The fact that Marathon is another "make-or-break" game for Bungie is kind of insane. Why back yourself into this live service corner AGAIN where if it doesn't make the same gdp of a small country it's considered a failure? I don't see how they can continue like this when even a huge success like Destiny doesn't put you in a safe position.
Because the gaming industry as a whole in recent times is so hard focused on people trying to speculate on shoveling out some half baked slot machine and cut and run with as much coin as they can extract. Same reason why Destiny has no focus on achievement cosmetics or variety in armor design because there's money to be had just making something for the cash shop.
If you develop 10 live service games that each cost 100 million dollars, you only need one of them to succeed and become a multibillion dollar success to get all of your money back and more. Companies know this and instead of trying to make a balders gate or Wukong game they want to re-invent fortnite.
Destiny made enough to keep everyone’s pockets well filled and content coming. the issue was instead of growing destiny with that money the used the majority of it on other projects that all except marathon at this point were canceled.
Hate to say it but this company is basically falling apart in front of our eyes. Might be a blessing that Sony owns them now at least some of the talent can be extracted and put into other projects. Shame either way tho
This happened just about year ago, though. It may have somewhat caused the delay of Marathon’s release, but even then maybe not. What it does show is that Bungie takes workplace harassment seriously and will do whatever needs to be done to protect their employees, even fire high ranking project leads and delay a game release.
@@Cloudz2021 I mean, the fact of it is the kind of behavior that got Chris Barrett fired (and worse) was probably rampant during the "glory years" of Bungie, it just didn't get talked about or punished.
"Alright, guys let's put the only game making us money on life support and put all our money into one game that may or may not succeed. No way that'll come back to bite us!"
Yeah, they basically carried out a targeted campaign against him. She got other streamers to implicate him through inference rather than evidence. She managed to come out of that whole ordeal virtually unscathed, too. No sympathy for either of them.
@grayden4138 yeah, I remember, I watched the Upper Echelon video back then as I was a regular viewer of SNTR myself. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of this whole situation on Chris's part.
They don’t even include a paid single player mode for these multiplayer games anymore like they did with Halo. It’s just always online, multiplayer-only live service. I’m just over it.
A lot of people worshipped them in a cult type of way. It wasn’t that they seemed they were invincible. They were worshipped like they were invincible. Their fans created this monster which resulted in Bungie arrogance and feeling like they could do whatever they wanted. It wasn’t just Pete Parsons either.
Everything dies. Empires, cultures, sometimes entire continent. Nothing is forever. Many a great game studios died already. Some like blizzard and bioware are just weekend at Bernie versions of what they used to be.
So both Lono and Chris were married and made other women uncomfortable but one was dogpiled by half the community and the other was protected due to bad publicity. Huh
"Bungie makes good shooters" "They made Halo, they made Destiny." - my only comment is that there is like 0 people who made Halo still at Bungie, and as of recently, theres not a lot of people left who made Destiny.
Yeah hate to say it, but the fact this happened over the whole SNTR situation is wild. His wife played a big part in that drama. Maybe she’s shocked? Idk I can’t speak for her. It’s just annoying we never get clarification on these events.
She has no obligation to air her personal business with her husband on social media. I’m guessing that if this report is her first time learning about this she’s dealing with the situation with her husband privately.
Sony isn’t stupid. They’re sort of like a vulture. They picked their decaying carcass well and are more than content to pick over its bones. I mean, look at it this way: they lose out on the IP’s, to some extent. D2 was dying and Marathon was always a bad idea. The Bungie devs may have gotten in over their heads and not known that, but Sony isn’t some little publisher with money to burn. They’re one of the largest corporations ON EARTH, they didn’t get there by being bad at evaluating acquisitions. They’ve got the rights to Destiny as a franchise, and they’ve got the entire Bungie staff in their possession. Management may have dropped the ball hard, but the studio itself is compromised of some pretty talented people across the board, and they’re Sony’s now.
@trevordillon1921 Absolute nonsense, Sony wanted the live service model, miscalculated Destiny's pull and current state and made a poor investment choice simple as that
@@trevordillon1921no one at Bungie is obligated to stay there. They currently are, and have been hemorrhaging talent. Some of their most well-known employees, might I add. Morale is at an all-time low.
It would have gone into development early enough to hear the massive hype and the short lived blip of Tarkov on streaming and content creators. Bungie after seeing Destiny not grow made the decisions that like with Doom that they would follow this trend. Turns out extraction shooter were never the rising star that content creators claimed it was.
It was a terrible idea from the start, and should have never made it out of the idea phase. Knowing Destiny 2 suffered from a lack of attention, resources, and staff because of it.. and all for a game that might not even release, is just peak stupidity.
Playing Devil's Advocate, it does stand out in a genre of multiplayer shooters. Like, consider all the types of Multiplayer Shooters Bungie could have made. If they made a Hero Shooter, they'd be competing against Overwatch, Valorant etc. And we saw how rough it was for Concord. They could have made an arena shooter or a more traditional shooter, but at that point, they'd be competing with themselves with Destiny Crucible as well as COD (and now Xdefiant). Battle Royales would be even harder to break into given the popularity and status of Fortnite, Apex and Warzone. They could go for a large scale sandbox similar to Battlefield or Battefront......but they'd still end up competing against Battlefield and/or Battlefront. Something they probably didn't want to risk. An Extraction Shooter has the advantage that it doesn't compete with anything Bungie has already made and is relatively open territory. Escape from Tarkov is relatively "niche" on PC. Call of Duty Warzone DMZ had a lukewarm reception. So Marathon would be the first one on the scene.
@@FraserSouris That’s the thing, I think multiplayer shooters in general is an oversaturated market. I wish they had leaned harder into the RPG and PVE aspects of Destiny and made a strong story experience.
If the new game wasn't called Marathon and had nothing to do with Marathon I would have 0 horses in this race. Unfortunately, it is a new Marathon game that is not trying to be anything like the original trilogy so I hope it flops.
What are you on about? Wasn't the original Marathon an ugly ass boomer shooter with a countable amount of pixels on the screen? There's nothing inherently wrong with putting IPs in different genres. Considering Halo Wars exists and it did pretty good, Bungie isn't obligated to keep their IP like looking like a dog turd cuz you remember "the original trilogy".
@@dudebruh8534Buddy, you know what else is a boomer shooter that got a faithfully created remake and did very well? Doom. You might have heard of it. Halo Wars was also done by a completely different studio that specialized in their genre of RTS, and made Halo Wars as their swan song.
