Bungie at its peak having 1500 employees with 1 game in the market and the studio located in wage inflation Seattle was insane. As MS mentioned... Bungie has always had a ridiculous high burn rate, which is why Activision let them walk. Destiny costs call of duty money but does not generate call of duty money.
@@xbotLife Nah. Bungie had better structure under MS. In fact had Destiny been created under MS, they probably wouldn't have told them to intentionally axe half the game and turn it into future "DLC", which would have done WONDERS for bungie.
Idk what Sony expected. They really thought post-Halo Bungie was worth nearly $4 billion? Star Wars was worth $1 billion more than that. Bungie is a shell of its former self.
@patrickm6483 which is funny because Microsoft was very open about how they did not want bungie back and viewed them in their current state as something that burns more money then it makes. That's all part of the reason why Activision didn't fight much when bungie bought out their own contract.
Wasn't it Bungie that did the GDC presentation on the dangers of over delivering and all of their trains arriving at the station at the same time? That just sounded like they were trying to validate nickel and diming players to death
Taken King was intended to be the main campaign of Destiny 1 but had to be saved for the first expansion because they didn't have enough time. They've been underdelivering since day 1.
When talking about those studios the thing to remember is that is just the purchasing prices for those studios. That's not development cost as well so throw another $100mill at least for each studio, the amount of money spent and how little ROI there is likely to be is shocking. And it's all because of greed. They don't want to spend $200mil on a high quality single player game because that will only have a limited profit ceiling, a live service game however they have themselves convinced it has limitless earning potential. Shows how out of touch these people are.
yea the bungie that made halo is gone, they have maybe 10 people from those games still around and they don't have much control over the game direction. all the original team has left for greener pastures with new companies
Don’t think so hard. Occam’s razor. It’s as simple as this: Bungie wanted to do this, and it was the plan all along (over the last 3-5 years). Bungie wants to make the least amount of game, to make the maximum profit. So they lay off a bunch of people a few months ago, build and finish the Final Shape, ship it for a profit, and then cut 17% of their company to make sure that their upper management and shareholders can solidify more profit. They probably also used behavioral data to determine which people were essential to making their games, and then cut the rest so they could (again) make more profit. This is who they want to be. This is the final shape of their company. Stop believing that Bungie is anything like 2007-2016 Bungie.
As a player since D1, Bungie did this to themselves. They absolutely understood what the fans wanted cause we blamed Activision when it didn't happen. They buy themselves out & it only got worse. They had sooo much time to course correct, even before Sony, what d'they do? Chop up one DLC into one and a half DLCs 🙄👏🏿
What dlc got chopped up into one and a half dlc? Also isn’t that better technically? Chopping one into one and a half? 1 < 1.5. But regardless, people look at how forsaken succeeded but forget how curse of Osiris still to this day was the worst expansion of all time. Things under Activision was really bad too. Except, rn Bungie has a better PvP, and PvE game.
@mrlunar62 Lightfall. Unconfirmed but if you see the way the first and last cutscenes just fit together, a lot of us theorise it was meant to be the first cutscene of Final Shape. Compound that with the miserable lack of content with LF, I think it makes sense. Your point about things being worse under AV - that's the red pill we all need to take: BUNGIE IS THE PROBLEM. It's insane they created two of the most successful gaming IPs in Halo & Destiny and fucked them both so bad they had to sell em of to keep "afloat"
@@rexisright and then they also made witch queen and the final shape. Ur looking at 1 fuck up. 1. While disregarding some of the best content in destiny 2 being witch queen that Bungie made and final shape that is considered to be the best dlc of all time including the dlcs that Bungie AND activision made together like forsaken.
Not to mention the FOMO. The fact that I'll miss out on content, rewards and cosmetics if I don't play almost every day makes me want to play less, not more. Why would I want to play a game that punishes me for having other hobbies and responsibilities in my life when there are plenty of great games that respect my time? Every other MMO/Live Service game is learning this lesson, even WoW which used to be horrible at respecting players' time. Bungie still uses FOMO and grindy rewards as the main driver of player retention and then they wonder why their main cash cow is experiencing a slow death.
60% of last years playtime was spent in games that are like 6 years n older. That number is only going to get bigger with all these Devs regurgitating the same Live service slop nobody wants.
Sony of course bought Bungie for D2 but they *really* wanted them for their skills. Every IP they’ve released in the 21st century has been a colossal hit. I’m not surprised they’re making them make a likely new SiFi game
This doesn't surprise me. From someone who pays attention to the MMO landscape, it really reminds me of WoW. Tons of people quit the game after Shadowlands, that it got to the point where people didn't even want to go back to try Dragonflight. I know players who quit WoW to play FF14 and never went back! I saw Destiny 2's The Final Shape come out, but picked up FF14's Dawntrail instead, still no regrets to this day...
3:08 that's exactly what has been going on all across the industry. Once greedy suits noticed that videogames were a very profitable industry the countdown started. Eventually videogames will completely match the music industry, meaning that 99% of mainstream products will be ultra manufactured, safe, mindless garbage, and only indie games will be made by gamers, for gamers, and have a soul.
"We need to step things up guys, we need a REAL money maker of a game." "How about we give 100,000 mil to one of our talented studios and have them make a simple yet fun single player adventure? That's what they're best at, after all." "No, that won't work. Let's spend 5 billion dollars on a different studio that everyone knows but no one likes and give them 300,000 dollars to make a live service." God I can't wait for this era of incompetence to die.
