As a seasoned gamer who has witnessed the rise and fall of many gaming giants, I find the current situation with Bungie to be both disheartening and intriguing. The irony that their extensive consultation on live-service games led to their own downfall is not lost on me.
Amidst the ongoing debate about Bungie’s recent layoffs, questions about their broader business tactics have been raised. Interestingly, as reported by Jason Schreier, Bungie was actually involved in reviewing The Last of Us: Online, which may be why Naughty Dog decided not to fully commit to a live-service game. Ironically, this very decision seems to have contributed to the large-scale restructuring at Bungie.
Initially, Schreier hinted that the rumors about Destiny 3 being scrapped were unfounded, since it seems like the game was never even in production. However, the conversation soon veered off this point and delved into a more intriguing topic: “How on earth can a studio that hasn’t produced a decent game since 2010 (referring to Halo Reach) dare to instruct Naughty Dog, a team renowned for creating critically-acclaimed games, to halt a project?” as FarhaanBBR aptly expressed.
As a dedicated fan, I’d like to share an interesting piece of information I came across. A Bloomberg reporter mentioned that Bungie offered valuable feedback to Naughty Dog, which they found exceptionally helpful. This guidance seemed to have significantly influenced Naughty Dog’s strategic decision not to fully commit to developing a live-service game – a choice that, in hindsight, appears quite shrewd.
In May 2023, Schreier wrote an article for Bloomberg that revealed “The ‘Last of Us’ multiplayer game development by Sony is encountering challenges.”
Sony has been putting significant resources into creating “games as a continuous revenue stream,” meaning video games that generate income beyond their initial sale through additional purchases. In line with this strategy, Sony requested one of its game studios, Bungie based in Seattle, to assess the games within their collection. During this evaluation, Bungie expressed concerns about whether The Last of Us multiplayer project could maintain player interest for an extended duration, which ultimately led to a re-examination of the project.
Schreier’s tweets further highlight instances where solo game developers have shifted their focus towards creating multiplayer or live-service games like Anthem, Suicide Squad, Marvel’s Avengers, Redfall, and others. This implies that the outcry over The Last of Us: Online being cancelled might not be entirely unexpected.
Bungie has collaborated extensively with Sony’s diverse range of video games, providing expertise in live-service game development. Interestingly, despite this extensive experience, Bungie itself is facing challenges and has announced it’s struggling to maintain operations. They stated:
For more than five years, our aim has been to launch games within three long-lasting, global gaming series. To achieve this objective, we initiated numerous incubation projects, each led by senior developers from our current teams. However, we found that this approach strained our talent resources too rapidly and required our support systems to expand beyond what we could sustainably manage, given our two main productions – Destiny and Marathon.
In spite of Bungie’s own acknowledgment that developing engaging live-service games can be challenging, they persisted in progressing with Destiny 2, Marathon, and various other initiatives. This relentless pursuit eventually led to a situation where they were compelled to carry out significant layoffs – a turn of events that some may have found surprising.
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2024-08-02 11:40