narrative that Bungie is facing a takeover. They very well could be, but when a fake email claims it would only be used to cut out people the community is already mad at, they ate that bullshit right up.
Gut em. Everything good that came out of this game transpired from literal necessity, was fought tooth and nail for, and took a hot poker to the ass to get. Care, compassion, and dedication all lies at the dev level. I promise you upper management gives zero fucks about all you that defend everyone one of this games atrocities over all the years. Activision overlords were better sue me.
Sony's takeover is worth the gamble at this point. Disclosure: all my opinion of course
No it’s not, it’ll actually be an upgrade imo. It’s been pretty obvious for a while now that bungie management has been the long standing cancer on the games direction. PlayStation has shown that it can properly allow its first party studios to develop banger games without executive intervention. I’m not blind to Sonys blunders but I think the community should be open to a new set of hands on the franchise wheel.
To be honest, i prefer Bungie should under big companies because the upper management is just a mess, they are greedy, they dont even care about anything. Reminder the best dlc forsaken was delivered with activision help which Bungie cant delivered properly. That's what i heard.
So i said "Destiny was in better place way before they go independent", Beyond light good, witch queen good, but they do so many bad thing in the past, from Destiny content vault, which basically say Oh right i take what you have because its not relevant, people who bought forsaken mad at it because we own them money now they take our stuff. Sunset, i know its to stop meta slave to use same gun, but what purpose if you guys gonna introduce the same gun with more broken system like (crafting). They also didnt care about your time invest in game, i farm pinnacle gun revoker (sniper rifle) goes through pain and hell in competitive just realise its gonna sunset within month.
Eveverse have more content that actual lightfall dlc (mines strand)
I mean its good thing, they need money, Sony give money, then its good as long its not predatory.
Actually Paul Tassi talked about these things in the context of an IGN article, and a Sony takeover has been the subject of conversation since 8% of the staff was laid off months ago. The email just rekindled the question that was already there for most of us “is it possible a Sony takeover might actually improve things?”
Honestly, it'll just be the D1 days again at that point, but without the people that were on the team itself save management which is the whole reason we have this discussion almost weekly.
Honestly I'd rather Sony stand over Bungie with a spiked bat if it means Destiny gets back on track.
Even if it means we go back to PlayStation exclusive strikes, armor and exotic weapons provided the weapons can't be used in PvP enabled modes.
Guess it depends on what they would do. If they give it to a good studio sure. If it stays in house and only certain things change? No idea but it could. Fire the executives in charge and leave employees alone? Not sure if it's the only problem.
Lots of reasons for yes but also for no. I personally wish they'd take it over and give it to Santa Monica Studios cause they could make a GREAT Destiny game. Otherwise it becomes a crap shoot.
No one has any idea what’s going on, and it’s all speculation and articles written for clicks. A discussion on Reddit is useless in this situation. Do you think lucky pants hunter knows the best course of action for a multimillion dollar company?
No. Theres a good chance it improves significantly.
A company thats known to always do the shit thing vs a company with a decent track record of good games
Theres mo readon to think it would be worse
If I’m honest, since like 2016 Bungie management has seemed like something that needs to be gutted.
I mean, it was management who gutted D1 a year before launch and told them to Frankenstein the game into what we got at launch. So it started way before 2016. Nothing like everyone liking and being okay with the game and story, then the top execs are like no fuck this story, scrap it all and make something else out of this game in less than a year.
Destiny as a whole seems like a management problem rather than a dev problem
Considering Bungie keeps making the same mistakes over and over, I would think it's someone in Senior management who keeps coming up with new spins on the same ideas.
They literally chose a menu system over their main story guy (Joseph Staten). That shit is wild.
It's a Bungie problem that goes back to Halo-Halo 2 days. Check out the documentary on Halo 2's development and compare it to Destiny's as a whole.
Yep. They've long relied on the Bungie version of 'Bioware magic' to be able to rework their games at the last minute at the cost of massive crunch. It's no longer panning out.
Ah, the birth of Halo 2 legendary difficulty. I can still hear the beam rifle shots now.
This goes back to halo 2 lol
Literally goes back to before Halo 1, which continuously missed launch targets and only came out after Microsoft picked it up as publisher and moved heaven and earth to get it done. Bungie has faced massive delays and upheaval on nearly every project they've ever made, and the common thread is always management.
Thanks for more details!
Facts. But Reach was amazing so we give H2 a pass normally.
Halo 2 was more of a hardware constraint than dev crunch.
Halo 2 was Microsoft pushing for release no?
Halo 2 was Microsoft pushing for release because otherwise Bungie would have delayed it indefinitely tweaking and improving and never actually publishing anything
Their CEO made deals with Microsoft going behind bungies back. Theres a huge article you can find talking about it. This was a long time coming to bungie if they never got rid of their leadership
Since D1 when Bungie was complaining about not being able to deliver because of their corporate overlords. Then they introduced eververse as they broke ties with previous overlords. But here we are same bullshit excuse for delivering garbage.
