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Jason Schreier‬: Bungie is planning significant layoffs, Destiny 3 is NOT in active production

clarky said:
I don't think that kind of turn around is possible with Marathon. Everyone i play with loves it, and i mean really loves it but that audience is obviously tiny. If they sort out its issues but kept the core experience the same they might get a few more on board but thats nowhere near enough. They almost need to retool it into something completely different to appeal to anyone else. No small task.
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Totally agree. It's a niche issue.

They would need to basically turn it into Destiny 3 somehow (PvE, story rich experience, coop activities) which it sounds like they might do.

I don't like the idea of shoehorning that into their existing game, though. Different story if they planned for that from the ground up, but tacking it onto a PvP extraction shooter is…a situation I would not want to find myself in.
 
SnapShot said:
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They didn't get it but I did, lol.
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Topher said:
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The amount of damage this guy, and his sidekick Hulst, managed to accomplish during his stint to a legacy brand like PS is something. Complete short-sighted impulsive behaviour.

I still stand by the claim that his retirement was premature and he was shown the door under the guise of "amicable terms".

Guilty_AI said:
They're not trying to get kadokawa, thats just internet collective delusion fueled by console warring.
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I think they did attempt to try to acquire a part of it though. They settled on a controlling stake instead.

I wouldn't be surprised if it grates Sony how they fumbled the whole fiasco with Demon's Souls, and the phenomenon it escalated into, while allowing FROM to slip out their reach. Not to mention sour the relationship with Miyazaki. That miscalculation is possibly keeping them up at night some times and its an error they're eager to correct if the possibility arises.
 
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simpatico said:
Even then Sony has to be weighing:

A. Keep Bungie on Marathon to chase that lost investment with more fresh money

B. Get them working on a new project more likely to be profitable

I don't think there's much hope for Marathon to be successful on the scale that Bungie and Sony need it to be. It could probably cook with the numbers it has now for a while if left to its own devices. Bungie has a huge labor force, so whatever they're going to do, Sony needs to figure it out quick and get them plugging away on it. Speedrunning a Destiny 3 preproduction period might not be the healthiest thing to do, but it might be the best shot Sony and Bungie have.
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If reports are true then D3 isn't even close to getting off the drawing board. Working on a new project that likely wont relese until well into the 2030's is the worst and most expensive option.
 
LordCBH said:
Is it on PC Gamepass, or will I need to buy it on Steam? It came with my Xbox that I no longer have and I don't think it was play anywhere lol
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It looks like it's on PC Game Pass 🙂

I own it on Steam and PS5, so I can't speak for this version. I'd imagine it would be just an enjoyable!

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clarky said:
If reports are true then D3 isn't even close to getting off the drawing board. Working on a new project that likely wont relese until well into the 2030's is the worst and most expensive option.
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This little purchase is getting expensive quickly. Do they layoff half the staff and wreck morale for those left behind to somehow make Marathon a smash hit? Like all of a sudden, they're gonna have gameplay ideas that didn't occur to them over the last 5 years when they had the dev firepower to actually execute them.
 
blacktout said:
While it's true that we don't have exact numbers, there's no reason to believe that, say, Candy Crush has somehow become less of a cash cow under Microsoft's leadership. Maybe last year's Call of Duty sales were a little softer than usual and Overwatch and Diablo IV are probably bringing in less than they were when Microsoft acquired Activision, but you're still talking about games with massive player bases that are bringing in huge amounts of revenue.

Meanwhile, Sony just took a massive writedown on Bungie, so we know that they consider a chunk of the acquisition price to be entirely lost.

And none of this is taking into account future value. Microsoft will have countless opportunities to continue to cash in on their investment in Activision through new games from the studios and franchises they purchased. Whereas Bungie basically just has its staff (which is apparently about to be gutted) plus Destiny 2 (which will receive no additional content and apparently has no sequel in active development) and Marathon (which is struggling to find an audience).