Remember when Barrett personally banned a streamer for basically doing this exact thing? Life comes at you fast don’t it. Both those guys can piss off to be honest 👍👍👍
I'm still very interested in Marathon despite being an extraction shooter, it's very interesting how they will implement that style with puzzles + quests similar to D2. The idea of having to do quests and then extract sounds like a fun challenge and this is coming from someone who's played all the way from D1.
@@regnarDestiny was also something new and mostly unique, it actually did quite a lot to change the gaming landscape. Marathon by comparison is chasing trends that died 3 years ago
You need to publicly apologize for your coverage of Lono and SayNoToRage after all the stuff has come out and you have been proven wrong over and over, it's time to act like a man and just apologize for the bad reporting and choosing to take the side of Bungie instead of someone you once called a friend. Actually disgusting behavior. I honestly don't know how you sleep at night knowing you took the side of Barrett and one girl who had financial stake to remove Lono from the directory, even now.
Chris Barrett had 8 proven women. He probably victimized dozens of women. Tassi lets Barrett slide. Its just a really scummy industry all the way around. sexual assault cases everywhere you look. Tassi knows how scummy so many of the people he deals with are.. and he just sits around playing video games all day. Paul Tassi's silence is violence.
He won’t do that. Just like the rest of them. That whole circle has gone quiet. Nobody talking about it like they did Lono. Shows you the nature of their character. Disgusting.
My biggest take away from this entire situation is the fact that lono who I don't defend or think was in the right for what he did was massacred all over Twitter by his wife and a bunch of other people and blacklisted career ended again not defending what he did but Chris decided to ban him off of destiny and stood tall and mighty just to be as creepy if not maybe even worse and like I see like no one hold him accountable but everyone destroyed llano and what's happy for us downfall
Does Paul think that Concord is good? That Concord is a good game that's failed despite it being the pinnacle of gaming? hahahahahahaha That's so ridiculous it's making my mind explode. Concord is the epitome of garbage.
Bungie basically died before D1 even came out when they pushed out all the creatives that made the company what it was. They pulled it together to keep going with great updates here and there but it's been a shitshow for the most part. Marty's recent interview with Act Man made everything make so much sense with the direction the company has gone since then. I bounced early in the D2 days but always wanted to hop back in (like I did with TTK in D1) but the whole vaulting thing just ensured that would never fucking happen. Either way, that first Marathon trailer was fucking awesome. I loved the aesthetic and would be super excited for a Marathon game. Unfortunately, we're getting a live-service extraction shooter and I have no interest in any of that. I know given then money spent and most played games right now that I'm in the minority here but I'm done with pvp-focused live-service games. I'm sick to fucking death of the "strip everything that used to be free out and sell it back piece-by-piece at insane prices" nature of the industry that is running wild in that space. Give me a story-driven single-player, or even online co-op Marathon game and I'm down.
What happens is Marthon comes out, makes a few million in sales off of studio name. Then we get massive layoff as it failed to meat expectations. Management burns what ever tiny player base the game keeps so they can buy crappy cars for their collection. Then they fail to meet target revenue and Sony steps in to salvage what ever is left of the company that cost them 3.6 Billion. Also it was a interview with Joe Ziegler the made up the idea that Marathon is now a hero shooter, but that was never sated in the interview its was just assumed by the writer of the articular about the interview that it now was just a hero shooter since Valorent exist. This idea that marathon is a hero shooter and is setting of overwatch PTDS is just a internet fan fiction at this point as we've received nothing about how or even if the three different Runners have changed
The day bungie started taking away significant resources and effort from d2 and never replacing it was the day it all started going downhill. I’m just looking at other games and might come back if Bungie has a huge turnaround, but that hasn’t happened in forever
It sucks to hear anyone going through this type of harassment. But good job it Bungie for handling it this way. This happened like a year ago, so whatever ripples it caused in Marathon’s development should be long gone. Huge win that Bungie has the stones to fire a top project lead, potentially delay a game’s release, in order to protect their employees.
At this point, I think I have just given up on Marathon being real anymore. Much of what has been happening with Bungie is just more and more showing that the game and the studio itself is just breaking apart. If marathon happens, it'll be a Sony IP straight up. No way Bungie is handling this anymore.
It certainly doesn’t make you feel great knowing they are willing to have a blank spot where the old Vidoc used to be. They’ve known or should have known the Barrett situation would leak so it behooved them to be able to turn the conversation about the game back to the game. Wouldn’t be surprised if they are just really behind schedule.
I spend a lot of time, seemingly, in the video games minority, but I was actually interested in a Tarkov-style game that was more polished, had more things to do, etc. Not saying Marathon was DEFINITELY going to be that game, but I was intrigued by the prospect anyway.
I still am honestly, especially as a console player we don’t really have anything of that genre. I can definitely see this being fun and it sounds like it’s gonna be right up my alley from everything I’ve heard, but everyone keeps talking about it like it’s a failure which is a shame. Extracting Shooters aren’t really an oversaturated market, they had a few Tarkov copy cats on PC but like there’s nothing Sci-Fi style or Extraction really on console so Marathon will be pretty unique in that way, and if it follows the style of its vidoc them I’m totally in for it! I think people are greatly underestimating how many people will see it as something new and cool having never been exposed to Tarkov or not liking that militaristic style compared to Marathon’s.
If it wasn't bungie making it, i'd be hyped. The aesthetic and setting look so sleak. But we all know they're going to put in the bare minimum amount of effort just to string along a dedicated fanbase of stockholm syndrome fans and people with buyers remorse.
I'm puzzled when journalist like Paul state why would Bungie that down the vid doc. He should know the optics of leaving it up on the official site. Slap in the face to the victims if the continue to use his image as a representation of the company.
Gaslighting. He acts like he's some random gamer who doesn't know how the inner workings of the industry works. Nah, he knows exactly what's going on, but he would rather gaslight than be objective.
I wish there were some real news about Marathon... office drama (as sensitive as it might be) is not real news about the game. This game will not thrive for being developed by a happy loving studio (see concord for an example, no office drama coming out of that studio), all that matters is "is it fun, does it look cool?".
Do you really need examples on how many games were d.o.a. due to office issues? Besides Concord is living proof that a game doesn't simply need good gameplay, it has creative direction issues like many other games before it, the only difference is that it's a high profile/cost game.