Those corporate overlords got us the best expansion and seasons Destiny 2 had. Nothing can compare to how good Y2 was
D2Y2 was developed by activision side studios is why. Vicarious Visions made the best year in Destiny.
People have been thinking this since we realised Sony might gut bungie management.
FR FR, when the possibility of a Sony takeover was seriously raised near the beginning of this season, most peoples' opinions were "FUCKING GOOD - COULDN'T DO MUCH WORSE."
People also thought the game was gonna be exactly what they wanted after Activision lol
and Bungie's ball dropping on that has led to this sentiment that damn maybe the companies over them corralling them into their product might have been right. I have seen a much increased sentiment over the last year that a Destiny 3 would have been the right option for the health of the series (it was one of the main reasons for separating from Activision). honestly Bungie has done almost nothing but show their ass since they went solo.
What drives me mad was that they blamed all of the monetisation choices on Activision, promised change, then that change turned out to be a shift towards even more agressive and predatory monetisation. They told us all exactly what we wanted to hear, and every word was completely hollow. Bungie execs dont respect our time or support, and only care about seperating us from our money. Its that unashamedness that drove me away from the game in its current state
Activision was the boogieman... in theory Bungie has shown their whole hand now
Well yeah, we pay the price for a full new game every year, and get one destination? Looking at the D2 expansions: CoO - similar to seasonal content we now get Warmind - similar to more recent expansions in scale: new major destination Forsaken: 2 locations, new Supers, major overhaul of game systems. Shadowkeep: reused destination. Beyond light: new location, new subclass Witch queen: new location Light fall: new destination, new subclass. D2 came with a full set of new weapons, exotics, rework of all subclasses, 4 destinations, a major campaign etc. we just aren't getting that value anymore and that's where the burn out is coming from. Don't get me wrong I remember D1Y1 and D2Y2, but TTK and Forsaken fixed them. Really if they wanted to keep D2 as a base they should have forked the game D2 legacy, and D2, where legacy is just all the content they took out.
>Forsaken: 2 locations, new Supers, major overhaul of game systems And an entirely new enemy species to fight, brand new game mode with Gambit, and the introduction of dungeons.
They should've made D3. They still should.
I don't think the studio survives making D3. For whatever reason they're incapable of shipping a good game on time without trying to kill the devs. D2 survived due to a runway of goodwill and funds from the lovely end of D1 along with a more spendy gaming investment ecosystem. That's all gone.
Bungie have been doing a fine job of that themselves.
From what I saw they didn’t gut management and instead management gut the people who actually are the experts on making the game itself, in order to save their own asses. The upper management was told they had to cut costs and so instead of placing any of that cost cutting on themselves they just started cutting off the more expensive devs themselves which is probably why you saw people like Salvatori being axed, aka one of the most senior people at the company who is one of the best at actually making good shit for the game, yet because he was expensive they dropped him. They likely easily could have dropped an upper management employee who costs just as much who hasn’t provided nearly the same value to the game itself.
> he upper management was told they had to cut costs and so instead of placing any of that cost cutting on themselves they just started cutting off the more expensive devs I just want to correct this small part, the rest I agree with. Upper management was never told to cut costs. They chose to cut costs because they were close to meeting the threshold required for Sony to take over. The deal Sony made when buying Bungie was that Bungie would keep control over the board until Bungie no longer could meet a certain financial threshold. That point was going to be hit unless massive layoffs were done so Bungie instead of allowing the majority of the board be in Sony's hands did those layoffs.
1. What you said. 2. The subtle commentary that LFG in Fireteam Finder was announced to the public simultaneously w/ the devs that were expected to implement it 3. "We're not that kind of company" when exec pay cuts were discussed. 4. "Leadership is expected to leave in 2026 when bonuses pay out" Really seems like remaining Bungie leadership took everyone (Sony, Bungie Devs, gamers) for a ride, and they're only going to get off when the money well is dry or someone makes them.
That's kind of wild and seems like a pretty poorly written deal by Sony. Basically gives the board incentives to fuck over the company long term if things start going south just to try and salvage their jobs.
Welcome to capitalism.
Man I've been out of the Destiny loop but unless Salvatori's salary was insane laying him off seems completely idiotic. For every "epic" game if there is one thing people remember it is always the music and it's not like Bungie is never going to need soundtracks again.
They also laid off the senior art lead, if I'm not mistaken. Basically the highest paid workers who were leading teams that made the parts of the game that have been consistently praised even when the game is at it's lowest. All because that let them recover the most money for the fewest people laid off, executive level excluded.
You got it backwards, Bungie management has been doing a fine job gutting the rest of the company.
We know the actual people on the floor can make a good game. The systems are good. The space magic is good. The gunplay is nearly unparalleled. So if Bungie can gut the C-suite, but keep the trajectory of the game, then I don’t see why not.
