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Jason Schreier: Bungie is planning significant layoffs, Destiny 3 is NOT in active production
- Thread starter Dr. Samuel Hayden
- Start date
StreetsofBeige
Member
With rumours D3 is dead and too costly to make, what do you guys think happened?
1. Sony bought Bungie knowing D3 was in the cards, but years later after some prelim work they realized it was too costly and canned it
2. Sony bought Bungie already knowing D3 wasnt possible due to costs, but they still bought them anyway for D2 and Marathon?
1. Sony bought Bungie knowing D3 was in the cards, but years later after some prelim work they realized it was too costly and canned it
2. Sony bought Bungie already knowing D3 wasnt possible due to costs, but they still bought them anyway for D2 and Marathon?
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Asha's balls in my throat?
I think they bought them for the continued D2 revenue stream and the prospect of an upcoming hit with Marathon, the success of which would be a big factor in deciding how much budget to allot for Destiny 3. And it isn't panning out in a way that seems financially feasible to them.
Timberwolf25
Member
Combination of both.
Sony bought Bungie knowing D3 was in the cards, but years later after some prelim work they realized it was too costly and canned it, but they still bought them anyway for D2 and Marathon?
I think they thought they could milk D2 more, but it really underperformed. Also, given Bungie's pedigree, they probably was betting big on Marathon also being a money maker for them. Both turned out to be duds.
Edit: And now seeing the total faceplants of those games, probably aren't willing to spend big again for what has now become a risky investment.
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Sony got scammed so bad thinking Bungie was on their A-game and ready for D3, turns out they were spreading too thin doing bs incubation programs leading to nowhere and focusing on DIE stuff that amounts to nothing real in game development and now Sony has to carry this death weight of a Studio that launched a failed game in a failed genre no one cares about and Bungie is too close to get Bluepointed if things keep going like this
Pokedot
Member
That doesn't really track b/c D2 was on a downward trend by the time Sony bought Bungie. I think Jim Ryan panicked after MS bought Activision-Blizzard, and he needed to buy SOMETHING. Also, they probably thought Bungie's live service expertise would be valuable since at the time they had a bunch of live service games in development.
I think it's 2. This is the same Sony that thought Concord was going to be a smash hit. I believe Sony bought Bungie thinking the pitch for Marathon was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Thebonehead
Gold Member
Yeah they're toast alright
StreetsofBeige
Member
Makes sense if you think of it. I'm sure they've been getting free breakfast at the office the past 20 years.
Yeah they're toast alright
Thebonehead
Gold Member
"There's no such thing as a free lunch" though... Said someone
Blood Borne
Member
Whoever made the decision at Sony to purchase Bungie should self flagellate. Dumbest decision ever.
WTF were they thinking?
That money could have been used to purchase or at least buy ownership shares or exclusive rights or time exclusives or something with either From Software, Capcom, Namco, or Koei Tecmo.
WTF were they thinking?
That money could have been used to purchase or at least buy ownership shares or exclusive rights or time exclusives or something with either From Software, Capcom, Namco, or Koei Tecmo.
Thebonehead
Gold Member
Some key dates coming up for Bungie..
Just after the final destiny patch in a couple of weeks, Sony will gut the studio to the bone. 400 employees gone saves 4-5 million a month.
By July, Marathon will have been on the market for roughly 120 days and Sony will see exactly how many players are actually sticking around daily since the pivot to Pve.
They can then look at the new, downsized monthly burn rate against Marathon's actual revenue in July. If the player count is at that 5,000–10,000 baseline, the microtransaction revenue will be virtually non-existent.
Bungies final shape will come quickly at that point to avoid the 4-5 million they will be spending each month in salaries for those 400 or so devs that are left. I'm thinking one of two ways
Concord it. Terminate and absorb the viable headcount into other Sony projects.
F2P for 3-4 weeks to see if things change.
Just after the final destiny patch in a couple of weeks, Sony will gut the studio to the bone. 400 employees gone saves 4-5 million a month.
By July, Marathon will have been on the market for roughly 120 days and Sony will see exactly how many players are actually sticking around daily since the pivot to Pve.
They can then look at the new, downsized monthly burn rate against Marathon's actual revenue in July. If the player count is at that 5,000–10,000 baseline, the microtransaction revenue will be virtually non-existent.
Bungies final shape will come quickly at that point to avoid the 4-5 million they will be spending each month in salaries for those 400 or so devs that are left. I'm thinking one of two ways
Concord it. Terminate and absorb the viable headcount into other Sony projects.