I think Marathon eventually will be released but I won’t be shocked if it’s drastically scaled back at this point I’m sure plenty of Bungie employees are trying to have leadership “read the room” with the market rejecting the majority of new GaaS titles that get released now I honestly think Bungie needs to go back to their roots, I’m not saying they need to go make a fully single player game. But it wouldn’t hurt if there next project had a bigger single player component. B/c I have a hard time imagining Sony at this point wanting to fund Destiny 3 the way it would need to be funded. I think Destiny itself still has some value given how fleshed out the lore has become. So I could see a world where maybe Bungie instead of making an MMORPG, ends up making a much more straightforward looter like Borderlands.
Marathon feels like another Concord, another game that no one really asked for in a pretty stratified market... but this time with an IP that 40 and 50 something Macintosh gamers might have remembered but no one else really does. I am worried we will lose Bungie as a studio when it tanks.
Marathon *could* succeed if they make it f2p. Which would be a gamble in itself if people dont think there's enough replayability or long term investment to bother purchasing anything ingame cosmetic or even pay 2 win items. If it's 40-50 dollar game u're creating a situation that will end scaring away people wanting to dip their toes into an gamemode that alot of people aren't very experienced in, or have common knowledge of the extremely niche genre that extracyion shooters are that they don't see the price point beijg worth it for the amount of content and replayability it has. Lose-lose situation and I can't wait for bungie to s*** the bed 😂😂😂
Ironic how these same people falsely accusing certain people about this behavior while doing it themselves. Sick hypocrites. We can only hope the rest of the swamp will be drained. This will happen again. Just wait.
Why did it take so long for this to come out? How many other sexual predators needed a cover story and plausible deniability? Why is the media letting Barrett hide? Where is Barrett? Why is the media letting him keep on working in the industry? The games media blew this story.
Look at Blizzard or Riot - HR covers for them to protect the top brass. I think the difference now was that under Sony it's a different HR who actually did their job.
@@Reldan where is Chris Barrett working these days? He should no longer be in the industry. He should no longer be able to work with children or teenagers. If he has any children they should be taken away from him.
Now, I'm on medican grade copium but I have a little hope that the recent restructuring will start showing some benefits soon. They got rid of the incubation projects and doubled down on D2 and Marathon. Hopefully they realize there's a good amount of people that just want to play D2 and want it to be great. The game is in a strange state atm. Imo the game feels better than ever to play right now, but the mood surrounding the game is so bad right now.
After the disaster of Concord, among the state the game is in (it not being very good according to testing), I’m making a big bet that Sony is just going to outright can Marathon.. like it should have been early on in the idea phase.
I think one thing Bungie has going for it is that lately I've seen a lot of frustration in the Tarkov community. Those devs seem to be shooting themselves in the foot lately, and cheating has become a huge problem. If that continues and Marathon makes a good showing, I don't think it would be too hard to take the #1 spot.
Who is this game even for? The oversaturated hero shooter market? Maybe for the Tarkov people as suggested? Im looking at Concorde as many others are and back at Bungie with an arched eyebrow. That they did not even begin planning stages for D3, while their only revenue source was D2, is just really mind-blowing. No shame in diversification of your resources, but this feels like slaying the golden goose to try some new cooking recipes.
The main reason why the "Marathon is cooked" sentiments are justified is when you have a major creative/design lead who was involved with the entire idea of a Marathon Extraction Reboot no longer at the company at all, it calls into question if the project even deserves to exist at all anymore. I know he wasn't the only person spearheading the game's creation (just like Luke Smith was not the only person responsible for working on The Taken King), but he really seemed like one of two major brains behind the project... At least with Destiny, the concept was lifted off the ground by a lot of original senior staff despite losing people who helped get THAT project into shape, and it survived on its own merits until a more sweeping revamp of new blood with Luke Smith & co. could offer their perspective on where Destiny could go with The Taken King+. This seemed like a much smaller side endeavor of burned out D2 devs. Good riddance of course, but not even having such a creative mind responsible for the genesis of the project around anymore for consulting just REALLY makes me believe, for the first time, that Bungie should absolutely cancel or rethink this entire project with a traditional campaign or something. Impossible at this point, but that's how bad this bag smells now. Top top it off, I'm sorry. If we don't get original fully customizable blank slate characters Destiny style for this type of game? I'm out. I'm not only personally disinterested in preset static "heros" with expensive one-&-done skins, but it also just seems like a panicked move to create an opportunity to monetize something in this train wreck...it is far easier to work on static preset character models with inflexible flashy character skins for high prices for single characters than offering a more interesting range of individually equippable pieces of gear. Bungie has literally gotten good at this and its one of the things I trust that they do well at this point, heros/operatives is so repelling on every front, especially now in this year and market.
As you said, Bungie's expertise lies in responsive gunplay, but thx to dev experience in Destiny, they're also good with mechanics of hunting for secrets that affect the narrative (1 of the selling points from the vidoc), as well as designing defined characters (which may serve well for a marketable ensemble of heroes). But if the frontline devs aren't confident in a successful release slated next year, then they need more time, which unfortunately means more layoffs. It's probably the pivot to heroes that requires additional dev time, due to added creative work on defined characters. I feel like nowadays players may not want to invest in 3D multiplayer game universes unless it's either a pre-established mega franchise, or a new MMO or adjacent or has otherwise immersive mechanics. Outside of that, we tend to stick to our chosen set of multiplayer games. I feel like for Marathon, these "heroes" are better served as NPCs, similar to Fortnite, hidden across the map for you to find, to unlock some gameplay advantages. I also think, in order to soften another target miss next year, they need to release something playable next year. If the guns are ready & the map & its secrets are ready, then just release that; for initial gameplay, I don't think you need either selectable characters or deep customization options. Get the Bungie gunplay feel as an extraction shooter out the door: the devs need public feedback data to evaluate asap for the game's longevity. However, no clue what the player-friendliest monetization option supposed to be....
First concord , flop next Marathon a game nobody cares hope Sony realizes that investing 3,6 billion into liveservice bullshit is a loosing proposition. Both Firewalk and Bungie should be shut down.
I think that the best marketing is from players. If the game is good, gameplay will speak for itself. F2P has changed the industry and it is time for expansions and not new games. Like what if a different team made an expansion with a decent amount of sparrow traversing, and it came with a F2P playlist.