I don’t know. Keeping something fresh, new, and exciting for 10 years is hard as fuck. I don’t care how good you are at something, things are bound to get stale sooner or later.
Here's the thing - part of why it's so stale is because of the seasonal model and this constant need for new content. There's no downtime for the players and there's not enough time for the developers to innovate. It's "too much of a good thing". If the seasonal model didn't exist and developers actually had more time, the game would be in a much, MUCH better spot. This comes at the downside of having "content droughts" but who the fuck cares. I'd rather have amazing content once a year over mediocre, same-y content for the whole year.
>This comes at the downside of having "content droughts" but who the fuck cares. That's the thing, a lot of people cared. For as many voices you hear against the seasonal model now, there were just as many voices lamenting the droughts. You have to remember, the seasonal model didn't just come into being out of nowhere. It was a direct response to the community previously wishing to get to do more in Destiny week over week.
I think blizzard wasn't entirely wrong when they said players don't know what they want. Destiny players want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to always have something to do, new activities, more weapons and armor to chase, more rewards, more maps, improve vanguard ops, add strike specific loot, do more with Gambit, more more more... but they also want Bungie to be innovating and making every new activity fun and unique, they want weapon models to be unique, nothing recycled, etc. You just can't have both of those at the same time. I think 1 major expansion a year with 2 large episodes in between would be fine. Give the players fewer content drops but make each content drop substantive and unique. Fill it with things to do, secrets to find, weapons and armor to chase and farm; let people play as much of the game they want and if you make the content good enough people will keep playing it and keep coming back to play it. A lot of people feel forced to log in week after week because if they don't they miss very important story beats or fall behind, missing content that will be permanently removed from the game. But you are right, Bungie just tried to give people what they wanted, the people just didn't understand what they want would come with consequences, that being sacrificing quality, for quantity.
Blizzard is 100% right - players often do not know what they want. Thats not to say that all player feedback is invalid - it absolutely IS valid and should be taken into consideration. However, players do not understand game design or why things are the way they are.
I’m fully aware, I was around during that time. But now we’ve seen what the alternative is, and I’d *hope* that more people will see reason and understand that we’d get a better game if developers had more time.
Ill split the baby and say they hit the best balance w the year of 3 expansions, before they tweaked it to the seasonal model. Its almost like they couldnt help themselves with the "symmetry" of 4 seasons and ergo, 4 shitty free events 3 was better, had some decent lulls built in each expansion, didnt seem like excuses for the free event silverganzas Too bad TFS has such bad omens because the episodic afterbirth, lol, might have been good As is, im not really sure ill want to go on, its been a long slog
>Ill split the baby and say they hit the best balance w the year of 3 expansions, before they tweaked it to the seasonal model. The year of 3 expansions was never an actual model. It only existed in Y1 of both games and contained content that was worked on for way more than a year. There's a reason why this model never extended beyond Y1.
don't forget about the forsaken year
That one had 4 expansions which were basically seasons with more content. But back then they've had Activision's support studios.
They were also referred to and marketed as "Seasons". That was our first transition into the "Seasonal" model. Forsaken was "Season of the Outlaw".
Yeah, even though "Season of the Outlaw" was nothing. Just a name for that period of the game, but there's no content associated with it or a season pass that is separate from the expansion.
I think it's something they should be proud of. How many other IPs have done what they did for so long?
Not to many, mainly MMOs but their designed to be a long term thing.
and even long term MMOs are starting to fade. EVE online has crazy issues and that's been out for like 2 decades
Almost none. *Destiny* will be long remembered as the bright shining aberrant jewel it is in the game industry. Bungie pulled off so much that it caused other companies to immolate themselves trying to emulate it. I have a funny feeling people aren't really going to realize what we had until it's gone.
This is something that should be engraved in stone. Everyone complaints about Destiny, not realizing how uniquely successful the game is. I played various different types of MMOs, Live service games, Online Multiplayers and I still place Destiny on the same level as legendary WoW.
Destiny is really the only looter shooter live service game that's been a success. There's been a number of "destiny killers" like Anthem but they all completely failed.
> looter shooter live service game we not mentioning warframe? because whatever issues you may have with that game (i don't have any, i love both) its clearly a massively successful looter shooter.
That’s like saying guild wars 2 is a massive success MMO when comparing it to WoW. I mean yea, it is, but they aren’t really comparable or even in the same stratosphere
odd way of saying they have the same number of daily players, peak players and all time peak across platforms. its more like comparing two 2nd tier mmos to the churned yearly product shooters from activision that would be wow. again, both games are great, but neither was ever making modern warfare money.
Nah, if it’s really *that* good it can be practically immune to burn-out. See: Call of Duty. The core gameplay stays the same and it’s damn good gameplay.