F2P for 3-4 weeks to see if things change.
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DEAD ORIGINAL
Member
Imagine they bought Capcom, or Square what a waste of money buying Bungie and to think Bungie We're consultants to every Playstation Studio, they should've stayed with Microsoft.
clarky
Gold Member
lol , hopefully Bungie and Sony are reading this so they can stick to your timetable.
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clarky
Gold Member
I was just reading that Jason article and a ew others and it seems Sony turned down multiple pitches for D3 going back as far as Lightfall. If they wouldn't green light the game back when the playerbase was high it was never getting the go ahead regardless. Fuck knows why Sony even bought them, maybe they had instant buyers remorse once it dawned on them they'd been sold up the river.
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DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
you keep throwing out all these arguments about how ABK is valuable and can "pay for itself over time" and gives them optionally/flexibility/whetever.I'm not even disputing those things. It doesn't mean it was worth the price MS paid. Those things would all be true whether Microsoft paid $1 or $100 billion.
Anyway I'm not interested in discussing this further. Sorry from distracting away from Sony/Bungie and their colossal fuck up
Witchilich
Member
So why call it Destiny?
None of the OG Halo devs are left on Bungie. Microsoft should sell Halo to someone else and let a new studio led by the OG devs work on it. Ohh also start where old Bungie left, ignore the 343i games.
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Witchilich
Member
Honest Question
Who's worse: Bungie or Halo Studios (343i)?
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
It's likely the Destiny name carries some weight.
That said, I never believed IP mattered much in multi-player.
Hollywood Hitman
Gold Member
3 is a good number imo for series that get sequels, the logic in destiny 3 speaks for itself and was the right decision.
With Destiny 3 it would've given it that modernized boost to make everything feel that much better again. Loot is forever the driving force, it's why games like Everquest still has an audience and they still put out expansions, chasing loot in a game that you love is something that can last decades. People never tire of it.
Destiny broke the barriers, it did what other devs can only dream of to have not only a series to last 12 years but a fan base that wants more.
Destiny 3 could've maybe be the final iteration of the series and I think that's acceptable, but it needed to happen.
Fans like myself would've returned and I know I'm not alone, it just makes no sense when this game has made as much money as it did to not have the next game lined up, makes no sense.
With Destiny 3 it would've given it that modernized boost to make everything feel that much better again. Loot is forever the driving force, it's why games like Everquest still has an audience and they still put out expansions, chasing loot in a game that you love is something that can last decades. People never tire of it.
Destiny broke the barriers, it did what other devs can only dream of to have not only a series to last 12 years but a fan base that wants more.
Destiny 3 could've maybe be the final iteration of the series and I think that's acceptable, but it needed to happen.
Fans like myself would've returned and I know I'm not alone, it just makes no sense when this game has made as much money as it did to not have the next game lined up, makes no sense.
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apocaliptic
Member
Remember when Bungie were all about politics on X and calling their fans toasters? Nothing of value will be lost when they shut down 
simpatico
Gold Member
I have no idea how the deal made it through the DD phase. There are video essays out there breaking it down, but it didn't take an economic forensic analyst to figure out that Bungie had a ton of bad momentum and was about to hit a brick wall financially. D2 was running out of steam, D3 was not nearly far enough along in production to fill that payroll gap. Marathon was a passion project by a few senior guys and never had the mass appeal required to keep the lights on for the D3 development phase. I honestly think there was some kind of collusion between Parsons and individuals at Sony for personal gain. Nothing else adds up. It should be earnestly investigated.
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Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Extreme retardation.
Fake
Member
Toxic positivity.
Bernardougf
Member
Never going to happen ... you could have a future traveler come to our time and say "wokeness and dei were bad for the entertainment industry dont do it" and even then they would absolutely denied it.
Odinnii
Member
Sony doesn't trust Bungie. They wasted millions on projects that went nowhere while both Destiny and Marathon underpreformed.
I think Sony's plan is to let Bungie continue working on Marathon knowing the changes probably won't mean much and eventually fold them into PS studios.
Maybe then, fully under Sony's control, they will greenlight something.
Avid Reading Horse
Member
Bungo lied or Sony was retarded. Or some combination thereof.
I imagine they presented D2 expansions as a well-oiled content pipeline where they could cut manpower and still make bank while said manpower would be generating another megahit in Marathon.
