• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Rumor: Sony leadership feels that Bungie is a failed investment

Fabieter

Member
The worst part is that sony actually gave them leverage about far more capable studios. Iam 100% sure bungie got petty about fractions 2 and sabotaged the decision making #fuckbungie.

If Marathon underperforms and chances are high it will they should just close bungie for good.
 
I don't care about Bungie. Especially since they allowed their Halo show to be a massacre of what it should've been. Especially the guy NEVER WEARING HIS FUCKING HELMET!!!!!!
 

Fabieter

Member
“Fans” didn’t support Japan Studio when they were releasing games and now they want them back, really?

Japan studios was like a third of bungie and actually released games on a regularly basis, most likely the most consistent studio with the most innovation in sonys portfolio.

Bungie is way to big and way to ineffectient. Its insane that they have that kinda headcount and did nothing but shitty d2 expansions the last few years. The asking price of 3b$ was a scam.
 

Jinzo Prime

Member
I don't care about Bungie. Especially since they allowed their Halo show to be a massacre of what it should've been. Especially the guy NEVER WEARING HIS FUCKING HELMET!!!!!!

Jim Carrey What GIF


Bungie had nothing to do with that. 343 has been in charge of Halo for a long while now.
 
Last edited:

Fabieter

Member
Sony will take over Bungie within the year and pull Destiny 2 from other platforms and Marathon will be made exclusive.

I can't imagine bungie being profitable rn so there is no way they are pulling games away from any platform if anything they will port d2 to switch 2 so gain some of the insane aquisition money back.
 
Guy now in charge of Japan Studio keeps hiring his foreign Western friends, surrounding himself with yay-sayers who need JP language lessons for several years, instead of hiring local talent. He is wasting that studio away.

Japan studios was like a third of bungie and actually released games on a regularly basis, most likely the most consistent studio with the most innovation in sonys portfolio.

Bungie is way to big and way to ineffectient. Its insane that they have that kinda headcount and did nothing but shitty d2 expansions the last few years. The asking price of 3b$ was a scam.
I’m not defending the purchase of Bungie by any means, but studios need to be profitable, and Japan Studio wasn’t doing spectacular numbers.
 

Hudo

Member
Yep, the moment I saw what they were doing to Marathon I knew they were a lost cause.

It's disgraceful to shit all over a legacy IP like that, and it shows the current group of people working at the studio don't have a clue.
What really irks me is that they could've used a new IP for that game. It still would've been easy to market "From the creators of Halo and Destiny...". Marathon as an IP lay dormant for a long fucking time and was mostly known among Macintosh users. So it's not like the IP made it easy as fuck for them in terms of marketing. But rather that Marathon's strength was always the singleplayer and the writing. Hell, even the website for Marathon had lore stuff going on. And then they decide to use that IP to make a multiplayer-focused extraction shooter.

What in the actual fuck.
 
Last edited:

Gojiira

Member
The interesting takeaway is Sony wanting to restructure the monetisation which Destiny really needs…I remember back when Eververse first dropped and their was backlash Bungie justified it with ‘Eververse will fund a second team who will release free content such as strikes,crucible maps etc’…And that never happened, not even once. Now they say they cant make strike specific loot, or seasonal armours etc because its too much work but Eververse gets multiple new drops every season. Fuck off Bungie.
Not to mention the vaulting of content, or how season passes you own cant be completed after the fact, I know I personally have missed a few despite owning then, its just ridiculous tbh. The justification that game size would be too big if everything was kept in is stupid too, look at Warzones file size and how many people play that, nobody gives a fuck about file size, but Bungie just want to have a way to charge people again when some of that vaulted content does return…
Yeah Sony needs to put the boot down hard on the execs. Been a long time coming,
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Yep, the moment I saw what they were doing to Marathon I knew they were a lost cause.

It's disgraceful to shit all over a legacy IP like that, and it shows the current group of people working at the studio don't have a clue.

My friend on this forum can tell you about how I was excited about the Marathon revival but then how my face soured when he explained it was a live service extraction shooter... he knows what gets me worked up and he certainly nailed it with this one.

The issue though this lost cause is why Sony bought them, they wanted Bungie to give them some cash cow they can dime and dollar their audience with hardly any work for the next 10 years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GHG

mdkirby

Gold Member
Take over full leadership control. Which will also likely mean some element of console exclusivity on future titles. Then remove ALL FOMO, bundle everything previously released together, returning any and all content previously removed, or that was temporary, so new players have a single complete and cohesive product, with a clear narrative through which to proceed. Model future seasons on helldivers approach. Currently all they seem to be doing is trying to milk ever more aggressively a continually dwindling pool of old players, and the means by which they do that makes it increasingly more hostile and confusing for any potential new players. It's a death spiral.

On many occasions throughout the years since its release ive contemplated giving it a shot, but every time I consider it, I have no idea where to start, find myself confused and then don't bother, each passing year and consideration, that feeling grows, and was massively exasperated when they started archiving story content. At that point it became for me 'oh, ok, I guess I'll never play this'.

Release this aptly named 'final shape' with an complete story bundle and monetisation model rework that becomes a perfect jumping in point for new players. Draw a line under it, and have the next release as destiny 3. If they don't, then how will any new players be interested in a possible destiny 3? As they will have missed destiny 2.

Edit - Oh, and find a way to make Raids playable without needing a full team. Im in my 40's and it was always a nightmare to arrange enough friends, both with the game, and who have the time to commit, so in destiny 1, I literally never played a single raid. Either find a way to scale them, or utilise so ai for play style mirroring (that we've seen patents for) to have bots capable of assisting competently in the raids. This would even allow solo players to explore everything the story has to offer, hugely increasing its potential audience reach.
 