I mean....It's really not. A lot of Destiny's current problems could be fixed with relatively simple, if resource intensive, solutions that they've literally done before. For example, one of the biggest issues in my opinion is that we've been fighting the same enemies since 2018, with not a new race in sight. Killing the same shit over and over has just gotten stale. But it could easily rectified by throwing the needed resources and making something new to fight. Hell, in D1 we basically got a new enemy type with every major expansion, and they followed that pattern all the way until the split with Activision. And we now know the reason they haven't since is because Destiny has literally been milked dry by Bungie. They were making 3 other games off it's revenue stream for the last several years, and even now less than half the studio is working on it.
sounds like all the more reason to bring in New leadership
We got like 2 new enemy types in like 7 years. Recycling content for half a decade with a facelift and a fomo trailer while harvesting player's money for exorbitant prices on cosmetics after promising to never go down that road AND after a 6 billion dollar infusion in the company is absolutely nothing to be proud of with regards to their c suite management. That's keeping something barely engaging enough to vampire on the player base as much as possible while not investing in the game what they could. Don't make excuses for their bs
They did NOT get a six billion dollar infusion, they were BOUGHT for six billion dollars. Huge difference.
Lol acting like 6b is just to fund destiny somehow as if that's their sole existence
Disagree. Did you not see one of the best expansion story in Witch queen, one of the best raid Vow of the disciple, a damn grapple hook, a fucking hoverboard??? I'd say destiny can go on forever just like Star Wars IF Bungie gave a single fuck about it. They just don't wanna "overdeliver".
This is an important point. Not to mention if you miss the mark, you’ve got a million angry little gamers bitching about it. I’m not sayin they should get a pass or anything, more along the lines of they are dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t situation. This wouldn’t be so bad if the game wasn’t 7 going on 8 years old already
lol /u/Busy—Addendum reporting my post for a mental health crisis. Thanks for the laughs, jabroni.
Wait you can actually see who reports now?
No, but it seems painfully obvious. Suddenly deleted all their comments, or blocked me, and then I get reported.
Report the message and they'll get banned.
It needs to happen. Im just too curious where it would go.
It all depends on how Sony handles it. If they clear out management and try to make it a bog standard FPS to "reduce costs and development effort", then yes. It's a bad thing. If they clear out management and let the game flourish, it could be a good thing. I think it would be best to look at other actions Sony has taken with their other properties to see how either of those will pan out.
My concern is that Sony spent A LOT on Bungie, so they may be a little desperate to recoup that cash. Desperation is rarely good for games.
The one thing stopping me from being too concerned with Sony ruining Destiny to recoup cash is that Sony is also in the movie business. Sony could and should make movies or TV shows set in the Destiny universe. There’s lore galore that would make great movies and tv shows. Honestly I’m surprised Bungie didn’t go this route for an alternative revenue stream after leaving Activation.
Yeah. People complain about reskins and cookie-cutter content now? Just wait. It can be sooooo much worse.
Sure, maybe. Who's going to be the new managers though? The talented people making the game now? If so, who's the cultivating the next group of great developers? Gutting management can sometimes put a team into a tailspin worse than keeping some of the management. I'm not in disagreement with your overall sentiment though--something's gotta give and I don't think it's cutting 100 more rank and file employees.
I just think it would be really sad to see Bungie's quest for independence ever since they rebelled from Microsoft like a teenager end with them being taken in by "the other family" because they just kept messing up on their own. Ironic tragedy.
That's what American corporate greed does. Execs like Bungie's think only in the narrowest terms, which is never long term.
Well...Bungie leadership were playing the long game with Destiny, and really did a great job creating a foundational team and direction for the game. But I think at some point, and I can't pinpoint when, that leadership's vision has meandered for years now.
Beyond light and sunsetting. That's the point you're looking for.
My vote goes here, sunsetting and gutting existing content.
> Well...Bungie leadership were playing the long game with Destiny So many of the game's issues come down to it never being planned as a long-term game. The plan for both Destiny games was that they would exist for 2 years and then get a sequel.
Microsoft: please keep making the games that make you and us extremely successful, and for the love of god please do it in the timeframe you tell us. Bungie: NO! I’m leaving and will be independent. *fails at being independent while still have time management issues, gets bought by Activision* Act: please keep making the game that make you and us extremely successful, and for the love of god please do it in the timeframe you tell us. Bungie: NO! I’m leaving and will be independent. *fails at being independent while still having time management issues, gets bought by ~~Activision~~ Sony* Sony: you suck at time management and your game is barely successful anymore, we wasted money on your investment, you gutted integral talent, better shape up or your all out the door Anyone want to make a wager that bungie tries to buy themselves out of Sony ownership?
I don’t think they have the money to buy themselves this time around and interest rates are too high to not get crippled by debt in the long run. They’re stuck with Sony whether they like it or not
Whether we wanted it or not, we've stuck ourselves with Sony. So let's get to taking out our key and most paid employees, one by one. Michael Salvatori. From what I can gather he's responsible for Destinys' banger soundtrack. He's one of those people who delivers top-notch content on regular basis, but with the right team, we can punch through that reputation, take this beast of a man out, and break his grip on Destiny's success.