Can we please stop using "crash"? This isn't a crash because people are still buying games. A crash implies everyone stops buying them but from my perspective most people aren't buying into live service as much as they used to because most of those players are now stuck playing the same game(s) and aren't moving one
@@franesustic988 ...no? Tons of people stopped paying for games in the US because a lot of them were very low quality. *THAT'S A CRASH* , after the NES launched it revitalized the US game market, Europe and Japan were never really affected by that crash during that time.
Sony were idiots for buying them for over three million. So glad to see Sony taking control and Destiny 3 cancelled if the rumors are to be believed. They need to cancel Marathon as well. Have them work on an existing IP from within Sony (Resistance or even Killzone) or do something completely new.
I don’t know who would buy a PS5 pro or Xbox equivalent right now. Current games are still being held back by last gen consoles years after launch. You can barely get benefits from current gen, much less a model refresh
It's important to keep in mind, we actually have zero idea as to what FairGames is going to be like, just a few months ago Sony sent out surveys to playstation users asking for feedback on live service games and asking what kind of game they would like FairGames to be.... just a few months ago. Have zero clue what they're doing.
It’s not a tax write off scheme; it’s a monopoly scheme. They (big game companies) buy up all of the indie studios, or studios with free creative writes, and then forcibly give them money just to shut them down so that, over time, the only companies that are left are AAA conglomerates, and therefore we the consumer will have no choice but to buy games produced by them, thus monopolizing a free market system.
I have thought this over the last few years of media releases, just how much did production during covid drive up costs? Disney with their 300 million dollar costing movies, rocksteady with a couple 100 million suicide squad, you just keep seeing products that look ok, but the costs seem insane to just a few years earlier.
Part of it could be down to elongated dev time due to covid, it'll be interesting to see the cost of games that were made post 2021.Poor management. quite a few games are poorly managed, rocksteady leadership abandoned their project and BGS still act like they are a team of 50. Pre production has taken a back seat since the rise of CG. Why work things out now when we can do it in post. Spiderman 2 scrapped multiple core ideas halfway through production. Marketing is also a factor for budgets.
They probably also assume marathon wont do well considering the backlash from the community when they announced that they are changing Marathon to a hero shooter style game
I gotta say your channel is fantastic! I just discovered you in the last week and you’ve quickly become one of my favorite channels for industry news and opinions. You’re balanced and give facts separately from your opinion and I seriously respect the work you’re doing. Keep it up!
9:50 It is not like they were out of touch. It was the right decision at the time. It was trending, namely multiplayer. That is the problem with games taking too long to make. It is no longer trending. Single player is trending.
This is completely the fault of the absolutely incompetent and greedy management at Bungie. Ex and current developers have been coming out and calling out the Bungie execs on their abysmal handling of the studio and its staff. Sony even gave Bungie an extra $1 billion or so purely for staff retention. Lastly, the ceo of Bungie, Pete parsons, has the audacity to be the voice behind the layoffs all the while he spent well over $2 million on vintage cars in the past year or so.
Remember guys. It's your fault for not giving them your money. If you think this is gonna change then you didn't pay attention to what Xbox did a few months ago. Success in video games is only valued in how much money they can take from the community.
Dw, the next expansion trailer they release will have this hivemind community become a bunch of amnesiacs and forget everything. The final shape is literally proof of it. Bungie/D2 twabs saying that making one new free armor set a YEAR was too much work for them, and the initial layoffs were completely forgotten as soon as the final shape was close to its release date. Once consumers start wising up to the fact that they and their money are responsible for all greedy business decisions. Corporations only follow the money. Nothing is solved by feeding the parasite.
Bungie made a sci-fi space shooter for Microsoft. Then they left Microsoft because they wanted more creative freedom so then they sold out to Activision and now Sony which they're making... A sci-fi space shooter
Always kinda funny to see people saying that Sony wasted money on Bungie when Sony actually tried to buy Leyou (the company who owns Digital Extremes/Warframe) before acquiring Bungie and got outbid by Tencent on that one. Sony was going to buy a live service studio no matter what and Bungie would probably be bought by someone (would bet on Embracer, to be honest) anyway. Sony won't stop trying to push live service games even if Concord and Fairgames bomb, because they already saw with Helldivers that they can actually do it.
nothing bungie has made in the last like 10 years has “exceeded” our expectations. im ngl i get giddy with excitement every time bungie fails i feel terrible for their employees since they literally just laid off hella ppl even tho sony told them not to. whatever, after the recent marathon news that game sounds like garbage. NOBODY wanted an extraction/hero shooter they wanted halo 3 multiplayer smfh
I disagree, i very much doubt that its just a matter of "out of touchness", they expected to force us to accept it. The phrase "You have to force behaviors" comes to mind. They have such a low view of us as customers and individuals, they thought they could bully us into eating whatever they made, in whatever way they provided. They expected us to jack into that live service IV and become the perfect consumer zombie. Just turn a % of your customers into that and you are set, discard the rest, you don't want them anyway. I feel nothing when i hear about these layoffs, pure apathy. They have been very vocal about how the feel about their customers from the basic devs up to the top and now they want pity ? Don't trust them, Don't believe them, let them GO and good riddance. I expected nothing from them and i have lost nothing without them. That said, i am sure that there was a lot of incompetence involved in the middle, nobody truly passionate about games would have agreed to do this, so who picked up the keyboards? low tier, "just want a paycheck" or "i have a not so secret agenda" workers or lifeless husks that just gave up, why would anyone expect quality output out of those "tools" ?