I think if they did a D3 or D2 had major content coming instead of the dogshit mini-expansions they would have kept a lot more players. I don't know where the rumor came form, but everyone assumed that we would be taking the Dreadnaught and warping off into a whole new neighborhood of the galaxy. That made way too much sense and I accepted that it was probably real without even questioning it. Perfectly fine setup for a D3 or a major overhaul of D2 (leaving all the old stuff on an old director page somewhere and starting a fresh saga on a new director page).
But no we got a forgettable bullshit story on some asteroid or something, lame as fuck 'turn into a ball' mechanics, and the most mind-numbing grind in Destiny history with the initial iteration of the portal. But really most people hopped off without even trying it as basically Bungo as much as said "We're going to deliver you less D2 content for your money because we are pivoting to Marathon"
yurinka
Member
I'd bet:
3. They still plan to have D3 but didn't start it (or started it and did put it in the freezer) because were busy with other projects. Sony bought them knowing they were busy with D2, Marathon, Team LFG's game and Destiny Rising to get all of them plus help to other Sony GaaS plus future Bungie + Team LFG titles they'd make once they free resources from these projects, like eventually would be D3, which would be greenlighted or resumed just after they finally sunset D2 development (which has been later than expected).
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clarky
Gold Member
Don't think so. D3 should be out of the planning states by now if thats the case and they wouldn't be starring down the barrell at a load of layoffs. Doesn't make any sense to wait until youve killed one game and then lay eveyone off only to rehire a load more once the game is hypothetically out of pre-production.
Sounds like hopium to me. The only way D3 is getting green lit is if Marathon is turned around in a big way and D2 brings a load of players back for this update that stick around. Both unlikely at this point.
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Unfortunatecookie
Member
Here's what I think happened:
A select number of people at PlayStation erroneously believed that GaaS was the future, and they thought that they needed as many GaaS's as possible in order to not get left behind. They listened to short-sighted fans, druggies, Twitter journalists, and everyone in-between who yapped about how the future of games was about abandoning what works and chasing after risky revenue. They then looked at games on the PS4 that had a massive audience, and they cross-referenced those games with which of the developers of those games would be 'acquirable'.
Bungie was the result; an incredibly popular single-player FPS maker that also made an incredibly popular multi-player game. It seemed like a sensible decision on paper; buy up a proven GaaS-maker for a couple of billions and have them make that money back through their future live-service titles.
In reality, and what most people with common sense know, there's no proven formula for success in the GaaS market. Cartoonish graphics, celebrity endorsements, streamer sponsoring; that's what worked for Fortnite. It's not what works for everyone else.
So the reason Sony isn't signing a 9-figure check for Destiny 3 isn't because Bungie can't make a D3; it's because Sony trusted PlayStation and approved a $3.6B acquisition that has yet to prove itself as being a great investment. Bungie, in it's current non-success form, is a measurable waste of financial resources. They have not replicated Destiny and Halo. I suspect that Destiny 3 only happens if Marathon makes a miraculous turnaround. Since that does not seem to be a possibility, I predict that Bungie will be (either) completely gutted or shutdown within the coming years.
Shubh_C63
Member
For Destiny 3 to exist, Marathon would need to be a success.
But if Marathon is a huge success, then there is no Destiny 3.
Sony/Bungie is fucked. Marathon even post Season 5 would never touch Destiny revenue numbers. Sony will just keep Bungie supporting one game (at best ~30K players) as a Legacy/Prestige studio. To shut down Bungie would be an insane PR hole for Sony.
But if Marathon is a huge success, then there is no Destiny 3.
Sony/Bungie is fucked. Marathon even post Season 5 would never touch Destiny revenue numbers. Sony will just keep Bungie supporting one game (at best ~30K players) as a Legacy/Prestige studio. To shut down Bungie would be an insane PR hole for Sony.
Negotiator101
Member
The numbers it's pulling now are basically not if but when they shut it down, it's basically how long Sony gives it.
Kerotan
Gold Member
They'll probably wait until their other studios get themselves sorted after the failed GAAS push to shut down bungie or put them on a smaller project.
Sucker punch only has 200 employees and look what they can do. Cut bungie to it's best 300-500 developers and tell them it's their last chance.
yurinka
Member
It isn't hopium, it's common sense.