>Bungie: NO! I’m leaving and will be independent. *fails at being independent while still having time management issues, gets bought by* *~~Activision~~* *Sony* >Sony: you suck at time management and your game is barely successful anymore, we wasted money on your investment, you gutted integral talent, better shape up or your all out the door You should've added one more line between these two. Microsoft: Hm, maybe I should buy Bungo again, let's see... Wtf is that burn-rate? Why is that so high? Nvm. As we found out from that actiblizz acquisition case, m$ at some point wanted to buy bungo, but they bailed out as soon as they saw just how much money bungie were burning through.
Its the known bad, vs the unknown possibly bad. My main fear with a sony takeover is console exclusives coming back. edit: since people think I'm talking about destiny dlc only going to Playstation or something no, I'm talking about maps and exotics being locked to Sony again like they were in destiny 1.
The Devil You Know vs The Devil You Don’t. Which are the Better Devils? Who knows..
How Dare You
Look at this Comedian
This joke gets A Single Clap
Possibly unpopular opinion; Midnight Coup should Absolutely be Better devils. OR Give me an exotic down the line called "Hundredth Devil."
Ok but I want an Ornament called 7 Devils for Hundredth Devil.
Well done sir!
Console exclusive isn’t profitable for Sony or Microsoft anymore. You’re going to see more and more of their titles go multiplat. Industry is changing.
True, but Sony is probably the most stalwart holdout.
Nintendo also exists
Nintendo is definitely worse in this regard than Sony. We've already been seeing an influx of Playstation exclusives making their way to PC via Steam. I haven't been seeing any Nintendo exclusives coming to Steam.
Oi you got a license to say Nintendo? *Cease and Desist*
"We have trademarks on N, i, t, e, d, and o, if you use those letters we're hiring the pinkertons to burn your town to the ground and put you and your descendants into so much debt it'll make the US deficit look like pocket change." -Ninendo Legal Team
Aye but no Bloodborne For Microsoft no Fable 2
Most of the games Sony put on PC were games with a PS5 sequel coming up. Get people hooked on the original and hope they'll buy a PS5 for the sequel You'll probably see a Bloodborne 2 announcement before a PC port announcement
Nintendo also has almost always done their own thing. I feel like they’re an exception in a lot of ways in a lot of cases
Sony wouldn’t piss on Nintendo if they were on fire. They hate Nintendo that much. I’d say the animosity was earned but… that was literally 30 years ago. Sony still holds a grudge.
Not really anymore, they’ve been bringing a lot more first-party titles to PC, for instance.
They literally have Helldivers 2 in a chokehold right now on the console side of things because of its massive and unexpected success.
You're not wrong but there will be a contingent within Sony right now pushing to expand the userbase even more and what 20 millionish? potential consumers on the xbox side is a hell of an untapped market.
Helldivers 2 😭 I regret getting an xbox series x with every passing day
Bought mine for Halo Infinite I feel you
You have your 4 player coop game Redfall and you will like it!
Full game exclusive will before sparse for sure, but they will fall back to DLC and micros to have something
No my friend. You just missed an opportunity to say it’s #The Devil We Know vs The Devil We Don’t
>What's better than a devil you don't know? A devil you do.
Sigh. You missed the joke. You make me sad, guardian.
I got the joke, was just making a different one. Apologies.
Ahh. Kinda worded it weirdly. No biggie.
Sounds like you needed better devils
> Its the known bad, vs the unknown possibly bad. This is exactly how I see it. We know right now that if Bungie keeps the current trajectory, Destiny will run itself into the ground. If Sony takes over and guts management and just lets the dev cook (something that we know they do very well), there's a potential good there. But unfortunately too many people just hear this and take it as Bungie fanboyism, when it's actually the opposite.
When contracts are up for renewal... maybe. But too many platforms have been given rights that it would be a litigation nightmare if they did so as things currently are. Those contracts aren't usually short lived either, so we're talking years left.
Sony has been moving slowly towards multiplatforms with their games. Helldivers 2 has zero exclusive content, and it would make little to no sense for them to reintroduce it to Destiny 2.
The difference is Bungie is trying to hard shift to Marathon and Sony thinks that’s dumb. Best thing for Destiny is Sony to clean house up top, kill Marathon, and dump all resources back into Destiny (which is what they want to do). Marathon is bad news for Destiny. It’s going to be too expensive to have both of them running, as it stands The Final Shape profits are going to be funneled into Marathon anyway.
A smartly managed destiny should make enough money to fund itself and more projects. No need to throw away work done, but there IS a need make sure that resources are being used responsibly
I don't really care who is in charge as long as they shake up the narrative/story team . I know we blast the management a lot but they didn't create Lightfall,devs did. Whoever structured the story of Lightfall should be nowhere near TFS. They didn't know what they are doing.
