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Let’s hope this goes better for Bungie than when Microsoft owned them. It’s kind of funny that they’d get out from under the thumb of one corporate overlord onl
by brokencode 5y ago
Let’s hope this goes better for Bungie than when Microsoft owned them. It’s kind of funny that they’d get out from under the thumb of one corporate overlord only to find a new corporate overlord 15 years later.
I guess that points to how unbelievably hard it is for independent game developers to survive, and it makes me kind of sad. If it can happen to Bungie or Blizzard, it can happen to any game developer.
Gamers are notoriously hard to part with their money, even though games can deliver an incredible amount of value for each dollar compared to other types of entertainment.
I’ve put hundreds of hours into certain games that I’ve paid $60 or less for, whereas renting or going to a movie provides only a couple hours of entertainment for something like $5-$20.
- saynay 5y agoIsn't this the third time? I thought they were owned by Activision for a bit, before leaving again.
- Hamuko 5y agoPublishing agreement, not ownership.
- willis936 5y agoAnd yet they appeared to have an all-time low in creative freedom during that period.
- tylerchilds 5y agoThey partnered with Activision to leverage them for distribution in a ten year deal that they broke part way through, iirc.
- umvi 5y ago> I guess that points to how unbelievable hard it is for independent game developers to survive I thought companies like Bungie, Bioware, etc. sold out. i.e. it's easy to survive if you make blockbuster titles like Halo or Mass Effect, but then a big corp comes by and offers mega bucks to buy you and so you sell out. The solution if you don't want to be "under the thumb of [a] corporate overlord" is to not sell out in the first place.
- HWR_14 5y agoMS bought Bungie, and then Bungie had the money to make the first Halo
- erulabs 5y agoI hear that metric a lot - dollars per entertainment-hour. It's an interesting metric - but it's also important to remember the 1.5 hour Marvel film almost certainly took more human hours in the input side than virtually any video game. At least, my 10k hours in StarCraft took far far far fewer human hours to produce than my 1.5 hours watching the Avengers. Sort of a "labor theory of value" for entertainment pricing, I guess.
- throwaway17_17 5y agoI would really like to see that comparison, i.e. the ‘human hours’ required, for a AAA game by a largish developer vs. the average Marvel film. I may try to do some rough numbers later because that just seems like an interesting thing to know. Also, how far down the stack do you go for each. Both rely on tools to make the production happen. Do you count hours to make the digital editing software and fx programs for films? Do you count the human hours to make Unreal4?
- spelunker 5y agoDo you count the hours to design and produce the computer hardware used to render the CGI for a film? Do you count the years and cost of raising a child from birth to being a member of the crew? I doubt they count hours towards tools etc developed as they probably paid money for those. So, different bucket I guess, and still important for the overall cost.
- cecilpl2 5y agoPaying money for a tool means having a person develop that tool for you.
- slugiscool99 5y agoSure, but game devs use tools like unreal engine the development time of which shouldn't be factored into the human hours calculation
- 5y ago
- parkingrift 5y agoI think the word "find" is pretty descriptive. It's hard to find people willing to turn down billions of dollars. This is more like an indictment on M&A in the modern economy. Why compete when you can simply acquire?
- abakker 5y agoAcquiring is good! Not every company that wants to grow needs to do something original, sometimes funding people doing original things is good. Bad management is not a requirement for acquiring companies, though it is frustratingly common.
- parkingrift 5y ago> Not every company that wants to grow needs to do something original Maybe they should? The world would look quite different if companies were forced to innovate and compete rather than merge and acquire.
- adolph 5y agoThey've done better the second time around: The Wall Street Journal reports today that some analysts estimate Microsoft paid between $20 million and $40 million for Bungie in total. https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-acquires-bungie https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-acquires-b...
- dogma1138 5y agoHalo 1-3, ODST and Reach what exactly went wrong for Bungie when they were under Microsoft? Microsoft, Activision, Sony they were never truly independent no studio these days can afford too. Game development is a mess and a very expensive mess at that, you need a sugar daddy if you would to survive.
- w4rh4wk5 5y agoExactly. Just looking at the Master Chief collection shows that the games were quite alright.