With the acquisition their main priorities and things to do were:
- Being bought by another publisher, had to move part of the redundant people to other central SIE/PS Studios teams (to help their GaaS, as mentioned in the acquisition)
- Fire the other redundant peopler that weren't needed anymore
- Complete the Team LFG incubation
- Before doing the previous points, hire (in many cases former Bungie employees) enough people to replace them
- Release Marathon, did it with some delay. Didn't match revenue expectations at launch, but had good enough engagement metrics
- Release Destiny Rising, had a very successful launch
- Continue Destiny 2 until its sunset, did it and lasted more than they expected
- Once projects sunset or get released, part of the team gets free to work in other projects, so the logical step is to have 1 or 2 other projects greenlighted, or to restart or reboot previous projects that got paused/set on hold to work in more proritary stuff. They mentioned to be focused now in Destiny and Marathon brands, so since they just released Marathon and won't develop more D2 big stuff, the logical step would be to focus now in the next Destiny game (plus to fire some people who got freed in other projects and can't be moved to these new projects)
Marathon didn't have a massive success at launch, but performed good enough at least in cetain areas to secure long term support.
Regarding D2, as normal in the sunseting stage of a GaaS player support is declining, and will decline way more with the lack of big updates. Without future big updates, D2 won't see any player/revenue bump and will decline faster.
As always, in each project some things went well and others went wrong, so they kept learning, adapting and tweaking their plans as needed with changes and improvements. And will continue doing so.
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clarky
Gold Member
Im not in game development but wouldn't it make sense to have a project green lit before you finsh the game you are working on so there isnt a huge gap and loads of folk lose their jobs?
I thought most studios have at least one project in pre-production while one is in active development?
Edit: They are not working on the next Destiny game, thats been knocked back by Sony several times apparently.
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yurinka
Member
Yes, normally while a big team is about to release or suntet a game there is a small team working on prototypes, concepts and pitches. With the idea of have a project ready (or almost) to be started very soon after the previous one ends.
Sometimes they take a vacations period because many people gets burned out with final push/crunch to release or 'kill' a game, but often that's just for some people while others jump to the other project. Sometimes they also take some time between projects to research build some new propietary engine, tool or tech (or get trained in some new stuff somebody else did) they need to start the next project. In the current context I assume they'll be checking some AI powered and next gen stuff. Depending on the studio, the engine & tools team is a separate team from the games teams working in paralel. In others isn't.
But yes, the idea is to have a new project ready for when people completes their job in a previous project. But often due to many things it isn't possible so they are kept some time temporarily working as support for other teams or studios, or researching some new stuff until the project is ready. We have to understand that AAA games and companies involve thousands of people and lots of internal paperwork, meeting, burocracy and politics and it's difficult to align internal and external roadmaps and budgets.
Regarding budgets and roadmaps, companies normally have a certain budget for games start each year, and also amount of games that they want to release per year, and an amount of games under development. So sometimes a project needs to wait to start or to release to find an available slop even if they're ready to start production.
As an example, the producer of a game greenlighted now has to have signed the support teams, mocap teams, localization teams, voiceover teams, testers etc giving them some dates, and maybe in the months they need them (some stuff maybe 3-5 years in the future) they are busy and have to find different dates. So have to find different teams or move dates of the project.
In non-GaaS projects is less difficult because in theory they have a more clear picture of when the project will end, so can plan and do stuff with more time in advance. GaaS development support last more or less depending on performance, which means they have less room to do stuff in advance.
As budgets rise and market conditions get more uncertain, it also gets harder to justify the investment on greenlighting a project. The people who puts the money want to triple check that it will be worth it to risk hundreds of millions there. So they do what they can, even if nobody has a crystal ball to know what is going to work 5-9 years in the future.
For each people, if the distance between project that ends and when they can be assigned to other one is too big (it depends per role, some can be added just at the beggining of production but others don't), they often are fired if can't be at least support an external team or do some research. To avoid hiring and firing too frequently is one of the reasons of why AAA teams more and more of their work to support teams.
And yes, other than the projects they have in production, AAA devs often have one or multiple tiny teams of a few people working on game ideas, concept art, game mechanics that sometimes end embeded in other games they already had in the works, or sometimes ends in a pitch for a new game. They often have very little work involved, so most of that stuff gets scrapped or iterated after getting feedback, testing it or contrasted with market research or new successful game releases.