I'm willing to bet the Sony executives were well aware of the poor management at Bungie and wanted to have full control over the studio from the start. But Bungie convinced them of the alternative to help soften the blow and reduce the backflash from being acquired by another big publisher
Nah, Xbox didn't make any major changes to Bethesda up until recently, and made some changes but still largely kept them the same after Redfall debacle.
I really think that they made the choices about which studios to back because of names and history in the industry rather than any CGI trailer produced. Even as an investor or a fan, if you hear enough names that has literally worked on many successful franchises over decades, that gives them some confidence to gamble. It is possible that some of these titles are so early in development that it isn't even reasonable to try to gauge success in terms of consumer reception nor sales.
I get alot of crap for how bad i talk about this game, like many, we're no happy for the coin flip whether the dlc is wortb it, expecting us to pay 100 a year then dedicate that year to time based rewards is ridiculous
I've to admit that I'd have seen chances for this Heaven project to be successful as a life service game about competing gangs or burgler groups going for the same big heist and against security measures and personal.
Well, to be fair, Microsoft went years without first-party AAA titles. Sony has a lot coming they just really wanted a successful live service game. can't blame them for trying to capture part of a market they dont really have a presence in thats how you grow your business. That being said bungie was a bad buy they should have realized it when 2 times they have went independent and dont work well with others. Destiny has been bad for a long time. i quit years ago after the warmind just wasnt fun anymore once they introduced silver
Maybe he was "engine shopping" for future Sony titles. I don't think we saw actual gameplay but maybe the engines of these games have potential to be repurposed and don't care about the game they're working on it just cheaper to buy them out instead of getting only 30%. Now, they can have the team and engine to make more exclusives. Insomniac can do everything for them.
I'm sorry for those loosing their jobs. But at the same time, i'm not shocked. Also pleased bungie corp is paying for their poor handling. Its just a shame those at the top who made those mistakes for pure greed are not punished in some way.
Of all the canceled live service games, The Last of Us Online my game has me the most curious. I really enjoyed the Multi-player of the first game back when i played it on PS4. i probably put about 50+ hrs on that before i started playing other stuff with friends.
Problem is, they were probably expecting WAYYY too much to what they would most likely get in return. It would never become a money printer, which is was Jim Ryan was chasing.
I believe that loss can entirely be written off if you have other sources that can be taxed. It comes out of your total taxes. The percentage you qualify to write off could very well be the total amount invested in that game.
The thing aboutthe modern gaming (tech) world is that I guarantee NONE of those employees were the problem. Their BOSSES were 1000% the problem. And those bosses will continue to manage more teams and run more meetings and make more shit deadlines and arbitrary growth numbers and “creative feedback” that destroys games from the top-down and ruins gaming for those who actually care, like these devs and players. The people responsible for fucking up games never take responsibility or face consequences.
155 positions have been replaced by Sony staff, which are likely management positions. That would be quite a few of those types of positions if that is the case. Two years of independence is a long time. I think Sony was more patient than usual.
These entertainment industries have pigeon-holed themselves into a space where creativity and ingenuity is essentially banned by pandering to an oversensitive audience that doesn't exist, while abandoning and even mocking the people that previously supported their products. Then they thought it would be wise to try and gatekeep the industry and force people to buy things they didn't want by unironically being as EXCLUSIVE and INTOLLERANT as possible, making it impossible for actually creative people to enter the space. It really is about as out of touch as you can get.
If you count last years layoffs it's around 40% of Bungie that got axed. Wonder if any other C suite people 'moved on' to other jobs, with an operation like Sony the buck stops with the CEO but they aren't the only decision maker who would have gotten Sony into this mess.
if i were Sony, i'd open a new smaller studio under Bungie and have them make a game that isn't live service. maybe they can work on Killzone or Resistance or even a new IP
Bungie lost it's soul a decade ago, they're merely Bungie in name only now. Where once upon a time they literally dominated the industry for the entire 2000's; set gaming trends; game design features; revolutionised online gaming/console fps gaming. Hell, before Bungie and Halo, video game cut scenes were practically not a thing in the industry. They were true pioneers and just like Halo, Bungie died a long time ago.
No matter what happens. I'm always going to be a fan of Bungie and remain excited about their future. These are tough times for everyone, in every industry. Keep being awesome, Bungie.
Destiny never looked like a game made by a big studio, I think bungie is unaware of how much smaller studios can do with less than 500 employees. The fact that destinylfg was the only way to matchmake for raids shows that even with their size, they couldn't even do that.
7:20 "Eat the rich" fantasies peddled by corporats has to be peak late stage capitalism. "Hello fellow kids, I hear you hate capitalism; well have I got the live service for you!"
11:15 full stop I would've been interested in a SS game IF it was actually good, unique playstyles, good mission structures, unique enemy variety, etc. AND NOT THAT!