So even if you take into account the huge difference in their purchase prices, it strains credulity to argue that Activision is a bigger loss for Microsoft than Bungie is for Sony.
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Ehh I find this very hard to believe. MS spent an insane $75.4 billion for Activision Blizzard. Even if MS "only" overvalued Activision Blizzard by 5%, they already lost more than the entire purchase price that Sony paid for Bungie.
 
diffusionx said:
Sadly I have over 100 hours in bo6

You shill for the worst fucking games lol
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I don't shill for anything. I play games i enjoy and talk about them. Unless youd rather me just dis games i dont play like everyone else.

Also lol at putting 100 hours into a game you hate. whats all that about?
 
simpatico said:
Even then Sony has to be weighing:

A. Keep Bungie on Marathon to chase that lost investment with more fresh money

B. Get them working on a new project more likely to be profitable

I don't think there's much hope for Marathon to be successful on the scale that Bungie and Sony need it to be. It could probably cook with the numbers it has now for a while if left to its own devices. Bungie has a huge labor force, so whatever they're going to do, Sony needs to figure it out quick and get them plugging away on it. Speedrunning a Destiny 3 preproduction period might not be the healthiest thing to do, but it might be the best shot Sony and Bungie have.
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I don't think Destiny 3 will ever be on the cards unless they figure out a way to support it that doesn't require churning out annual labour intensive expansions to sustain a playerbase.
 
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clarky said:
I don't shill for anything. I play games i enjoy and talk about them. Unless youd rather me just dis games i dont play like everyone else.

Also lol at putting 100 hours into a game you hate. whats all that about?
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It's retardation. I admit it. I recommend nobody play COD now from experience.

But if I only played it for 3 hours, dopes like you would be like "erm you akshully didn't play it enough to understand the beauty of the janky gameplay, bad map design, horrible aesthetics, and AI generated assets everywhere". Can't win!
 
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clarky said:
If reports are true then D3 isn't even close to getting off the drawing board. Working on a new project that likely wont relese until well into the 2030's is the worst and most expensive option.
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I do think it's crazy that Destiny 3 hasn't been being incubated for the last 2 - 3 years.

It would be interesting to hear from Bungie leadership why that hasn't happened.

Hell, a Destiny in the vain of Helldivers 2, with a better sandbox is like...incubation over...get to it.
 
diffusionx said:
That's hilarious. BO6 was such a huge pile of garbage it's almost impossible to comprehend.
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With CoD is mostly matter of preference because they haven't fundamentally changed in decades. It's essentially the same game and it's proven over and over again that it is in fact a very good design.


I'm guessing you are going to to tell me that some old MW was the best CoD ever ..
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
I do think it's crazy that Destiny 3 hasn't been being incubated for the last 2 - 3 years.
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That's the part that's baffling about this situation.

They created a successful franchise that most game companies aspire to make. I can't believe they didn't have contingency plans for Destiny.
 
twilo99 said:
With CoD is mostly matter of preference because they haven't fundamentally changed in decades. It's essentially the same game and it's proven over and over again that it is in fact a very good design.


I'm guessing you are going to to tell me that some old MW was the best CoD ever ..
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The forum knows whats best. Usually about stuff they don't play, you not figured this out yet?
 
blacktout said:
While it's true that we don't have exact numbers, there's no reason to believe that, say, Candy Crush has somehow become less of a cash cow under Microsoft's leadership. Maybe last year's Call of Duty sales were a little softer than usual and Overwatch and Diablo IV are probably bringing in less than they were when Microsoft acquired Activision, but you're still talking about games with massive player bases that are bringing in huge amounts of revenue.

Meanwhile, Sony just took a massive writedown on Bungie, so we know that they consider a chunk of the acquisition price to be entirely lost.

And none of this is taking into account future value. Microsoft will have countless opportunities to continue to cash in on their investment in Activision through new games from the studios and franchises they purchased. Whereas Bungie basically just has its staff (which is apparently about to be gutted) plus Destiny 2 (which will receive no additional content and apparently has no sequel in active development) and Marathon (which is struggling to find an audience).

So even if you take into account the huge difference in their purchase prices, it strains credulity to argue that Activision is a bigger loss for Microsoft than Bungie is for Sony.
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Ok them :)
 
DarkShadowXI said:
That's the part that's baffling about this situation.