Last edited:
I think bungie was a waste of money. Sony should of grabbed zenimax before Microsoft got them. You have fantastic studios that embracer is selling with well known ips even rts studio slipgate ironworks aka Tempest rising 3d realms etc. Or they could of just brought take two
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Email reads like Destiny community fan fiction. Posted by a YouTuber with a history of pushing negative stories about Bungie.

🤔

With you on this. Reads like a very obvious fake, and doesn’t say a single new thing.
For someone sending an anonymous email, it certainly is light on insider information.
 

Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
Japan studios was like a third of bungie and actually released games on a regularly basis, most likely the most consistent studio with the most innovation in sonys portfolio.

Bungie is way to big and way to ineffectient. Its insane that they have that kinda headcount and did nothing but shitty d2 expansions the last few years. The asking price of 3b$ was a scam.
What noteworthy games did Japan Studios release though?

ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.

You could add The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush to the list and maybe LocoRoco, but the latter two were handheld games and Playstation got wrecked in that market.
TLG went through development hell.

Even the Team ICO games are debateable, as they might be iconic, but from a business-perspective I can see why Sony closed Japan Studios.

Can't run a business on goodwill forever and if people really want those kind of games, Sony needs more revenue.
And for that, they need GaaS, whether people like it or not.

And when it comes to GaaS, Sony needs studios with experience in that department, especially irt online multiplayer. Something Sony is lacking.

As for Bungie, their issues have been with their management, not with their expertise.
Destiny went downhill because Bungie management made a complete mess ever since they made a disaster of Destiny 1's development.

The best thing for Bungie, as well as Sony, is for Sony to take control over Bungie.
 
Last edited:

LordCBH

Member
One of Bungies biggest issues is incompetent leadership. I’m on team full takeover to have those goons pushed out.
 

Fabieter

Member
What noteworthy games did Japan Studios release though?

ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.

You could add The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush to the list and maybe LocoRoco, but the latter two were handheld games and Playstation got wrecked in that market.
TLG went through development hell.

Even the Team ICO games are debateable, as they might be iconic, but from a business-perspective I can see why Sony closed Japan Studios.

Can't run a business on goodwill forever and if people really want those kind of games, Sony needs more revenue.
And for that, they need GaaS, whether people like it or not.

And when it comes to GaaS, Sony needs studios with experience in that department, especially irt online multiplayer. Something Sony is lacking.

As for Bungie, their issues have been with their management, not with their expertise.
Destiny went downhill because Bungie management made a complete mess ever since they made a disaster of Destiny 1's development.

The best thing for Bungie, as well as Sony, is for Sony to take control over Bungie.

They probably could made like 60 games with japan studios for the money they paid for bungie and they basically got nothing out of it while they having 1200 employees working for them.

Not saying it made financially sense to keep japan studios (well at least they made unique games for the platform which in itself Is worth something.), but it would be better to keep them than buy bungie.
 

Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
They probably could made like 60 games with japan studios for the money they paid for bungie and they basically got nothing out of it while they having 1200 employees working for them.

Not saying it made financially sense to keep japan studios (well at least they made unique games for the platform which in itself Is worth something.), but it would be better to keep them than buy bungie.
Bungie hasn't even released a game since the acquisition though.

A Bungie game alone probably has enough potential to make more revenue than those 60 games combined.
But not with incompetent leadership.

That's the entire issue.
 
That OP sounds like fanfiction.

That said...i never understood what Sony saw in them, much less going to them for avices on how to make GaaS titles successful.

GT7 is successul, MLB is successful, now Helldivers 2...they didn't need to spend billions on a company.
 

Mokus

Member
Sony should try to sell Bungie to Microsoft. Maybe Phil $pencer will buy it for $10 billion, perfect fit for his Game pass project.
 

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
I don't know if this rumour/email is real, but Bungie is going to change after Lightfall comes out.

Destiny 2 could live on forever, but they need to make it a better experience for new players. It's a giant mess right now.
 

EverydayBeast

ChatGPT 0.1
Destiny 2 felt like a movement to stand against halo, exclusives and was popular amongst mmo fans not shooter, fps people despite being a shooter.
 

Damigos

Member
Its sad to see both Destiny and Halo have such low quality. Destiny was supposed to be the next huge thing and Halo was the actual huge thing.
The sci-fi shooter genre's only real choice right now with huge lore is Warframe
 

Darchaos

Member
What a suprise! This game was once a game with a soul, exploration, adventure, dark and gritty.

Now its a happy kkona shooter for hippsterdads that wants to shoot stuff in a videogame for 30 min or so and then make a shitty youtubevid about it.

Bungo has sold out every inch of soul that it had.

Long live Destiny and Bungo for what it once was.
 

Quasicat

Member
Tbf Destiny 2 is near the end. One more expansion in August and it's wrapped up. The return on invest really depends on how successful their next project is.
You are correct. The problem is Sony and their shareholders want that return now and may not be patient enough for the next project.
 

Iced Arcade

Member
So a YouTuber doesn't like Bungie, dwells on it and makes a YouTube video with his thoughts and labels it as a leak.


I mean I get it... I think there was reasons why Microsoft openly left them go freely and agree it was a complete waste on Sonys money BUT im not making a YouTube video about it.
 

Fabieter

Member
Bungie hasn't even released a game since the acquisition though.

A Bungie game alone probably has enough potential to make more revenue than those 60 games combined.
But not with incompetent leadership.

That's the entire issue.

I dont think Bungie games have that kinda pull anymore. Their games are expensive and a lot greater risk than some AA games that japan studios was known for.

Even under ms bungie was a shitshow. They somehow made good games before their deadlines but their development was always troubled. It's a bad studio.
 
Top Bottom