As someone who’s a massive Extraction Shooter fan, who’s also straight up over Extraction Shooters being locked into the ‘deniable operations in Third World countries’ aesthetic and design palette - I very much want Marathon to release in a good state based off of its story and design aesthetic alone. It’s a science fiction extraction shooter. Science fiction blows the lid off of the design ceiling and says ‘fuck it, anything goes’. On that merit alone, and considering the kick-ass lore from the ARG that launched with its announcement, it’s got some neat worldbuilding that’ll more than likely keep me around. Assuming, of course, it plays well. Please, god, just give me a fun and colorful sci-fi extraction shooter. Just the one. I’m so tired of running around Not Ukraine in EFT and Flyover State #7 in Hunt: Showdown
They need to just cut the loss at this point and double down and profit on the IP they have at this point. I think Sony should take over and run things for awhile at this rate. The same people who play D2 aren't going to be remotely interested in an extraction shooter.
What's gonna cook Marathon is that ultimately, they attached the Marathon name to a game type that has nothing to do with Marathon in a genre that's overcrowded already. I'm betting that 95% of the audience they're targeting has no idea what Marathon is/was so the name isn't getting them juice and for the 5% of the people who do know what the original Marathon is don't want an extraction shooter. They could have just done a modern Marathon FPS. Marathon was *already* the proto-Halo, so chances are it would have done pretty well.
Yeah marathon can just be forgotten, and bungie as a studio just needs to be shut down and the employees can either leave or be given jobs at other sony studios and destiny as an IP should be given to another sony studio that will actually care about the game more than bungie does at this point.
I don't doubt that marathon could be good. But the space is so competitive it feels like it'd need to be the greatest shooter ever to really pop off at this point. I say refocus on the thing that people love, destiny. Get this train back on track and really try to push it in a better direction.
In fairness, I thought the last thing they said was “we are gonna go dark now for a while” 😂 so I don’t think they set up expectations of information anytime soon, but that doesn’t help them in this situation for sure
I’m all for terrible bosses who commit sexual harassment being held accountable. It seems pretty crappy to me, though, to just lazily gloss over the accused statement that he released to explain the situation. Even if he got fired, the man is still innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and one-sided, lazy “journalism” like this really chaps my behind. Especially as a lawyer. Completely unforgivable what journalism has turned into these days, just endless pampering to the court of public opinion. Bad news gets all the clicks, I guess.
Chris Barrett is a complete scumbucket and we should do everything in our powers as gamers to see that he never works in the industry again. Bungie is garbage.
I'm hoping Marathon's team have kept quiet because they are listening to community feedback, and acting accordingly. As to the revelations of "another" higher-up at Bungie taking liberties, I feel sorry for the staff actually trying to make games. The market is hard enough when you're not constantly in the firing line by your studio's department heads and execs; solely looking to milk funding out for their own self-interests. Bungie's stark internal atmosphere has been a matter of TWIDs for a couple of years now, but I feel there are still staff in the company who truly believe in Destiny and Marathon.
![Lil Uzi Vert - Chill Bae [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D7F42F_JM3U/mqdefault.jpg)
It's not a real Marathon unless you throw up a few times on the way to the finish line
Clever
Ah, the old classic Marathon community running gag that now modern players will discover and think is new
Clever but as a marathon runner that only applies to people who are underprepared… kinda like Bungie moving forward with this idea 😂
Top tier comment
you win! 😂
The fact that Marathon is another "make-or-break" game for Bungie is kind of insane. Why back yourself into this live service corner AGAIN where if it doesn't make the same gdp of a small country it's considered a failure? I don't see how they can continue like this when even a huge success like Destiny doesn't put you in a safe position.
Because the gaming industry as a whole in recent times is so hard focused on people trying to speculate on shoveling out some half baked slot machine and cut and run with as much coin as they can extract. Same reason why Destiny has no focus on achievement cosmetics or variety in armor design because there's money to be had just making something for the cash shop.
If you develop 10 live service games that each cost 100 million dollars, you only need one of them to succeed and become a multibillion dollar success to get all of your money back and more. Companies know this and instead of trying to make a balders gate or Wukong game they want to re-invent fortnite.
Destiny made enough to keep everyone’s pockets well filled and content coming. the issue was instead of growing destiny with that money the used the majority of it on other projects that all except marathon at this point were canceled.
I wouldn’t really trust a word that comes out of Paul’s mouth tbh. Are yall seriously gonna put faith in a gossip pedlar
@@dochedgehog And I should instead listen to a nobody like you? Weird that your deep in his comment section crying about him.
Hate to say it but this company is basically falling apart in front of our eyes.
Might be a blessing that Sony owns them now at least some of the talent can be extracted and put into other projects. Shame either way tho
Or maybe destiny and some of the good staff can be extracted and properly taken care of instead of what this shit is currently.
It's been a shell of itself for awhile. The people who made Halo have long since left. Most stuck with Microsoft IIRC. Same with Turtle Rock Studios.
This happened just about year ago, though. It may have somewhat caused the delay of Marathon’s release, but even then maybe not. What it does show is that Bungie takes workplace harassment seriously and will do whatever needs to be done to protect their employees, even fire high ranking project leads and delay a game release.
@@Cloudz2021 I mean, the fact of it is the kind of behavior that got Chris Barrett fired (and worse) was probably rampant during the "glory years" of Bungie, it just didn't get talked about or punished.
I would agree but...
Sony :/
It won’t be a marathon. It’ll be a sprint and then pass out
It's a Marathon towards project completion. After that? Heart attack, most likely...
it'll be a trip and a face plant
Bungie has just been taking L after L this year. Is Bungie even going to be a studio after a couple years?
I’m sure they will be. Sony has put to much into Bungie. It might not be the Bungie we know, but that may be a good thing
@@PhotonBreadit’ll be most likely ran by PlayStation in less than two years
@@PhotonBreadwhich bungie did you know?
Bungie died long long ago (similar to Blizzard). They will be fully consumed by Sony at some point in the near future.
If they keep D2 going even for a few more years, let Sony take them. Car guy deserves to be fired.
"Alright, guys let's put the only game making us money on life support and put all our money into one game that may or may not succeed. No way that'll come back to bite us!"
Isn't he married to Sarah Daniels? And didn't he help with getting SayNoToRage banned because of similar accusations directed towards his own wife?
Yeah, they basically carried out a targeted campaign against him. She got other streamers to implicate him through inference rather than evidence. She managed to come out of that whole ordeal virtually unscathed, too. No sympathy for either of them.