- theandrewbailey 5y ago> Halo 1-3, ODST and Reach what exactly went wrong for Bungie when they were under Microsoft? Bungie didn't like how Microsoft managed them. Bungie wanted to do something other than Halo, but Microsoft wanted more Halo. A Destiny reference can be seen in ODST: https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/01/09/how-bungie-teased-destiny-in-halo-3-odst.aspx https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/01/09/h...
- sk0g 5y agoIronically, Bungie broke off from Microsoft in hopes of more creative freedom, but as per the article, are running an even tighter ship now... Unfortunate.
- dogma1138 5y agoI think something went wrong with Bungie around the time that Marty parted ways. He also acted out in a way that made it kinda hard to be sympathetic towards him but he seemed to be a big part of what made Bungie Bungie.
- HWR_14 5y agoBungir became a household name while MS owned them and they launched an iconic franchise. How was that bad?
- rodgerd 5y agoPrior to their Microsoft deal they produced a variety of games with different settings (the Marathon universe which linked to their earlier games and forward to Halo, Myth I/II which were RTS with rich lore, and Oni which was a close-combat game that functioned as a precursor to the likes of Yakuza and Sleeping Dogs in terms of the mechanics). With Halo, the single-player and lore began to tail off to focus on the multi-player market, and their other settings and styles of games were all discarded in favour of an FPS treadmill.
- redisman 5y agoThat’s life for game studios though. It’s hard to survive. Making #2 or #3 of a hit is a lot more likely to make the studio survive another 5 years
- gehsty 5y agoMaybe free to play games that make money through micro transactions, without pay to win mechanism (like buying skins or hats!) are the way to sustainably produce games? Kinda like a SAAS subscription instead of a purchase software outright deal.
- steveklabnik 5y agoThis is the current business model of Destiny 2: there's free to play, with expansions you can buy for a one-time cost to give you more content, or microtransactions for cosmetics.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoWhy are so many people trying to make triple A games? It just seems like there is too much supply and not enough demand. Don't even most hardcore gamers only play a select few triple A games? And aren't triple A games unpopular with almost all casual and sports gamers? And most importantly - isn't there the LEAST growth in the hardcore gaming segment?
- password321 5y agoThere is an extreme demand. Many franchises like Pokemon are still breaking sales records along with consoles. https://gamerant.com/pokemon-legends-arceus-sales-records/ https://gamerant.com/pokemon-legends-arceus-sales-records/
- klohto 5y agoPokemon isn’t AAA
- kbelder 5y agoWhat, there's a AAAA category now?
- sk0g 5y agoThe good thing about arbitrary labels is you can apply any one you want :)
- sk0g 5y agoNot sure what definition you are using to exclude Pokemon, but Wikipedia's [0] definition certainly would classify it as AAA [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_publisher#Major_publishers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_publisher#Major_pub...
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
- grogenaut 5y agoI worked for a studio that Sony acquired. The transition went well. Sony seems to be a Value Add for the studios it runs. They provide Money, HR, Basic systems, like any big company. They also provide market analysis, insight, and collaboration with the other studios. There's no chance 2 Sony studios are going to put out the same game at the same time, they have a "portfolio". So there won't be a Prototype/Infamous situation. The folks I interacted with from Sony were all great and very much on our team. One of our producers (who manage multiple games) showed up and ran the localization team when the specialist quit for 2 months. I think sony will play the right level of support for Bungie. I also got a shot of what it looked like to develop a game. There are long windows where you have a lot of folks on staff with not much revenue. And developing a new IP means you have a lot more staff that has no revenue. This is hard for single IP studios, and thus the layoffs on a cycle. For 2 IP studios this can be harder as you want to go as big on the 2nd IP as you do the first, so you may have even more. Being a part of a massive publisher helps out a ton. There are other games coming out and creating income, this levels out the 3-5 year development cycle between IP. It also takes the stress off of the founders a bit. You're not forcasting out runway for 4 years of minimal revenue and hoping you don't have to take on cash at the end and give up ownership.
- KTallguy 5y agoThis is a great post and generally echos my own experience. I think Destiny is a decent brand with a smaller, but still sizable following. My personal opinion: Sony wanted to acquire both the Destiny brand and the team that built that brand—especially the innovative networking engineers. I hope that Bungie gets another shot at a new brand, maybe something that isn't a shooter.