Market awareness and where the trends are going. Microsoft and Xbox are clearly leading the way and all Sony can do is try to catch up but the PlayStation brand will be sold off to Google or Amazon within the next 10 years and you can bank on that. 🤣
@@xbotLife I'll be happy if Microsoft comes out with the console next generation, because all those positive trends does not translate to hardware or software sales. 🤷
Ok, I’m an old fart but the “I’m Vibin”, I swear the entire time I’ve heard you play that, I thought that was Bobby Hill from King of the Hill saying “I’m Bobby”. Couldn’t leave this comment on live clip when you actually played it and I realized it, but yeah, all this time I thought it was Bobby. 🤣
Not just a none gamer. I also doubt Jim Ryan business acumen. How come this board of directors and "investors" fumble the bag and an easy lay up this badly? Don't they read the news, don't they people doing research of what the consumer wants? Do they just eat wathever Sony tells them? If so. I seriously wonder how are they even rich if they don't keep an eye on their money. Cause just saying "look at fortnite and do that" is how I imagine an SnL parody businessman from the 90s would act. No oversight whatsoever, being fed Bs and false promises from Sony and eating it up.
sonys single player exclusives are some of the best single player games in the industry at this point them wanting to pivot to another field isn't a bad thing they just need good games to sell that idea just my opinion
They live in echo chambers and the one or two people who don't agree, keep quiet because they are scared to speak up. After awhile all you have left are Activists and yes men & women. All these games flopping is just the natural way the world ends up balancing out. If these Activist games keep flopping and losing hundreds of millions of dollars, then eventually they will change their approach or they will go broke denying reality. Either way it will eventually revert back to the norm. Were just in a weird part of gaming history and it is all derived from the echo chambers they have installed.
@@basedoz5745 Was I talking about destiny? Nope. Did you watch the whole video? Nope, if you did you would know he was talking a lot about the out of touch heads of the company, that Sony replaced, as was I. You just got triggered for no reason 😅
@@basedoz5745 Lol what a great example. Best expansion so far is that garbage bare minimum slop that doesn't give half as much content as taken king nor forsaken 😂😂. Oh but the reviews are great eh? Yeah I remember d2 vanilla having so much high praise for how "good" it was. Destiny as a game is underdelivery trash.
Im really happy every live service move Sony makes it fails spectacularly. Keep it going Sony! Eventually you will go back to good single player games.
Bungie used to get away with its overpromise and underdeliver strategy because it was just dumb gamers on the receiving end of said strategy. But now they are dealing with Sony, which means being negligent and dishonest is having actual consequences.
If you’re interested in more context around everything involving this I recommend watching videos by Paul Tassi and Datto on the matter as they have more context and have been on the preverbal frontlines while all this happened
16:12 "Microsoft momentum" to be fair i think people don't realize at the launch of the ps5 playstation had a bunch of game's and the generation was up to a decent start, that is true that there were a lot of ps4 ports but on a ps5 you could absolutely see the differences, Microsoft on the other hand had a really empty start obviously halo got delayed and.... so now we are probably seeing the launch line-up coming to the series consoles🤷♂️
Hey where's the troll saying that Jim Ryan made him money as an investor I still wanna know if it's his Jim's projects that he greenlit were worth it in the long run.
Bungie at its peak having 1500 employees with 1 game in the market and the studio located in wage inflation Seattle was insane. As MS mentioned... Bungie has always had a ridiculous high burn rate, which is why Activision let them walk. Destiny costs call of duty money but does not generate call of duty money.
MS made a smart decision
@@xbotLife Nah. Bungie had better structure under MS. In fact had Destiny been created under MS, they probably wouldn't have told them to intentionally axe half the game and turn it into future "DLC", which would have done WONDERS for bungie.
Idk what Sony expected. They really thought post-Halo Bungie was worth nearly $4 billion? Star Wars was worth $1 billion more than that. Bungie is a shell of its former self.
Most logical take so far
Sony didn't care about Halo or any good game they made, they took them only for their live service experience which is discusting
Seems like Sony was over paying to stop bungie from giving Microsoft another hit.
@@patrickm6483 I think you are right
@patrickm6483 which is funny because Microsoft was very open about how they did not want bungie back and viewed them in their current state as something that burns more money then it makes. That's all part of the reason why Activision didn't fight much when bungie bought out their own contract.
Apparently the bungie ceo also blew over 2.3 mil on classic cars in the midst of the layoffs according to kotaku.
“They looked at this trailer and said “oh yeah…oh yeah””. I’m on the floor 😂
Wasn't it Bungie that did the GDC presentation on the dangers of over delivering and all of their trains arriving at the station at the same time? That just sounded like they were trying to validate nickel and diming players to death
Taken King was intended to be the main campaign of Destiny 1 but had to be saved for the first expansion because they didn't have enough time. They've been underdelivering since day 1.
@@Nudderbols Bungie died when they finished Halo.
Me: Can't afford food.
Game CEO: You know what we need to make? A $70 game and then $20 a month.
This ^
When talking about those studios the thing to remember is that is just the purchasing prices for those studios. That's not development cost as well so throw another $100mill at least for each studio, the amount of money spent and how little ROI there is likely to be is shocking. And it's all because of greed. They don't want to spend $200mil on a high quality single player game because that will only have a limited profit ceiling, a live service game however they have themselves convinced it has limitless earning potential. Shows how out of touch these people are.
@@BlueBloodPenn and they will try again and again and again learning nothing
Seriously. They could invest that money into many smaller projects and make a lot of money. Just not all the money.
Bungie is not, and hasn’t been for a long time, the Bungie we love. All the talent and creativity has gone. RIP.
@iRoppa it's still there it's just ceos being greedy and wanting more money
Witch queen and the final shape were fantastic
@@Areis1997both were pretty mid
yea the bungie that made halo is gone, they have maybe 10 people from those games still around and they don't have much control over the game direction. all the original team has left for greener pastures with new companies
@@Areis1997 People gonna shit on stuff no matter what, you are right, Witch Queen was great and TFS was fantastic.