@grayden4138 yeah, I remember, I watched the Upper Echelon video back then as I was a regular viewer of SNTR myself. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of this whole situation on Chris's part.
@@zackphy Upper Echelon has more dirt on her. That is why she backed down.
They don’t even include a paid single player mode for these multiplayer games anymore like they did with Halo. It’s just always online, multiplayer-only live service. I’m just over it.
Never did I imagine the "downfall" of Bungie when I was playing Halo 2-3 back in the day
Yeah they seemed invincible
A lot of people worshipped them in a cult type of way. It wasn’t that they seemed they were invincible. They were worshipped like they were invincible. Their fans created this monster which resulted in Bungie arrogance and feeling like they could do whatever they wanted. It wasn’t just Pete Parsons either.
Everything dies.
Empires, cultures, sometimes entire continent.
Nothing is forever.
Many a great game studios died already. Some like blizzard and bioware are just weekend at Bernie versions of what they used to be.
So both Lono and Chris were married and made other women uncomfortable but one was dogpiled by half the community and the other was protected due to bad publicity. Huh
Reason 10,002 not to feel all that sorry for Bungie devs en masse, and exclusively put all the blame at the very, very top.
"Bungie makes good shooters" "They made Halo, they made Destiny." - my only comment is that there is like 0 people who made Halo still at Bungie, and as of recently, theres not a lot of people left who made Destiny.
Paul just woke up, looked at his hair and said “still not worse than Bungie management”.
“There’s Something About Tassi”
I find it hypocritical that his own wife, who is a voice of ousting individuals of similar behavior, has been completely silent on the matter.
Yeah hate to say it, but the fact this happened over the whole SNTR situation is wild.
His wife played a big part in that drama.
Maybe she’s shocked? Idk I can’t speak for her. It’s just annoying we never get clarification on these events.
She has no obligation to air her personal business with her husband on social media. I’m guessing that if this report is her first time learning about this she’s dealing with the situation with her husband privately.
100%
What are you really expect though?
3:10 highlight of the video. Corgi doing corgi things.
When Paul said “I’m Paul pls Subscribe” I cried
2:43 Tassi Mog
Tassi pog
I mean, the dude is SOOOOO close to 100k subs though :D
I've never felt more sorry for a massive company then I feel sorry for Sony for how much they paid for Bungie.
Sony isn’t stupid. They’re sort of like a vulture. They picked their decaying carcass well and are more than content to pick over its bones.
I mean, look at it this way: they lose out on the IP’s, to some extent. D2 was dying and Marathon was always a bad idea. The Bungie devs may have gotten in over their heads and not known that, but Sony isn’t some little publisher with money to burn. They’re one of the largest corporations ON EARTH, they didn’t get there by being bad at evaluating acquisitions. They’ve got the rights to Destiny as a franchise, and they’ve got the entire Bungie staff in their possession. Management may have dropped the ball hard, but the studio itself is compromised of some pretty talented people across the board, and they’re Sony’s now.
@trevordillon1921 Absolute nonsense, Sony wanted the live service model, miscalculated Destiny's pull and current state and made a poor investment choice simple as that
@@trevordillon1921no one at Bungie is obligated to stay there.
They currently are, and have been hemorrhaging talent. Some of their most well-known employees, might I add. Morale is at an all-time low.
@@trevordillon1921 Are you sure Sony isn't stupid? Looking at Concord here, Jim Ryan and others made some very questionable calls.
I’m STILL trying to wrap my mind around them deciding to make Marathon a fucking extraction shooter.
It would have gone into development early enough to hear the massive hype and the short lived blip of Tarkov on streaming and content creators. Bungie after seeing Destiny not grow made the decisions that like with Doom that they would follow this trend. Turns out extraction shooter were never the rising star that content creators claimed it was.
All I wanted was an m-rated campaign focused game
It was a terrible idea from the start, and should have never made it out of the idea phase.
Knowing Destiny 2 suffered from a lack of attention, resources, and staff because of it.. and all for a game that might not even release, is just peak stupidity.
Playing Devil's Advocate, it does stand out in a genre of multiplayer shooters.
Like, consider all the types of Multiplayer Shooters Bungie could have made. If they made a Hero Shooter, they'd be competing against Overwatch, Valorant etc. And we saw how rough it was for Concord.
They could have made an arena shooter or a more traditional shooter, but at that point, they'd be competing with themselves with Destiny Crucible as well as COD (and now Xdefiant). Battle Royales would be even harder to break into given the popularity and status of Fortnite, Apex and Warzone.
They could go for a large scale sandbox similar to Battlefield or Battefront......but they'd still end up competing against Battlefield and/or Battlefront. Something they probably didn't want to risk.
An Extraction Shooter has the advantage that it doesn't compete with anything Bungie has already made and is relatively open territory. Escape from Tarkov is relatively "niche" on PC. Call of Duty Warzone DMZ had a lukewarm reception. So Marathon would be the first one on the scene.
@@FraserSouris
That’s the thing, I think multiplayer shooters in general is an oversaturated market. I wish they had leaned harder into the RPG and PVE aspects of Destiny and made a strong story experience.
If the new game wasn't called Marathon and had nothing to do with Marathon I would have 0 horses in this race. Unfortunately, it is a new Marathon game that is not trying to be anything like the original trilogy so I hope it flops.
fair, it does feel like a "well we have this IP gathering dust, let's slot it into a Popular Genre and cash in" kind of decision.
What are you on about? Wasn't the original Marathon an ugly ass boomer shooter with a countable amount of pixels on the screen? There's nothing inherently wrong with putting IPs in different genres. Considering Halo Wars exists and it did pretty good, Bungie isn't obligated to keep their IP like looking like a dog turd cuz you remember "the original trilogy".
@@dudebruh8534 By your very own daft logic newr tomb raider or doom games would have come out looking like they ran on MS DOS.
@@dudebruh8534Buddy, you know what else is a boomer shooter that got a faithfully created remake and did very well? Doom. You might have heard of it. Halo Wars was also done by a completely different studio that specialized in their genre of RTS, and made Halo Wars as their swan song.
@@dudebruh8534 ummm, that is how games looked when it was made. It had infinitely more complex physics than Doom did at the time.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
Remember when Barrett personally banned a streamer for basically doing this exact thing? Life comes at you fast don’t it. Both those guys can piss off to be honest 👍👍👍
Bungie is pretty much done at this point
Good
Marathon, the game nobody asked for.
Marathon was an interesting game and shares alot of DNA with Destiny.