They created a successful franchise that most game companies aspire to make. I can't believe they didn't have contingency plans for Destiny.
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From a creative standpoint, maybe it makes more sense? Working on Destiny for 15 years would probably burn creatives out, but Sony had to buy Bungie for that IP.

I don't know, maybe Destiny 3 gets greenlit in the next 12 months as Marathon grows and all this doomer talk gets memory holed.
 
FoxMcChief said:
The problem is, you know the folks doing the layoffs are really the ones that should be let go.
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The problem is the western AAA industry has gotten into a vicious cycle where they won't learn this lesson. The top management keeps getting rewarded for their mistakes while the bottom pays the consequences for them.
 
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DonkeyPunchJr said:
Ehh I find this very hard to believe. MS spent an insane $75.4 billion for Activision Blizzard. Even if MS "only" overvalued Activision Blizzard by 5%, they already lost more than the entire purchase price that Sony paid for Bungie.
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Why do you assume they overpaid for Activision?

Candy Crush alone generates like one billion dollars in revenue every year. Call of Duty is the third best-selling gaming franchise ever. Blizzard has multiple hugely profitable live service games. And, like I said, none of this accounts for games in development or other ways they could leverage Activision's treasure trove of IPs in the future.

Xbox is a fucking dumpster fire, for sure, but that doesn't mean that Activision isn't a tremendously valuable asset.
 
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This is on Sony. They bought them when? 2022? Four years and you dont greenlight a single game other than Marathon? A fucking extraction shooter?

Who told them to continue working on Destiny 2 for 9 years with no plans for a successor? If its bungie leadership, fire them all. Dont fire the devs. They are good at their job. They have just been misused into supporting a game that shouldve been sunset in 2020 just like Destiny 1 was killed off in 3 years. These are not MMOs regardless of what the losers who play it for ten thousand hours want it to be. These are games you play for a few hundred hours then buy the sequel 3 years later. We shouldve been on destiny 5 by now.

Absolutely retarded management over at Sony. Killing effectively one of the best FPS studios of all time.
 
SlimySnake said:
This is on Sony. They bought them when? 2022? Four years and you dont greenlight a single game other than Marathon? A fucking extraction shooter?

Who told them to continue working on Destiny 2 for 9 years with no plans for a successor? If its bungie leadership, fire them all. Dont fire the devs. They are good at their job. They have just been misused into supporting a game that shouldve been sunset in 2020 just like Destiny 1 was killed off in 3 years. These are not MMOs regardless of what the losers who play it for ten thousand hours want it to be. These are games you play for a few hundred hours then buy the sequel 3 years later. We shouldve been on destiny 5 by now.

Absolutely retarded management over at Sony. Killing effectively one of the best FPS studios of all time.
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Sony's only mistake was falling for Bungies bullshit. This is entirely on Bungie.
 
DarkShadowXI said:
Totally agree. It's a niche issue.

They would need to basically turn it into Destiny 3 somehow (PvE, story rich experience, coop activities) which it sounds like they might do.

I don't like the idea of shoehorning that into their existing game, though. Different story if they planned for that from the ground up, but tacking it onto a PvP extraction shooter is…a situation I would not want to find myself in.
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Making it PvE itself is relatively easy, but they can't turn it into a story rich experience without years of big budget development. Would be a massive risk, and they'd have to try to piece meal it out which will probably feel pretty unsatisfying.

It's what they've said, but I'm not sure they'll get the chance.
 
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IntentionalPun said:
Making it PvE itself is relatively easy, but they can't turn it into a story rich experience without years of big budget development.
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They already have great lore and a story just kicking off. If you played the game then you would know this.

Its a far better story than Destiny's for me. It makes sense (so far) for a start. Destiny was a mess from the off.
 
IntentionalPun said:
Making it PvE itself is relatively easy, but they can't turn it into a story rich experience without years of big budget development. Would be a massive risk, and they'd have to try to piece meal it out which will probably feel pretty unsatisfying.

It's what they've said, but I'm not sure they'll get the chance.
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If you recall the Destiny launch, it was anything but story rich. It didn't even have any.