And well, this is a quick recap and the average case, it gets way more complex and difficult and there are exceptions for everything plus random issues that always arise and they can't control or predict no matter how super talented and experienced they are. Seeing from outside from people not familiar with gamedev would get the impression that game development is super chaotical, uncertain and risky compared to other way more predictable industries. I assume this is one of the reasons of why even the private companies keep most of their stuff secret.
What the liar propagandist Jason Shredder said was that they didn't have Destiny 3 in production. But even if that was true, it is compatible with having it ready to start production at the start of the next quarter due to budgets, or with having another Destiny game under production, or to have most stuff ready to start it soonish but still having a few remaining things to get signed/agreed very soon etc. Make sure they haven't been sitting in a chair doing nothing, and that both in the acquisition and later when they did the restructuring they had long term plans for Destiny knowing what to do after they released Rising and sunsetting D2.
My bet would be (if allowed by their deal with Activision) to release in the short term a (maybe PvE only) Destiny 1 Classic remade and then in the long term Destiny 3 plus some spinoff (maybe a PvP only Destiny game).
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clarky
Gold Member
If they didn't greenlight D3 when D2 was firing on cylinders they certainly wont now.
They are laying a shit load of folks off as soon as the last update ships, corroborated by multiple sources. Doesn't sound like a ramp up to start D3 (or anything else) to me.
Look I'm bang into Marathon I think its excellent but even i can see the situation at Bungie is dire right now.
Like I said hopium.
yurinka
Member
As I said there are certain roles that aren't needed in the start of a new project, as could be testers, localizers, etc. So pretty likely they get fired (more knowing Sony has central or support teams for these things), in addition to also fire Bungie programmers, artists, animators, riggers etc who underperformed in the previous project.
Regarding D3, we also have to consider that originally their 10 years roadmap for the series with Activision included 3 games and I think two major expensions for each, but over time plans changed and some stuff originally planned for D3 was included in D2. And then, when they extended the game's life beyond The Final Shape, I assume some or most of these ideas were for D3 too. So who knows what they'll do.
I personally would make D3 PvE focused, with a nice campaign focusing on what people liked from D1 & D2 and on fixing or removing what people didn't like from them (like vaulting stuff, the confuse UI/menu flows and naming for things like menus or modes, the weird D2 monetization etc). But who knows what their plans are.
clarky
Gold Member
For fear of repeating myself, we aint getting D3. We'll have 400 probably more on Marathon that leave what 300 on anything else probably a third of that once the lay a load off. Not even close to what D1 or D2 was at any stage during production. Wasn't bungie at 1400 at one point working solely on Destiny?
Pipe dream.
MiguelItUp
Member
It's unfortunate, but it all just feels/seems like a series of poor choices. Surrounded by truths and facts that we will likely never know about.
Likely another failure on Sony's part regarding the whole GaaS push. Maybe they felt the use of the Marathon IP had some weight behind it? Or the fact that it's the "infamous" Bungie developing it? No clue. But I feel like Marathon (even with its very divisive art style) would've benefited more as a project that followed the Halo formula. Meaning, a campaign w/ coop, multiplayer, and then whatever else. Because at that point, it'd kind of have something for everyone.
But instead, what we got was another GaaS + a late attempt at a slice of the "extraction shooter pie" that was hot for a bit.
I'd love for Bungie to succeed and pull through, but honestly, there's a reality here that needs to be accepted, and that's that the studio could very well close. It's just Sony's call, and with what happened to Bluepoint and others, I wouldn't be surprised if it does happen. Though I certainly wouldn't want it to.
The AAA industry has definitely made some strange calls over the last 5-6 years. Especially Sony and Microsoft.
Likely another failure on Sony's part regarding the whole GaaS push. Maybe they felt the use of the Marathon IP had some weight behind it? Or the fact that it's the "infamous" Bungie developing it? No clue. But I feel like Marathon (even with its very divisive art style) would've benefited more as a project that followed the Halo formula. Meaning, a campaign w/ coop, multiplayer, and then whatever else. Because at that point, it'd kind of have something for everyone.
But instead, what we got was another GaaS + a late attempt at a slice of the "extraction shooter pie" that was hot for a bit.
I'd love for Bungie to succeed and pull through, but honestly, there's a reality here that needs to be accepted, and that's that the studio could very well close. It's just Sony's call, and with what happened to Bluepoint and others, I wouldn't be surprised if it does happen. Though I certainly wouldn't want it to.
The AAA industry has definitely made some strange calls over the last 5-6 years. Especially Sony and Microsoft.
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