I'm still very interested in Marathon despite being an extraction shooter, it's very interesting how they will implement that style with puzzles + quests similar to D2. The idea of having to do quests and then extract sounds like a fun challenge and this is coming from someone who's played all the way from D1.
You know what's weird... nobody asked for Destiny and here we are 10 years later.
@@regnarDestiny was also something new and mostly unique, it actually did quite a lot to change the gaming landscape. Marathon by comparison is chasing trends that died 3 years ago
@GeremyG Have you graduated High school yet? What a dumb statement. Nobody asked for a lot of things 🤦♂
I support Lono barret basically tried to ruin Lino’s career
You need to publicly apologize for your coverage of Lono and SayNoToRage after all the stuff has come out and you have been proven wrong over and over, it's time to act like a man and just apologize for the bad reporting and choosing to take the side of Bungie instead of someone you once called a friend. Actually disgusting behavior. I honestly don't know how you sleep at night knowing you took the side of Barrett and one girl who had financial stake to remove Lono from the directory, even now.
That's because Paul doesn't qualify as a man
Chris Barrett had 8 proven women. He probably victimized dozens of women. Tassi lets Barrett slide. Its just a really scummy industry all the way around. sexual assault cases everywhere you look. Tassi knows how scummy so many of the people he deals with are.. and he just sits around playing video games all day. Paul Tassi's silence is violence.
Spot on man , he won’t face into it sadly . Lost a bit of respect for him
He won’t do that. Just like the rest of them. That whole circle has gone quiet. Nobody talking about it like they did Lono. Shows you the nature of their character. Disgusting.
My biggest take away from this entire situation is the fact that lono who I don't defend or think was in the right for what he did was massacred all over Twitter by his wife and a bunch of other people and blacklisted career ended again not defending what he did but Chris decided to ban him off of destiny and stood tall and mighty just to be as creepy if not maybe even worse and like I see like no one hold him accountable but everyone destroyed llano and what's happy for us downfall
Does Paul think that Concord is good? That Concord is a good game that's failed despite it being the pinnacle of gaming? hahahahahahaha That's so ridiculous it's making my mind explode. Concord is the epitome of garbage.
Bungie is sprinting down the Blizzard path to ruin. Yikes.
I was extremely excited for Marathon until it switched to hero shooter. 0 interest in it now and that's super disappointing.
It’s hurts to see bungie failing so horribly. Hopefully something can happen but I don’t know
I can see this game monetizing every little thing from weapon skins to operator skins to melee skins, etc. I smell a catastrophic flop.
Bungie basically died before D1 even came out when they pushed out all the creatives that made the company what it was. They pulled it together to keep going with great updates here and there but it's been a shitshow for the most part. Marty's recent interview with Act Man made everything make so much sense with the direction the company has gone since then. I bounced early in the D2 days but always wanted to hop back in (like I did with TTK in D1) but the whole vaulting thing just ensured that would never fucking happen.
Either way, that first Marathon trailer was fucking awesome. I loved the aesthetic and would be super excited for a Marathon game. Unfortunately, we're getting a live-service extraction shooter and I have no interest in any of that. I know given then money spent and most played games right now that I'm in the minority here but I'm done with pvp-focused live-service games. I'm sick to fucking death of the "strip everything that used to be free out and sell it back piece-by-piece at insane prices" nature of the industry that is running wild in that space. Give me a story-driven single-player, or even online co-op Marathon game and I'm down.
Paul, pay someone to make you a cool animated intro. I’m sick of pretending ❤
Cancel or flop. Make your choice.
What happens is Marthon comes out, makes a few million in sales off of studio name. Then we get massive layoff as it failed to meat expectations. Management burns what ever tiny player base the game keeps so they can buy crappy cars for their collection. Then they fail to meet target revenue and Sony steps in to salvage what ever is left of the company that cost them 3.6 Billion. Also it was a interview with Joe Ziegler the made up the idea that Marathon is now a hero shooter, but that was never sated in the interview its was just assumed by the writer of the articular about the interview that it now was just a hero shooter since Valorent exist. This idea that marathon is a hero shooter and is setting of overwatch PTDS is just a internet fan fiction at this point as we've received nothing about how or even if the three different Runners have changed
Meet. Not meat.
Marathon: Too complete to cancel, too rough to Concord.
Concord is a cautionary tale for Sony and it wouldn't be surprising if they decide to cancel Marathon...and they probably should.
The day bungie started taking away significant resources and effort from d2 and never replacing it was the day it all started going downhill. I’m just looking at other games and might come back if Bungie has a huge turnaround, but that hasn’t happened in forever
It sucks to hear anyone going through this type of harassment. But good job it Bungie for handling it this way. This happened like a year ago, so whatever ripples it caused in Marathon’s development should be long gone. Huge win that Bungie has the stones to fire a top project lead, potentially delay a game’s release, in order to protect their employees.
Eevee appreciation post
At this point, I think I have just given up on Marathon being real anymore. Much of what has been happening with Bungie is just more and more showing that the game and the studio itself is just breaking apart. If marathon happens, it'll be a Sony IP straight up. No way Bungie is handling this anymore.
It certainly doesn’t make you feel great knowing they are willing to have a blank spot where the old Vidoc used to be. They’ve known or should have known the Barrett situation would leak so it behooved them to be able to turn the conversation about the game back to the game. Wouldn’t be surprised if they are just really behind schedule.
This will be the same guy who got Lono cancelled and shadow banned ….. care to comment on this guys integrity now Paul?
I spend a lot of time, seemingly, in the video games minority, but I was actually interested in a Tarkov-style game that was more polished, had more things to do, etc. Not saying Marathon was DEFINITELY going to be that game, but I was intrigued by the prospect anyway.
I still am honestly, especially as a console player we don’t really have anything of that genre. I can definitely see this being fun and it sounds like it’s gonna be right up my alley from everything I’ve heard, but everyone keeps talking about it like it’s a failure which is a shame. Extracting Shooters aren’t really an oversaturated market, they had a few Tarkov copy cats on PC but like there’s nothing Sci-Fi style or Extraction really on console so Marathon will be pretty unique in that way, and if it follows the style of its vidoc them I’m totally in for it! I think people are greatly underestimating how many people will see it as something new and cool having never been exposed to Tarkov or not liking that militaristic style compared to Marathon’s.