One thing people seem to be glossing over about PvE is what the hell the player will be shooting. Just humanoid bots? No cool alien designs or anything? That's a pretty big hill to climb IMO. No one is gonna be very excited about a PvE sci fi game where you just shoot humanoids with different colored textures on them.
 
clarky said:
They already have great lore and a story just kicking off. If you played the game then you would know this.

Its a far better story than Destiny's for me. It makes sense (so far) for a start. Destiny was a mess from the off.
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You are right, I haven't played it. I'm not fully equipped to know the level of effort, but my understanding is it's basically lore/cutscenes but the game itself isn't structured like a story-driven game is. You are still just running around in what feels like a multi-player game shooting bots with some cutscenes and codex here or there, which is not what a story driven game feels like to me.
 
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IntentionalPun said:
You are right, I haven't played it. I'm not fully equipped to know the level of effort, but my understanding is it's basically lore/cutscenes but the game itself isn't structured like a story-driven game is. You are still just running around in what feels like a multi-player game shooting bots with some cutscenes and codex here or there, which is not what a story driven game feels like to me.
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Fair enough. It delivers its story and lore pretty well upto this point. Factions give you missions, cut scenes, story develops, clues are found out in the world etc. Honestly its done pretty well, much better than say the shite in D1 base game.

I'd explain but i just don't have time to explain why i don't have time to explain :messenger_sunglasses:
 
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blacktout said:
Why do you assume they overpaid for Activision?

Candy Crush alone generates like one billion dollars in revenue every year. Call of Duty is the third best-selling gaming franchise ever. Blizzard has multiple hugely profitable live service games. And, like I said, none of this accounts for games in development or other ways they could leverage Activision's treasure trove of IPs in the future.

Xbox is a fucking dumpster fire, for sure, but that doesn't mean that Activision isn't a tremendously value asset.
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Why? Because a huge part of MS's strategy in buying studios/publishers was to drive Gamepass subscriptions and sell Xbox consoles, and they massively failed on both accounts. And that's not to mention that CoD has declined significantly in popularity,

I am not denying that ABK is valuable, but there is absolutely no way in hell Microsoft would've paid $75.4 billion in 2022 if they knew what they know today.
 
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diffusionx said:
It's retardation. I admit it. I recommend nobody play COD now from experience.

But if I only played it for 3 hours, dopes like you would be like "erm you akshully didn't play it enough to understand the beauty of the janky gameplay, bad map design, horrible aesthetics, and AI generated assets everywhere". Can't win!
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Nice edit. Never said anything of the sort. You seem to be unable to accept that people just like different things to you and lambast those opinions don't align with yours. Thats fine if a little narrow minded. I won't belittle you for like things i don't like but crack on "dope"
 
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clarky said:
Blops 7 is excellent, sure the campaign is bobbins but who gives a fuck about that? The MP is great, far far better than 6. Same shit with MWII and III.
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Everyone I know says the opposite. Do you enjoy the Omni movement and grapple hooks?
 
Kerotan said:
Everyone I know says the opposite. Do you enjoy the Omni movement and grapple hooks?
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Blops 7 rights all (most) the bad with 6. Mostly the terrible maps. Everyone I play with is in agreement.

I do wish i a perfect world they would at the very least move to having a year off. Both MWIII and 7 are basically year two of the previous titles and the games are superior as a result.
 
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DonkeyPunchJr said:
Why? Because a huge part of MS's strategy in buying studios/publishers was to drive Gamepass subscriptions and sell Xbox consoles, and they massively failed on both accounts. And that's not to mention that CoD has declined significantly in popularity,

I am not denying that ABK is valuable, but there is absolutely no way in hell Microsoft would've paid $75.4 billion in 2022 if they knew what they know today.
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I totally agree that the Underpants Gnomes "1. spend billions on acquisitions 2. ???? 3. Gamepass becomes profitable" strategy was a complete boondoggle.

But that doesn't mean Activision was overvalued. The thing is that there's so much intrinsic value in Activision itself, because its component parts (IP, studios) are themselves so valuable, that it can still more than pay for itself over time, even if individual titles (like Overwatch or CoD) see declines in popularity or Microsoft's overall strategy changes.
 
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