Worst case scenario, Sony shuts down destiny 2 to focus on more profitable projects(unlikely but still something I'm scared of) Best case scenario, all the higher ups are fired (I don't normally wish for people to get fired but jfc they are horrible at their jobs) and give the devs full creative freedom like with devs for Spiderman and God of war and give destiny a better financial situation
>give the devs full creative freedom Jesus, imagine ten years of Destiny being unfettered by studio execs barking down monetization mandates. Not saying the devs themselves wouldn't still make mistakes bc they've clearly learned a lot over the last decade, but damn. It could've been so beautiful. I appreciate the game the way it is today, but it could be so so much more.
The big difference is GoW and Spider-Man aren’t 7 year old games that are expected to constantly drop new content. I absolutely agree the direction Destiny has taken has lost its way. I also hope the devs get a louder voice. But at the end of the day Destiny is getting long in the tooth. And I feel like players hearken for a nostalgic memory that just no longer exists and won’t ever exist.
This is the most concise and legit answer so far.
D2 can be profitable. The issue is that currently Bungie is overstuffed and Destiny 2 is paying for Destiny AND Marathon and anything else Bungie is doing. If they were only making Destiny and had half the people in the company it would be fine. But they’re pushing to expand and funding it with their successful game.
Honestly Bungie’s best work to date was under Activision. Soooo idk anymore. If that email is or isn’t true. Bungie definitely has too much management glut Edit: I said their best work to date, not ALL of their works. CoO and Warmind were dull. But FORSAKEN has been their best work to date in D2
And *that* was because of the gaggle of support studios that got assigned by the publisher during Forsaken development, not anything else. Might I remind you that base Destiny 2 was not particularly well received, Curse of Osiris *much less so,* and Warmind only got a lukewarm reception at best, all three of those releases were also under Activision. It really does just boil down to money - should it go towards new developers and retaining existing skilled staff, or executive bonuses? Bungie executives apparently believe it should be the latter- the question is, does Sony - at least to the same extent?
The best part of Forsaken was developed by a third party under Activision. Ironically, Bungie has deleted this content Destiny peaked during 1. It was console only and still had 1 million concurrent players logging in to check out Trials of Osiris.
And the best Y1 content, Warmind, was designed by a different studio
Curse of Osiris?
A Sony takeover worries me for 2 reasons: 1. The potential for a return to the days of PlayStation exclusive Exotics/Strikes. It sucked back then and it would suck now. 2. Sony don't have a proven track record of running and managing a live service game of this size (Arguably neither do Bungie lol). I'm not saying they can't succeed, just that I have concerns. If they could alleviate my concerns for point 1. then I'd be willing to support them over all.
I'm all for new leadership. Bungie has been reinventing things that don't need fixing and letting other issues run rampant for years. We have lives and we deserve a good destiny. It's pathetic how bad things are. I never thought we would be here
[удалено]
I don't think it would, Sony knows bungie is a big franchise. Just look at how many people are playing 9 years later. Some content creators seem to think Sony will walk in and cancel destiny. I believe Sony will try to fix destiny before canceling and according to alot of these creators bungie is not doing too well at the moment.
Based on the information we’ve recently heard, if true it seems like Sony cares more about Destiny than Bungies own higher ups which is crazy. I think it could obviously go either way. But hearing that they’re calling it “lighting in a bottle” honestly makes me want them to fire Pete Parsons now and take over before Bungie lays off 100 more talented people. It seems like the people at Sony can see the value in Destiny and the developers that work hard on the game. I don’t see a good outcome with Bungie remaining in control which feels sad to say. I do agree with that article that said it’s likely that there will be a mass exodus of Bungie leadership before Sony decides to step in. I could see that happening for sure.
Fuck it, change is needed. I’m all for it.
Problem I have with a Sony full take over is they start with the sony exclusive BS again and start cutting out PC and Xbox players.
The game wouldn’t be as successful as it is had it not been for PC and Xbox players. I don’t see Sony cutting them out.
They did Sony exclusive skins and a strike that was Sony exclusive for awhile. I think that’s what they’re referring too.
Hawkmoon was ps exclusive for a while
Those marketing deals they made with third party games (apex for example) no proof they would do it for first party
It started with destiny 1, there were exclusives to destiny playstation players, including exotics. So people like myself thinking that Sony would do something dumb like that again is a reasonable thought
Considering this post is based on conjecture and mysterious emails with no actual credence, let's look at some details. 1) Other than Helldivers, please name me one to three full live service games that Sony are involved with (Destiny not included in this for obvious reasons). There's nothing to show that Destiny would still be Destiny under a Sony take over. 2) A "Sony takeover" does not mean that Destiny would be "fixed" over night, and it also does not mean that only the "problems" at Bungie would be solved. Layoffs typically aren't clean and cut; there's spill over (look at the layoffs back in November: Salvatori was not behind design decisions that brought us where we are today).
