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Bungie says it has a whopping 350 in-house developers working on Destiny Holy burn rate Batman! Maybe it's just me, but if that number is accurate, this looks

Bungie says it has a whopping 350 in-house developers working on Destiny Holy burn rate Batman! Maybe it's just me, but if that number is accurate, this looks like an "all-in" bet by Activision and Bungie both. If this project fails, Bungie will likely not survive and Activision would at least take a major hit. If you think that's wild, pessimistic speculation, consider this statement: One thing that was made quite clear is that the game will not be subscription-based. Every presenter was clear in stating that players will not pay a monthly fee to participate in this persistent world.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago
Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't Bungie sitting on vast piles of cash from the Halo franchise...? Even at that amount of burn, if it turns out to be a flop Bungie isn't going anywhere.
- tedivm 14y ago
  350 developers is a lot. Lets say, for the sake of simplicity, that they cost $85k a year (salary plus benefits like insurance). We're talking about almost $30 million a year just on those developers- and that's not even counting administrative staff, buildings, equipment, and all the services that go around that. At the same time, they have basically no other games coming out. They have no licensing for Halo, so that's all Microsoft's baby now. Other games they've talked about launching have failed to reach market. The point being, they're burning through a lot of cash and don't seem to be producing anything but this game. If it flops then Bungie will probably continue to exist, but it certainly won't be the same company it is now.
  - tokipin 14y ago
    on the other hand, maybe it shows how much confidence/love the developers have for the project :)
    - iamdave 14y ago
      Developer confidence wont mean a thing if the market thinks your work is bunk.
    - spdy 14y ago
      I would agree if we talked about a small/medium sized studio. But with ~350 employees love is not in there anymore. Its all about the ROI at the end and it has to be as high as possible. Probably the pitch for this game was something like "its like COD and Halo just BIGGER !!". To get a budget this size approved. Everyone is fighting an uphill battle against WoW and my guess is an indie studio will take the crown in the foreseeable future.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    They probably didn't start out at 350 developers. Early pre production would have been a much smaller team, with more developers added as the success of the project was more apparent. Still very risky, but at least they'll ship something interesting.
rorrr 14y ago
Game developes are what, $80-150K/year on average (of all levels). Add benefits and tax overhead, makes it $110-180K/year. Times 350: $38,500,000 - $63,000,000 per year. (I don't know if they include artists, managers, executives in that 350 number, so it could be more, much more). It's really not a crazy budget, movies break that all the time. There are multi-billion dollar game studios out there.
- TillE 14y ago
  Except developing an MMO doesn't take just one year, it's more like two or three at least. Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane.
  - nl 14y ago
    Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane. Err.. That's not insane at all. Video game revenue has long outstripped movie revenue[1, 2009]. To pick a non-random example, it too 24 hours for Halo 4 to bring in $220M revenue (as opposed to 17 days for Avatar)[2] Halo 4 cost around $40M to produce[2] [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/videogames-hollywood http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/v... [2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324439804578115432402361940.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732443980457811...
    - blktiger 14y ago
      Also, keep in mind that Halo was only on the xbox 360. Destiny will be available cross-platform so the market is even larger.
  - jules 14y ago
    > which is insane Is it really? I'd have expected an MMO to be a bigger project than an animation movie. There is script writing, animation, 3d modeling, speech and sound in both of them. While the visual quality in a movie has to be higher, there is a LOT of stuff in a modern game that has to be modeled. And then we've not even talked about the programming side. Secondly, keep in mind that very succesful games generate billions dollars of profit, so it would make sense to spend a fraction of that if that improves your chances of becoming the next megahit.
jacquesc 14y ago
It's a big investment, but also huge potential rewards. Bungie is aiming for their own World of Warcraft type recurring profits (most likely micro-transaction based). I wouldn't bet against them.
latitude 14y ago
I wonder if game publishers/developers seek or accept external funding to back up a specific project? From what I understand there are, for example, ways to invest in a motion picture, so it's not a big stretch to assume the same can be done with a game project.
1qaz2wsx3edc 14y ago
It's a smart idea; 10 years * 3 story arcs, 30 world events. They only need to invest for the first year or two. They can create the rest, like WoW has been doing. As for subscription-based, we'll see micro transactions, or expansion packs. Social features could be fun. I'm sure we'll see a cow-clicker mechanic. I'd also bet that they'll have random world events, and user-triggered world events. Outside of the 10 year arc. Not so all-in, but it's interesting to see a gaming company switching to long term bets. To me this means once the battleship is up and running, bungie/activision will have the freedom to produce more games. Also I'm sure they've had some nice input from Blizzard, statistics, code and all.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't Bungie sitting on vast piles of cash from the Halo franchise...? Even at that amount of burn, if it turns out to be a flop Bungie isn't going anywhere.

