Bungie - Activision Contract

Bungie stinks. Always have. Kind of like Lionhead Studios. Remember Halo 1? Remember Fable 1? Now remember all their sequels? Right.
 
BiH115 said:
Bungie stinks. Always have. Kind of like Lionhead Studios. Remember Halo 1? Remember Fable 1? Now remember all their sequels? Right.
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That's like, opinion. I enjoyed the hell out of Halo 2-Reach. I also thought it had an original, fun, entertaining story line that lead to many fantastic books. Bungie is a fantastic developer. With that being said, I still would not like them to pair up with Activision.
 
I scanned that article for the phrases "small scale real-time tactical" and "medieval fantasy setting", but no dice. Dangit Bungie, get your priorities straight!
 
I enjoyed the first Halo immensely. Really haven't found a reason to play any of the sequels or any other game Bungie intends to release
 
Here are bullet points for what I think will cause failure:

- Four massively multiplayer (style) First Person Shooters, one release every two years. Primarily developed for consoles... MMO Style + Console =! Success.

- "In between these major retail releases, Bungie is also contracted to develop four "expansions" that coincide with each game."
I read that as four expansions for each major release, though others have interpreted it as one expansion for each release. If it is four expansions per two year period, yikes.

- The developer would receive an additional $2.5 million if the first "Destiny" game receives a score of 90 or higher on the review aggregate site GameRankings.com.
While that may be standard in the industry, I still think it makes developers cater to a generic crowd in order to get higher ratings. I think this contributes to the watering down and general crappiness of games.

- "Meanwhile, Activision has the option to terminate the deal altogether under a number of difference circumstances. For instance, the publisher can void the contract without penalty if the first "Destiny" game does not sell 5 million units in its first six months, or it can walk away at any point after the second expansion pack releases."
Physical sales determining outcome of the series, great...

- "While Bungie is under contract with Activision, it can dedicate no more than 5 percent of its staff to this "action-shooter" prototype (Marathon themed side project)."
Publisher determining how you allocate your staff, I can't imagine that is good.
 
With their track record in Halo, they could have done better than Activision IMO.

What the hell were they thinking.
 
Hornet said:
With their track record in Halo, they could have done better than Activision IMO.

What the hell were they thinking.
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No idea, but they've gone from a "must buy" to "avoid at all costs."

Which is sad, since I've been buying Bungie since the Marathon days. :(
 
Maplehamwich said:
Here are bullet points for what I think will cause failure:

- Four massively multiplayer (style) First Person Shooters, one release every two years. Primarily developed for consoles... MMO Style + Console =! Success.

- "In between these major retail releases, Bungie is also contracted to develop four "expansions" that coincide with each game."
I read that as four expansions for each major release, though others have interpreted it as one expansion for each release. If it is four expansions per two year period, yikes.

- The developer would receive an additional $2.5 million if the first "Destiny" game receives a score of 90 or higher on the review aggregate site GameRankings.com.
While that may be standard in the industry, I still think it makes developers cater to a generic crowd in order to get higher ratings. I think this contributes to the watering down and general crappiness of games.

- "Meanwhile, Activision has the option to terminate the deal altogether under a number of difference circumstances. For instance, the publisher can void the contract without penalty if the first "Destiny" game does not sell 5 million units in its first six months, or it can walk away at any point after the second expansion pack releases."
Physical sales determining outcome of the series, great...

- "While Bungie is under contract with Activision, it can dedicate no more than 5 percent of its staff to this "action-shooter" prototype (Marathon themed side project)."
Publisher determining how you allocate your staff, I can't imagine that is good.
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Nice, a match made in heaven. Or forsee great things happening.
 
Hornet said:
With their track record in Halo, they could have done better than Activision IMO.

What the hell were they thinking.
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I'd assume they were thinking that they wanted a publisher that actually had the money they needed to support development.
 
So they went from producing a generic game (halo) with yearly editions which are merely map packs and more tired rehashing of old dead material, to the publisher best known for a generic game (CoD) with yearly editions which are merely map packs and more tired rehashing of old dead material.

I can see how this makes sense.
 
What I don't get is why the fuck they left MS if this is what they are signing on for? My understanding when they asked to leave was that they were tired of MS wanting them to be the Halo studio. It is something MS is known for, wanting sequels. They are apparently a good publisher to work for support wise as they will fund a project to completion and can even provide technical assistance, but they kinda suck pitch wise because they aren't big on original IP. They want you to remake the good stuff over and over.

Ok well I can respect Bungie saying "Nah, we aren't interested in that." Then they sign a contract... that says they'll do precisely that kind of shit only now for Activision who are a much worse publisher and as a contract kind of deal so there is no security (while MS functions with their devs in something like a publisher-dev environment, they are all part of MS).

Seems rather stupid, but hey.
 
DeathPrincess said:
So they went from producing a generic game (halo) with yearly editions which are merely map packs and more tired rehashing of old dead material, to the publisher best known for a generic game (CoD) with yearly editions which are merely map packs and more tired rehashing of old dead material.

I can see how this makes sense.
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Halo 1, 2, and 3 were hardly yearly (2001, 2004, 2007). Even ODST came out 2 years after 3. Reach is the only one that had a 1 year gap between the previous release.

What's sad is that Halo 2 and 3 took 3 years to make but really didn't bring much over the previous one. I liked the Halo story kinda, in the way I like crap sci fi, it's fun to go through but not overly amazing.
 
Derangel said:
I'd assume they were thinking that they wanted a publisher that actually had the money they needed to support development.
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Those contracts sounds way too restrictive to me to be worth it. But of course I may be wrong and maybe that's just how all major publishers operates.
 
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