Same with Rocksteady and Bioware
Don’t think so hard. Occam’s razor. It’s as simple as this: Bungie wanted to do this, and it was the plan all along (over the last 3-5 years). Bungie wants to make the least amount of game, to make the maximum profit. So they lay off a bunch of people a few months ago, build and finish the Final Shape, ship it for a profit, and then cut 17% of their company to make sure that their upper management and shareholders can solidify more profit. They probably also used behavioral data to determine which people were essential to making their games, and then cut the rest so they could (again) make more profit. This is who they want to be. This is the final shape of their company. Stop believing that Bungie is anything like 2007-2016 Bungie.
You made us watch the WHOLE Fairgames Trailer!
🤣
As a player since D1, Bungie did this to themselves. They absolutely understood what the fans wanted cause we blamed Activision when it didn't happen. They buy themselves out & it only got worse. They had sooo much time to course correct, even before Sony, what d'they do? Chop up one DLC into one and a half DLCs 🙄👏🏿
What dlc got chopped up into one and a half dlc? Also isn’t that better technically? Chopping one into one and a half? 1 < 1.5. But regardless, people look at how forsaken succeeded but forget how curse of Osiris still to this day was the worst expansion of all time. Things under Activision was really bad too. Except, rn Bungie has a better PvP, and PvE game.
@mrlunar62 Lightfall. Unconfirmed but if you see the way the first and last cutscenes just fit together, a lot of us theorise it was meant to be the first cutscene of Final Shape. Compound that with the miserable lack of content with LF, I think it makes sense.
Your point about things being worse under AV - that's the red pill we all need to take: BUNGIE IS THE PROBLEM. It's insane they created two of the most successful gaming IPs in Halo & Destiny and fucked them both so bad they had to sell em of to keep "afloat"
@@rexisright and then they also made witch queen and the final shape. Ur looking at 1 fuck up. 1. While disregarding some of the best content in destiny 2 being witch queen that Bungie made and final shape that is considered to be the best dlc of all time including the dlcs that Bungie AND activision made together like forsaken.
A macrotransation hell like Destiny 2 kills goodwill. This level of greed is unsustainable.
Just wait for Marathon! 😃
Not to mention the FOMO. The fact that I'll miss out on content, rewards and cosmetics if I don't play almost every day makes me want to play less, not more.
Why would I want to play a game that punishes me for having other hobbies and responsibilities in my life when there are plenty of great games that respect my time?
Every other MMO/Live Service game is learning this lesson, even WoW which used to be horrible at respecting players' time. Bungie still uses FOMO and grindy rewards as the main driver of player retention and then they wonder why their main cash cow is experiencing a slow death.
@@Mark-nh7zg a looter shooter having a grindy rewards??!?! no fucking way
@@Mark-nh7zgboohoo keep crying baby boy
@@DM-tw6vd*Everyone disliked that*
Bungie: Don't worry guys, you should still be excited for Marathon!
unless the game accully looks like the cg trailer i am out.
hahaha they haven’t really given us anything to be excited about…. I’ll admit to being very curious though.
😂
They getting ready for Firewalk to be a support studio for Bungie.
Ok might have been too dark.
Firewalk is not gonna the a support studio for anything, they will get shut down next year.
@@byte-bg4ob Sony isn't that dumb, that would be just a huge waste of money
Firewalk will soon go the way of the Forespoken studio.
As huge as creating a psvr2 and shutting diwn the studio that was actively developing titles for said psvr2 @@14ElmStreet28
60% of last years playtime was spent in games that are like 6 years n older.
That number is only going to get bigger with all these Devs regurgitating the same Live service slop nobody wants.
Good hope these gaming companies learn there lesson
Sony of course bought Bungie for D2 but they *really* wanted them for their skills. Every IP they’ve released in the 21st century has been a colossal hit. I’m not surprised they’re making them make a likely new SiFi game
You could see that clearly with the gunplay in concord
@@cameronmitchell4973 yes. Sony buys TALENT. Microsoft layoffs or out right leave talent behind and buys already established IP's.
Bungie gets restructured before Skill Up’s final shape review is out. Wild.
This doesn't surprise me. From someone who pays attention to the MMO landscape, it really reminds me of WoW. Tons of people quit the game after Shadowlands, that it got to the point where people didn't even want to go back to try Dragonflight. I know players who quit WoW to play FF14 and never went back! I saw Destiny 2's The Final Shape come out, but picked up FF14's Dawntrail instead, still no regrets to this day...
@@VioletElite4 without server issues the Final Shape would have peaked above any other time in Destiny history on player count.
3:08 that's exactly what has been going on all across the industry. Once greedy suits noticed that videogames were a very profitable industry the countdown started. Eventually videogames will completely match the music industry, meaning that 99% of mainstream products will be ultra manufactured, safe, mindless garbage, and only indie games will be made by gamers, for gamers, and have a soul.
Always got the vibe Bungie cared more about social issues and their culture than doing good business or actually innovating.
"We need to step things up guys, we need a REAL money maker of a game."
"How about we give 100,000 mil to one of our talented studios and have them make a simple yet fun single player adventure? That's what they're best at, after all."
"No, that won't work. Let's spend 5 billion dollars on a different studio that everyone knows but no one likes and give them 300,000 dollars to make a live service."
God I can't wait for this era of incompetence to die.
In a few years we will be talking about the Death of PlayStation and how Jim Ryan caused it all.
Meh PlayStation will be fine, they just need to go back to what made them great. If they don’t, then your argument becomes valid.
No gaming crash here boys, nothing to see!!!
Move along, move along everyone!
Can we please stop using "crash"? This isn't a crash because people are still buying games. A crash implies everyone stops buying them but from my perspective most people aren't buying into live service as much as they used to because most of those players are now stuck playing the same game(s) and aren't moving one
@@franesustic988 Not a crash but a big left turn.