tedivm 14y ago
350 developers is a lot. Lets say, for the sake of simplicity, that they cost $85k a year (salary plus benefits like insurance). We're talking about almost $30 million a year just on those developers- and that's not even counting administrative staff, buildings, equipment, and all the services that go around that. At the same time, they have basically no other games coming out. They have no licensing for Halo, so that's all Microsoft's baby now. Other games they've talked about launching have failed to reach market. The point being, they're burning through a lot of cash and don't seem to be producing anything but this game. If it flops then Bungie will probably continue to exist, but it certainly won't be the same company it is now.
- tokipin 14y ago
  on the other hand, maybe it shows how much confidence/love the developers have for the project :)
  - iamdave 14y ago
    Developer confidence wont mean a thing if the market thinks your work is bunk.
  - spdy 14y ago
    I would agree if we talked about a small/medium sized studio. But with ~350 employees love is not in there anymore. Its all about the ROI at the end and it has to be as high as possible. Probably the pitch for this game was something like "its like COD and Halo just BIGGER !!". To get a budget this size approved. Everyone is fighting an uphill battle against WoW and my guess is an indie studio will take the crown in the foreseeable future.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  They probably didn't start out at 350 developers. Early pre production would have been a much smaller team, with more developers added as the success of the project was more apparent. Still very risky, but at least they'll ship something interesting.

rorrr 14y ago

Game developes are what, $80-150K/year on average (of all levels). Add benefits and tax overhead, makes it $110-180K/year. Times 350: $38,500,000 - $63,000,000 per year. (I don't know if they include artists, managers, executives in that 350 number, so it could be more, much more). It's really not a crazy budget, movies break that all the time. There are multi-billion dollar game studios out there.

TillE 14y ago
Except developing an MMO doesn't take just one year, it's more like two or three at least. Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane.
- nl 14y ago
  Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane. Err.. That's not insane at all. Video game revenue has long outstripped movie revenue[1, 2009]. To pick a non-random example, it too 24 hours for Halo 4 to bring in $220M revenue (as opposed to 17 days for Avatar)[2] Halo 4 cost around $40M to produce[2] [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/videogames-hollywood http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/v... [2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324439804578115432402361940.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732443980457811...
  - blktiger 14y ago
    Also, keep in mind that Halo was only on the xbox 360. Destiny will be available cross-platform so the market is even larger.
- jules 14y ago
  > which is insane Is it really? I'd have expected an MMO to be a bigger project than an animation movie. There is script writing, animation, 3d modeling, speech and sound in both of them. While the visual quality in a movie has to be higher, there is a LOT of stuff in a modern game that has to be modeled. And then we've not even talked about the programming side. Secondly, keep in mind that very succesful games generate billions dollars of profit, so it would make sense to spend a fraction of that if that improves your chances of becoming the next megahit.

jacquesc 14y ago

It's a big investment, but also huge potential rewards. Bungie is aiming for their own World of Warcraft type recurring profits (most likely micro-transaction based). I wouldn't bet against them.

latitude 14y ago

I wonder if game publishers/developers seek or accept external funding to back up a specific project? From what I understand there are, for example, ways to invest in a motion picture, so it's not a big stretch to assume the same can be done with a game project.

1qaz2wsx3edc 14y ago

It's a smart idea; 10 years * 3 story arcs, 30 world events. They only need to invest for the first year or two. They can create the rest, like WoW has been doing. As for subscription-based, we'll see micro transactions, or expansion packs. Social features could be fun. I'm sure we'll see a cow-clicker mechanic. I'd also bet that they'll have random world events, and user-triggered world events. Outside of the 10 year arc. Not so all-in, but it's interesting to see a gaming company switching to long term bets. To me this means once the battleship is up and running, bungie/activision will have the freedom to produce more games. Also I'm sure they've had some nice input from Blizzard, statistics, code and all.