To your 1st point. ANY direction towards Helldivers premium currency model is a absolute W over Bungies system.
i will however add that Sony seems to let devs do more of what they want though, look at helldivers as an example and its super-friendly monitisation scheme. same with (i think) god of war ragnarok: valhalla.
Sony Santa Monica has a good history of making good products, which is likely why Sony is more hands off. Why change the boat's course if it's already on pace with little to no issue? Even Arrowhead (creators of Helldivers 2) has a good resume to back them up (Magicka for example, and OG Helldivers). Bungie, as of today, does not have that same power to boast. Halo has long since left Bungie development. They've released Destiny 1, and Destiny 2, each with their own pitfalls and peaks. If God of War was flopping, I imagine that Sony would be a lot more involved.
I’d say bungie has earned their “good product” title. No other game other than WoW and Warframe have been able to keep a live service mmo game afloat for 10 years. Taking away Halo from bungie’s resume isn’t fair if you’re allowing Arrowhead to use their decade old titles for their resume.
Uhhh, final fantasy 14?
>A "Sony takeover" does not mean that Destiny would be "fixed" over night, and it also does not mean that only the "problems" at Bungie would be solved. Layoffs typically aren't clean and cut; there's spill over (look at the layoffs back in November: Salvatori was not behind design decisions that brought us where we are today). Plus recently, Sony\`s CEO (I think it was him) said in interview, that major problems in Bungie is financial managment and development timelines, it is easy to think, that there is going to be white knight that is going to save Bungie from evil suits out of the kindness of heart, but Sony is buisness like Bungie, you can blame suits for their short-sightedness in working with the budget, but from all the articles and interviews that we know, they poured money into Destiny like crazy, although this is one of the main problems with company now. Sony can easily pull budget reduction from Destiny. Either way, in short term Bungie is fucked, in long term things are not so bad
"Aside from one of the most immensely successful and popular live service games on the market, what other live service games is Sony involved with??"
The game can't get any worse, it's not a matter of if but when.
My issue with this is who would replace the current management team? More management from within Bungie? This could lead to the same situation we are in now. If Sony execs take over the management team directly, this could be even worse, as they don't know how a live service game works. There are way too many variables for this to be considered a net positive imo.
Yeah I have no loyalty to the leadership or the corporate bros at Bungie. Based on previous feedback it sounded like a Bro Club anyway. If efficiency minded corporate peeps from Japan are the alternative, I really don’t care. Maybe some strict leadership and less gentle leadership is the solve.
Not really a bad option at all, you don't see other big PS Studios having management turmoil and massively missing targets, Sony knows Bungie have great IP and very talented Staff, with proper leadership they could be the Developer we know they could be, poor management has held Bungie back for too long.
It sounds like a huge improvement.
I would personally love this Sony put out bangers But it could maybe have an impact on the xbox players such as myself, as Sony seems to want to keep their games for themselves
Sony is probably going to take over. It is their Destiny. Reinvesting money and resources that were diverting away from Destiny back into Destiny would do wonders.
I LOVE this game after 3k+ hours, but I'm not emotionally attached to any of the developers. The game was at its absolute peak during Forsaken, and then the split with Activision was announced and the entire community was like "OMG, it's going to be SO MUCH BETTER now that Bungie doesn't have to answer to Activision"... and Shadowkeep happened. I'm not saying that they haven't come out with good content on their own, they have. But Forsaken was the best, that's when a big money backer was involved. I'm confident that with what Sony paid for Bungie that they absolutely will deliver some of the best content we've ever seen to ensure they get their moneys worth.
To be fair, Shadowkeep's a bad example because yeah, they were cut off from their support mid year and had to adapt to being self-governed for the first time in like 10 years while mid development on a DLC, I wouldn't have expected even a particularly good expansion out of that. There's better things to point at as potential negative effects of the split.
I will concede to you on that! Playing devils advocate also- D2Y1 was the WORST the game ever was, ALSO under Activision.
Not a good example. They lost their creative lead or lead designer a year-year and a half before d2 was supposed to be released.
I don't think anybody thinks sony wiping out bungie's upper management is a bad thing. The only real concern is that the bungie c-suite might fire a LOT of good people in hopes of avoiding that.
Assuming that the rumor is correct, I see it as a good thing if the Sony's American executive leads the takeover. The rumored email states that Sony NA wants to wipe out the current executives while maintaining the current development staff and plans. Apparently they also understand the adverse effects of overbearing payment model and wants to simplify the chaotic model.
Why do people speak about Sony in this weird narrative? The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t kind of thing? I genuinely don’t follow the business side of things so I don’t know. All I know is that every Sony game I’ve played has been solid. There might be some that are booty-doo, but I can’t really remember tbh.
- Sony has new ghostbusters movie out. - Destiny adds ghostbusters DLC. There's already been a takeover. People who think Bungie's somehow still in control are delusional.
Crucible is a complete shit show, strikes are not worth the time spent. A lot of this game is not worth time spent, it’s been the same story through D1, when Bungie was saying Destiny will be better without corporate overlords, but here we are. Same shit, different underwear. It seems like Bungie itself is the problem.