@@Arcademan09 By this standard there was no crash in 1983. either.
@@franesustic988 ...no? Tons of people stopped paying for games in the US because a lot of them were very low quality. *THAT'S A CRASH* , after the NES launched it revitalized the US game market, Europe and Japan were never really affected by that crash during that time.
Those $ target numbers were probably insane to begin with
Sony were idiots for buying them for over three million. So glad to see Sony taking control and Destiny 3 cancelled if the rumors are to be believed. They need to cancel Marathon as well. Have them work on an existing IP from within Sony (Resistance or even Killzone) or do something completely new.
Not surprised at all. I feel like they’ve been keeping things together with shoe strings and bubblegum for a long time.
So the final shape was the final shape for bungie as a fully independent studio
Sony bought insomniac for 200 million. Let that sink in.
Don’t believe in the corporate leaders when they say they tried everything they could to avoid layoffs.
I don’t know who would buy a PS5 pro or Xbox equivalent right now. Current games are still being held back by last gen consoles years after launch. You can barely get benefits from current gen, much less a model refresh
It's important to keep in mind, we actually have zero idea as to what FairGames is going to be like, just a few months ago Sony sent out surveys to playstation users asking for feedback on live service games and asking what kind of game they would like FairGames to be.... just a few months ago. Have zero clue what they're doing.
It’s not a tax write off scheme; it’s a monopoly scheme. They (big game companies) buy up all of the indie studios, or studios with free creative writes, and then forcibly give them money just to shut them down so that, over time, the only companies that are left are AAA conglomerates, and therefore we the consumer will have no choice but to buy games produced by them, thus monopolizing a free market system.
I have thought this over the last few years of media releases, just how much did production during covid drive up costs? Disney with their 300 million dollar costing movies, rocksteady with a couple 100 million suicide squad, you just keep seeing products that look ok, but the costs seem insane to just a few years earlier.
Part of it could be down to elongated dev time due to covid, it'll be interesting to see the cost of games that were made post 2021.Poor management.
quite a few games are poorly managed, rocksteady leadership abandoned their project and BGS still act like they are a team of 50.
Pre production has taken a back seat since the rise of CG.
Why work things out now when we can do it in post.
Spiderman 2 scrapped multiple core ideas halfway through production.
Marketing is also a factor for budgets.
They probably also assume marathon wont do well considering the backlash from the community when they announced that they are changing Marathon to a hero shooter style game
This reads like Sony thought the Covid gaming boom wasn’t a temporary boom
I gotta say your channel is fantastic! I just discovered you in the last week and you’ve quickly become one of my favorite channels for industry news and opinions. You’re balanced and give facts separately from your opinion and I seriously respect the work you’re doing. Keep it up!
They paid 3.6 billion for a company that was running in the red
I don't know about you but a game company that employed 1500 people at one point *FOR ONE GAME* seems like a massive mistake
9:50 It is not like they were out of touch. It was the right decision at the time. It was trending, namely multiplayer. That is the problem with games taking too long to make. It is no longer trending. Single player is trending.
This is completely the fault of the absolutely incompetent and greedy management at Bungie. Ex and current developers have been coming out and calling out the Bungie execs on their abysmal handling of the studio and its staff. Sony even gave Bungie an extra $1 billion or so purely for staff retention. Lastly, the ceo of Bungie, Pete parsons, has the audacity to be the voice behind the layoffs all the while he spent well over $2 million on vintage cars in the past year or so.
I love Destiny and have been a player since the beta came out in 2014, and it’s heartbreaking to see what has become of one of my favorite studios.
Remember guys. It's your fault for not giving them your money.
If you think this is gonna change then you didn't pay attention to what Xbox did a few months ago.
Success in video games is only valued in how much money they can take from the community.
Dw, the next expansion trailer they release will have this hivemind community become a bunch of amnesiacs and forget everything.
The final shape is literally proof of it. Bungie/D2 twabs saying that making one new free armor set a YEAR was too much work for them, and the initial layoffs were completely forgotten as soon as the final shape was close to its release date.
Once consumers start wising up to the fact that they and their money are responsible for all greedy business decisions. Corporations only follow the money. Nothing is solved by feeding the parasite.
The Bungie thing is not a big surprise. Destiny 2 is winding down according to Bungie themselves. It's moving into service mode.
0:37 I hear Preparation H is really good 'on the hole'
Bungie made a sci-fi space shooter for Microsoft. Then they left Microsoft because they wanted more creative freedom so then they sold out to Activision and now Sony which they're making... A sci-fi space shooter
Jim Ryan was never a gamer it was fucking obvious he was most likely some kind of bean counter who rose in the ranks smh.
After doing so great during the PS4 era its seems like Sony is doing nothing but mistakes the last couple years
Always kinda funny to see people saying that Sony wasted money on Bungie when Sony actually tried to buy Leyou (the company who owns Digital Extremes/Warframe) before acquiring Bungie and got outbid by Tencent on that one. Sony was going to buy a live service studio no matter what and Bungie would probably be bought by someone (would bet on Embracer, to be honest) anyway.
Sony won't stop trying to push live service games even if Concord and Fairgames bomb, because they already saw with Helldivers that they can actually do it.
nothing bungie has made in the last like 10 years has “exceeded” our expectations. im ngl i get giddy with excitement every time bungie fails i feel terrible for their employees since they literally just laid off hella ppl even tho sony told them not to. whatever, after the recent marathon news that game sounds like garbage.