If it wasn't bungie making it, i'd be hyped. The aesthetic and setting look so sleak. But we all know they're going to put in the bare minimum amount of effort just to string along a dedicated fanbase of stockholm syndrome fans and people with buyers remorse.
I'm puzzled when journalist like Paul state why would Bungie that down the vid doc. He should know the optics of leaving it up on the official site. Slap in the face to the victims if the continue to use his image as a representation of the company.
Gaslighting. He acts like he's some random gamer who doesn't know how the inner workings of the industry works. Nah, he knows exactly what's going on, but he would rather gaslight than be objective.
I wish there were some real news about Marathon... office drama (as sensitive as it might be) is not real news about the game. This game will not thrive for being developed by a happy loving studio (see concord for an example, no office drama coming out of that studio), all that matters is "is it fun, does it look cool?".
if people dont care even about their marriage do you honestly think they care about making a bunch of nerds happy? lmao
Do you really need examples on how many games were d.o.a. due to office issues?
Besides Concord is living proof that a game doesn't simply need good gameplay, it has creative direction issues like many other games before it, the only difference is that it's a high profile/cost game.
DEI Woke Agent Paul Trashy
Sarah Daniels.
I think Marathon eventually will be released but I won’t be shocked if it’s drastically scaled back at this point
I’m sure plenty of Bungie employees are trying to have leadership “read the room” with the market rejecting the majority of new GaaS titles that get released now
I honestly think Bungie needs to go back to their roots, I’m not saying they need to go make a fully single player game. But it wouldn’t hurt if there next project had a bigger single player component. B/c I have a hard time imagining Sony at this point wanting to fund Destiny 3 the way it would need to be funded.
I think Destiny itself still has some value given how fleshed out the lore has become. So I could see a world where maybe Bungie instead of making an MMORPG, ends up making a much more straightforward looter like Borderlands.
Peak thumbnail choice, sir. (toasts)
Marayawn.
Marathon feels like another Concord, another game that no one really asked for in a pretty stratified market... but this time with an IP that 40 and 50 something Macintosh gamers might have remembered but no one else really does. I am worried we will lose Bungie as a studio when it tanks.
Marathon *could* succeed if they make it f2p. Which would be a gamble in itself if people dont think there's enough replayability or long term investment to bother purchasing anything ingame cosmetic or even pay 2 win items.
If it's 40-50 dollar game u're creating a situation that will end scaring away people wanting to dip their toes into an gamemode that alot of people aren't very experienced in, or have common knowledge of the extremely niche genre that extracyion shooters are that they don't see the price point beijg worth it for the amount of content and replayability it has.
Lose-lose situation and I can't wait for bungie to s*** the bed 😂😂😂
Ironic how these same people falsely accusing certain people about this behavior while doing it themselves. Sick hypocrites. We can only hope the rest of the swamp will be drained. This will happen again. Just wait.
Correction: the latest shitty thing is that exotic mission.
Marathon is cooked, I'm a Concord main now
More like a mine field.
🤣
Marathon was cooked because that Valorant person took over and was converting it into a hero extraction shooter
Yea, makes no sense to me other than trying to cast a big net for big profit. Gives "Greetings, fellow youths" energy.
The name of the greatest Macintosh gaming series being destroyed by this inevitable train wreck makes me sick.
Can’t wait for all the “you killed Destiny for THIS?!?!” posts 😇
Why did it take so long for this to come out? How many other sexual predators needed a cover story and plausible deniability?
Why is the media letting Barrett hide? Where is Barrett? Why is the media letting him keep on working in the industry? The games media blew this story.
8 victims is a lot. was it really 25 or 30 but they could only prove 8? Barrett is a monster.
Look at Blizzard or Riot - HR covers for them to protect the top brass. I think the difference now was that under Sony it's a different HR who actually did their job.
@@Reldan where is Chris Barrett working these days? He should no longer be in the industry. He should no longer be able to work with children or teenagers. If he has any children they should be taken away from him.
Justice for lono!
All seems negative for marathon
Common thread of all recent Bungie news: the corruptible influence of Money and Power in weak men
Now, I'm on medican grade copium but I have a little hope that the recent restructuring will start showing some benefits soon. They got rid of the incubation projects and doubled down on D2 and Marathon.
Hopefully they realize there's a good amount of people that just want to play D2 and want it to be great. The game is in a strange state atm. Imo the game feels better than ever to play right now, but the mood surrounding the game is so bad right now.
After the disaster of Concord, among the state the game is in (it not being very good according to testing), I’m making a big bet that Sony is just going to outright can Marathon.. like it should have been early on in the idea phase.
all that money that could’ve gone into a Destiny 3 and it’s been soo cooked
Amazingly animated, cool intro. Awesome video, also.
The wrong people have been in charge at bungie for a long time now
They should cancel Marathon…my opinion
Hey Paul remember when you cancelled Say No To Rage? For the same things…❤
I think one thing Bungie has going for it is that lately I've seen a lot of frustration in the Tarkov community. Those devs seem to be shooting themselves in the foot lately, and cheating has become a huge problem. If that continues and Marathon makes a good showing, I don't think it would be too hard to take the #1 spot.
Yeah I'm not wasting anymore money on anything Bungie has any connection to.
Who is this game even for? The oversaturated hero shooter market? Maybe for the Tarkov people as suggested?
Im looking at Concorde as many others are and back at Bungie with an arched eyebrow.
That they did not even begin planning stages for D3, while their only revenue source was D2, is just really mind-blowing. No shame in diversification of your resources, but this feels like slaying the golden goose to try some new cooking recipes.
One person getting fired - does not sink a project. Those who are saying have never been involved in a project, and it shows.
Bungie going under
Bungie has less of a moral compass than Halliburton
I tried playing the old Marathon games now that they're free on Steam. They haven't aged well.
The main reason why the "Marathon is cooked" sentiments are justified is when you have a major creative/design lead who was involved with the entire idea of a Marathon Extraction Reboot no longer at the company at all, it calls into question if the project even deserves to exist at all anymore. I know he wasn't the only person spearheading the game's creation (just like Luke Smith was not the only person responsible for working on The Taken King), but he really seemed like one of two major brains behind the project...
At least with Destiny, the concept was lifted off the ground by a lot of original senior staff despite losing people who helped get THAT project into shape, and it survived on its own merits until a more sweeping revamp of new blood with Luke Smith & co. could offer their perspective on where Destiny could go with The Taken King+.