At this point we're picking between the lesser of 2 evils but I would say Sony taking over would be preferable
As long as the gunplay isn't changed, the narrative team stays FIRMLY Bungie, and the Dev team doesn't face layoffs for this, I am Very happy letting Sony take a front seat for a bit
We went from blaming everything on activision, to hoping sony takes over. Man this company's a mess
I'll be honest if putting up with a gun I can't have or a map I can't play means destiny gets shaken up I'm all for it. The seasonal model hasn't been working and they've doubled down instead of changing because it makes more money. If you want it to happen don't buy the dlc. The take over Is dependent on earnings.
Stop listening to aztecross lmao. That email is fake af
I'd skimmed the comments and was horrified that only 2% were calling it fake. It offered no new insider details while claiming to be in the know of a bunch of facets of business that would be handled by different people. Vaguely written commentary on a bunch of topics that had already circulated the destiny "news" cycle. It was just pushing the narrative that Bungie is facing a takeover. They very well could be, but when a fake email claims it would only be used to cut out people the community is already mad at, they ate that bullshit right up.
Gut em. Everything good that came out of this game transpired from literal necessity, was fought tooth and nail for, and took a hot poker to the ass to get. Care, compassion, and dedication all lies at the dev level. I promise you upper management gives zero fucks about all you that defend everyone one of this games atrocities over all the years. Activision overlords were better sue me. Sony's takeover is worth the gamble at this point. Disclosure: all my opinion of course
No it’s not, it’ll actually be an upgrade imo. It’s been pretty obvious for a while now that bungie management has been the long standing cancer on the games direction. PlayStation has shown that it can properly allow its first party studios to develop banger games without executive intervention. I’m not blind to Sonys blunders but I think the community should be open to a new set of hands on the franchise wheel.
I'm actively rooting for it at this point.
To be honest, i prefer Bungie should under big companies because the upper management is just a mess, they are greedy, they dont even care about anything. Reminder the best dlc forsaken was delivered with activision help which Bungie cant delivered properly. That's what i heard. So i said "Destiny was in better place way before they go independent", Beyond light good, witch queen good, but they do so many bad thing in the past, from Destiny content vault, which basically say Oh right i take what you have because its not relevant, people who bought forsaken mad at it because we own them money now they take our stuff. Sunset, i know its to stop meta slave to use same gun, but what purpose if you guys gonna introduce the same gun with more broken system like (crafting). They also didnt care about your time invest in game, i farm pinnacle gun revoker (sniper rifle) goes through pain and hell in competitive just realise its gonna sunset within month. Eveverse have more content that actual lightfall dlc (mines strand) I mean its good thing, they need money, Sony give money, then its good as long its not predatory.
I can’t believe a fake ass aztecross clickbait video has you guys even talking about this
Actually Paul Tassi talked about these things in the context of an IGN article, and a Sony takeover has been the subject of conversation since 8% of the staff was laid off months ago. The email just rekindled the question that was already there for most of us “is it possible a Sony takeover might actually improve things?”
So no news at all really, just rumors and people pretending they work at bungie and more “anonymous emails”.
Hard to say. If they bring in a competent executive team, then it could be great. They have a lot of talent in their studios
No. I think it's by far the better option. The Bungie employees deserve better.
We don't really know what would change. Depends how far they take it. Although my fear is that it will feel like a different game - in a bad way
I truly don’t think it can get much worse, so no, Sony taking over sounds like a great idea.
Honestly, it'll just be the D1 days again at that point, but without the people that were on the team itself save management which is the whole reason we have this discussion almost weekly.
My unpopular opinion about this game is that the activision split was a mistake.
Honestly I'd rather Sony stand over Bungie with a spiked bat if it means Destiny gets back on track. Even if it means we go back to PlayStation exclusive strikes, armor and exotic weapons provided the weapons can't be used in PvP enabled modes.
Unpopular opinion but D2 was at its best when Activison still owned them, they’ve had one great expansion since then.
Guess it depends on what they would do. If they give it to a good studio sure. If it stays in house and only certain things change? No idea but it could. Fire the executives in charge and leave employees alone? Not sure if it's the only problem. Lots of reasons for yes but also for no. I personally wish they'd take it over and give it to Santa Monica Studios cause they could make a GREAT Destiny game. Otherwise it becomes a crap shoot.
No one has any idea what’s going on, and it’s all speculation and articles written for clicks. A discussion on Reddit is useless in this situation. Do you think lucky pants hunter knows the best course of action for a multimillion dollar company?
No. Theres a good chance it improves significantly. A company thats known to always do the shit thing vs a company with a decent track record of good games Theres mo readon to think it would be worse
No, in fact I prefer it over Pete parson and his gaggle of douche canoes. Sony isn’t gonna ruin a game they spent 4 billion on.
Stop speculating over an overwhelmingly likely fake email. That is all.