NOBODY wanted an extraction/hero shooter they wanted halo 3 multiplayer smfh
"Damn right, Sony is getting deep in there." had me ctfu.
Thank you for understanding revenue vs profits. There are so many RUclipsrs that DO NOT.
The Final Shape is unemployment 😢
Don't worry megacorps. Keep buying the studios but not hiring the people who made it successful. It'll work eventually.
I disagree, i very much doubt that its just a matter of "out of touchness", they expected to force us to accept it. The phrase "You have to force behaviors" comes to mind.
They have such a low view of us as customers and individuals, they thought they could bully us into eating whatever they made, in whatever way they provided. They expected us to jack into that live service IV and become the perfect consumer zombie. Just turn a % of your customers into that and you are set, discard the rest, you don't want them anyway.
I feel nothing when i hear about these layoffs, pure apathy. They have been very vocal about how the feel about their customers from the basic devs up to the top and now they want pity ? Don't trust them, Don't believe them, let them GO and good riddance. I expected nothing from them and i have lost nothing without them.
That said, i am sure that there was a lot of incompetence involved in the middle, nobody truly passionate about games would have agreed to do this, so who picked up the keyboards? low tier, "just want a paycheck" or "i have a not so secret agenda" workers or lifeless husks that just gave up, why would anyone expect quality output out of those "tools" ?
Well said.
I'm willing to bet the Sony executives were well aware of the poor management at Bungie and wanted to have full control over the studio from the start. But Bungie convinced them of the alternative to help soften the blow and reduce the backflash from being acquired by another big publisher
Nah, Xbox didn't make any major changes to Bethesda up until recently, and made some changes but still largely kept them the same after Redfall debacle.
I really think that they made the choices about which studios to back because of names and history in the industry rather than any CGI trailer produced. Even as an investor or a fan, if you hear enough names that has literally worked on many successful franchises over decades, that gives them some confidence to gamble. It is possible that some of these titles are so early in development that it isn't even reasonable to try to gauge success in terms of consumer reception nor sales.
I get alot of crap for how bad i talk about this game, like many, we're no happy for the coin flip whether the dlc is wortb it, expecting us to pay 100 a year then dedicate that year to time based rewards is ridiculous
Best news I’ve heard about bungie in years, we all knew they’d throw D2 down the drain
Why should I feel bad? Is there a single point for me towards feeling anything towards individuals who said they don’t care about critique? Nope
Jim Ryan had to. Killing Joel, and having Spiderman quit doesn't help, neither.
I've to admit that I'd have seen chances for this Heaven project to be successful as a life service game about competing gangs or burgler groups going for the same big heist and against security measures and personal.
"And their customers suffer for it... as they should" 😂😂😂
Maybe now we will get back all our sunset items/story/planets and my wet dream a fully D1 mergred into D2.
I would go back to play the shit out of it.😂
Well, to be fair, Microsoft went years without first-party AAA titles. Sony has a lot coming they just really wanted a successful live service game. can't blame them for trying to capture part of a market they dont really have a presence in thats how you grow your business. That being said bungie was a bad buy they should have realized it when 2 times they have went independent and dont work well with others. Destiny has been bad for a long time. i quit years ago after the warmind just wasnt fun anymore once they introduced silver
Maybe he was "engine shopping" for future Sony titles. I don't think we saw actual gameplay but maybe the engines of these games have potential to be repurposed and don't care about the game they're working on it just cheaper to buy them out instead of getting only 30%.
Now, they can have the team and engine to make more exclusives. Insomniac can do everything for them.
I'm sorry for those loosing their jobs. But at the same time, i'm not shocked. Also pleased bungie corp is paying for their poor handling. Its just a shame those at the top who made those mistakes for pure greed are not punished in some way.
Of all the canceled live service games, The Last of Us Online my game has me the most curious. I really enjoyed the Multi-player of the first game back when i played it on PS4. i probably put about 50+ hrs on that before i started playing other stuff with friends.
Problem is, they were probably expecting WAYYY too much to what they would most likely get in return. It would never become a money printer, which is was Jim Ryan was chasing.
I believe that loss can entirely be written off if you have other sources that can be taxed. It comes out of your total taxes. The percentage you qualify to write off could very well be the total amount invested in that game.
The thing aboutthe modern gaming (tech) world is that I guarantee NONE of those employees were the problem. Their BOSSES were 1000% the problem.
And those bosses will continue to manage more teams and run more meetings and make more shit deadlines and arbitrary growth numbers and “creative feedback” that destroys games from the top-down and ruins gaming for those who actually care, like these devs and players.
The people responsible for fucking up games never take responsibility or face consequences.
155 positions have been replaced by Sony staff, which are likely management positions. That would be quite a few of those types of positions if that is the case. Two years of independence is a long time. I think Sony was more patient than usual.
“We did everything we could to avoid this”
Except execs taking pay cuts of course
These entertainment industries have pigeon-holed themselves into a space where creativity and ingenuity is essentially banned by pandering to an oversensitive audience that doesn't exist, while abandoning and even mocking the people that previously supported their products.
Then they thought it would be wise to try and gatekeep the industry and force people to buy things they didn't want by unironically being as EXCLUSIVE and INTOLLERANT as possible, making it impossible for actually creative people to enter the space. It really is about as out of touch as you can get.