This seemed like a much smaller side endeavor of burned out D2 devs. Good riddance of course, but not even having such a creative mind responsible for the genesis of the project around anymore for consulting just REALLY makes me believe, for the first time, that Bungie should absolutely cancel or rethink this entire project with a traditional campaign or something. Impossible at this point, but that's how bad this bag smells now.
Top top it off, I'm sorry. If we don't get original fully customizable blank slate characters Destiny style for this type of game? I'm out. I'm not only personally disinterested in preset static "heros" with expensive one-&-done skins, but it also just seems like a panicked move to create an opportunity to monetize something in this train wreck...it is far easier to work on static preset character models with inflexible flashy character skins for high prices for single characters than offering a more interesting range of individually equippable pieces of gear. Bungie has literally gotten good at this and its one of the things I trust that they do well at this point, heros/operatives is so repelling on every front, especially now in this year and market.
As you said, Bungie's expertise lies in responsive gunplay, but thx to dev experience in Destiny, they're also good with mechanics of hunting for secrets that affect the narrative (1 of the selling points from the vidoc), as well as designing defined characters (which may serve well for a marketable ensemble of heroes).
But if the frontline devs aren't confident in a successful release slated next year, then they need more time, which unfortunately means more layoffs.
It's probably the pivot to heroes that requires additional dev time, due to added creative work on defined characters.
I feel like nowadays players may not want to invest in 3D multiplayer game universes unless it's either a pre-established mega franchise, or a new MMO or adjacent or has otherwise immersive mechanics. Outside of that, we tend to stick to our chosen set of multiplayer games.
I feel like for Marathon, these "heroes" are better served as NPCs, similar to Fortnite, hidden across the map for you to find, to unlock some gameplay advantages.
I also think, in order to soften another target miss next year, they need to release something playable next year. If the guns are ready & the map & its secrets are ready, then just release that; for initial gameplay, I don't think you need either selectable characters or deep customization options. Get the Bungie gunplay feel as an extraction shooter out the door: the devs need public feedback data to evaluate asap for the game's longevity.
However, no clue what the player-friendliest monetization option supposed to be....
First concord , flop next Marathon a game nobody cares hope Sony realizes that investing 3,6 billion into liveservice bullshit is a loosing proposition. Both Firewalk and Bungie should be shut down.
I think that the best marketing is from players. If the game is good, gameplay will speak for itself. F2P has changed the industry and it is time for expansions and not new games. Like what if a different team made an expansion with a decent amount of sparrow traversing, and it came with a F2P playlist.
You are KIDDING me your corgi is called Eevee?
I know what gonna happen, you're gonna just block people on Twotter who speak negatively about that game, also.
Bungie needs to release a gameplay trailer for marathon and put some of the rumors to rest, if that is, they aren't true.
"Get Concorded!" I LOVE IT
As someone who’s a massive Extraction Shooter fan, who’s also straight up over Extraction Shooters being locked into the ‘deniable operations in Third World countries’ aesthetic and design palette - I very much want Marathon to release in a good state based off of its story and design aesthetic alone.
It’s a science fiction extraction shooter. Science fiction blows the lid off of the design ceiling and says ‘fuck it, anything goes’.
On that merit alone, and considering the kick-ass lore from the ARG that launched with its announcement, it’s got some neat worldbuilding that’ll more than likely keep me around.
Assuming, of course, it plays well.
Please, god, just give me a fun and colorful sci-fi extraction shooter.
Just the one. I’m so tired of running around Not Ukraine in EFT and Flyover State #7 in Hunt: Showdown
i mean if their definition of 'make or break' is the final shape, then theres zero chance of marathon saving them
Thank god we have Eevee and Paul to report the news. Any other way wouldn't work for me.
They need to just cut the loss at this point and double down and profit on the IP they have at this point. I think Sony should take over and run things for awhile at this rate. The same people who play D2 aren't going to be remotely interested in an extraction shooter.
At first: Marathon looks good
It's an extraction game: oh...
It has heroes: oh no.
amazing they have any player base still, bungie = junk company
What's gonna cook Marathon is that ultimately, they attached the Marathon name to a game type that has nothing to do with Marathon in a genre that's overcrowded already. I'm betting that 95% of the audience they're targeting has no idea what Marathon is/was so the name isn't getting them juice and for the 5% of the people who do know what the original Marathon is don't want an extraction shooter.
They could have just done a modern Marathon FPS. Marathon was *already* the proto-Halo, so chances are it would have done pretty well.
This guy got fired like a year ago, to be clear.
I'd say Paul was quite clear about that.
@@oots4790 What I get for commenting early. Bad habit.
Yeah marathon can just be forgotten, and bungie as a studio just needs to be shut down and the employees can either leave or be given jobs at other sony studios and destiny as an IP should be given to another sony studio that will actually care about the game more than bungie does at this point.
I don't doubt that marathon could be good. But the space is so competitive it feels like it'd need to be the greatest shooter ever to really pop off at this point.
I say refocus on the thing that people love, destiny. Get this train back on track and really try to push it in a better direction.
In fairness, I thought the last thing they said was “we are gonna go dark now for a while” 😂 so I don’t think they set up expectations of information anytime soon, but that doesn’t help them in this situation for sure
I was suspicious of Barrett since all the talk began of poor leadership and team leaders abusing their positions a few years ago.
Saying he was on sabbatical is so damn scummy
I’m all for terrible bosses who commit sexual harassment being held accountable.
It seems pretty crappy to me, though, to just lazily gloss over the accused statement that he released to explain the situation. Even if he got fired, the man is still innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and one-sided, lazy “journalism” like this really chaps my behind. Especially as a lawyer.
Completely unforgivable what journalism has turned into these days, just endless pampering to the court of public opinion. Bad news gets all the clicks, I guess.
Chris Barrett is a complete scumbucket and we should do everything in our powers as gamers to see that he never works in the industry again. Bungie is garbage.
Bungie needs to stop making live service games and go back to making complete single player games with straightforward multiplayer modes.
I'm hoping Marathon's team have kept quiet because they are listening to community feedback, and acting accordingly. As to the revelations of "another" higher-up at Bungie taking liberties, I feel sorry for the staff actually trying to make games. The market is hard enough when you're not constantly in the firing line by your studio's department heads and execs; solely looking to milk funding out for their own self-interests. Bungie's stark internal atmosphere has been a matter of TWIDs for a couple of years now, but I feel there are still staff in the company who truly believe in Destiny and Marathon.
Personally I knew it was something dark when they changed crow's haircut.