If you count last years layoffs it's around 40% of Bungie that got axed. Wonder if any other C suite people 'moved on' to other jobs, with an operation like Sony the buck stops with the CEO but they aren't the only decision maker who would have gotten Sony into this mess.
if i were Sony, i'd open a new smaller studio under Bungie and have them make a game that isn't live service. maybe they can work on Killzone or Resistance or even a new IP
Bungie lost it's soul a decade ago, they're merely Bungie in name only now. Where once upon a time they literally dominated the industry for the entire 2000's; set gaming trends; game design features; revolutionised online gaming/console fps gaming. Hell, before Bungie and Halo, video game cut scenes were practically not a thing in the industry. They were true pioneers and just like Halo, Bungie died a long time ago.
"But he's British. So I'm going to keep doing it" had me on the floor
No matter what happens. I'm always going to be a fan of Bungie and remain excited about their future. These are tough times for everyone, in every industry. Keep being awesome, Bungie.
Im still angry at Bungie for ruining Factions . I'll never forgive them for that.
Destiny never looked like a game made by a big studio, I think bungie is unaware of how much smaller studios can do with less than 500 employees. The fact that destinylfg was the only way to matchmake for raids shows that even with their size, they couldn't even do that.
7:20 "Eat the rich" fantasies peddled by corporats has to be peak late stage capitalism. "Hello fellow kids, I hear you hate capitalism; well have I got the live service for you!"
😂 love it😂
11:15 full stop I would've been interested in a SS game IF it was actually good, unique playstyles, good mission structures, unique enemy variety, etc. AND NOT THAT!
Sony is playing catch-up, to what games?
Market awareness and where the trends are going. Microsoft and Xbox are clearly leading the way and all Sony can do is try to catch up but the PlayStation brand will be sold off to Google or Amazon within the next 10 years and you can bank on that. 🤣
@xbotLife your name says it all lol 😂
@@Arasael23 truth hurts doesn’t it 🤣
@@xbotLife I'll be happy if Microsoft comes out with the console next generation, because all those positive trends does not translate to hardware or software sales. 🤷
2 year contract to show profit retention makes sense
I didn’t even know the KKK still did ads but there was one on your video. You might wanna talk to RUclips before people get the wrong idea
Ok, I’m an old fart but the “I’m Vibin”, I swear the entire time I’ve heard you play that, I thought that was Bobby Hill from King of the Hill saying “I’m Bobby”. Couldn’t leave this comment on live clip when you actually played it and I realized it, but yeah, all this time I thought it was Bobby. 🤣
Sony went on the purchasing spree as a counter to Microsoft purchasing big studios.
Not just a none gamer.
I also doubt Jim Ryan business acumen.
How come this board of directors and "investors" fumble the bag and an easy lay up this badly?
Don't they read the news, don't they people doing research of what the consumer wants?
Do they just eat wathever Sony tells them?
If so. I seriously wonder how are they even rich if they don't keep an eye on their money.
Cause just saying "look at fortnite and do that" is how I imagine an SnL parody businessman from the 90s would act.
No oversight whatsoever, being fed Bs and false promises from Sony and eating it up.
Marathon going to go downhill
sonys single player exclusives are some of the best single player games in the industry at this point them wanting to pivot to another field isn't a bad thing they just need good games to sell that idea just my opinion
They live in echo chambers and the one or two people who don't agree, keep quiet because they are scared to speak up. After awhile all you have left are Activists and yes men & women. All these games flopping is just the natural way the world ends up balancing out. If these Activist games keep flopping and losing hundreds of millions of dollars, then eventually they will change their approach or they will go broke denying reality. Either way it will eventually revert back to the norm. Were just in a weird part of gaming history and it is all derived from the echo chambers they have installed.
Lol you think it’s the activists developers that just delivered by far the best expansion in the series history are the ones at fault?
Funny since there's a strike in D1 called The Echo Chamber
@@basedoz5745 Was I talking about destiny? Nope. Did you watch the whole video? Nope, if you did you would know he was talking a lot about the out of touch heads of the company, that Sony replaced, as was I. You just got triggered for no reason 😅
@@StrikeShulgin Lol clearly you are talking about Destiny, Idk why ya'll are so afraid to stand by your schtick
@@basedoz5745 Lol what a great example. Best expansion so far is that garbage bare minimum slop that doesn't give half as much content as taken king nor forsaken 😂😂. Oh but the reviews are great eh? Yeah I remember d2 vanilla having so much high praise for how "good" it was.
Destiny as a game is underdelivery trash.
Im really happy every live service move Sony makes it fails spectacularly. Keep it going Sony! Eventually you will go back to good single player games.
220? That's like half of Bethesda.
Today i learned Jim Ryan was/is British
_fairgame$_ looks like that godawful _robyn hood_ show.
Wow that trailer for what was it called again? Fairgames? What the actual fuck was that? Your face and mine had the same reaction 😂
Bungie used to get away with its overpromise and underdeliver strategy because it was just dumb gamers on the receiving end of said strategy.
But now they are dealing with Sony, which means being negligent and dishonest is having actual consequences.
If you’re interested in more context around everything involving this I recommend watching videos by Paul Tassi and Datto on the matter as they have more context and have been on the preverbal frontlines while all this happened
16:12 "Microsoft momentum" to be fair i think people don't realize at the launch of the ps5 playstation had a bunch of game's and the generation was up to a decent start, that is true that there were a lot of ps4 ports but on a ps5 you could absolutely see the differences, Microsoft on the other hand had a really empty start obviously halo got delayed and.... so now we are probably seeing the launch line-up coming to the series consoles🤷♂️
Not gonna lie..the concept for that fairgame game is pretty cool lol 🤷🏽♂️
Hey where's the troll saying that Jim Ryan made him money as an investor I still wanna know if it's his Jim's projects that he greenlit were worth it in the long run.