Sony bought Bungie for $3.6 billion with entirely unreasonable expectations.
The plan, it seems, was the assumption that A) Destiny 2 was a given in terms of printing money indefinitely, B) Whatever Bungie made next, namely Marathon, was sure to be a breakout hit and C) Bungie could mentor a half dozen big Sony single-player studios in terms of how to make and run a successful live-service game.
It’s insane to think that they believed that would all play out exactly as expected.
A) It was well-known that Destiny 2’s huge Light and Darkness saga was about to end with The Final Shape, and sapping resources from the game would result in less content and of course, fewer players thereafter.
B) Regardless of Marathon’s current or future quality, expecting that any multiplayer game, especially one that’s a new (“new”) IP can most definitely explode into the market is not remotely reflected by reality.
C) There is no magic button in terms of how to make a successful live service, either. In the most famous example, Bungie consulted with Naughty Dog about their Factions multiplayer game. They explained to them the type of commitment it would take to make and maintain something like that, and Naughty Dog just…didn’t want to do it in favor of their own bread and butter. So it was cancelled, and Bungie was “blamed,” despite consulting the exact way they’re supposed to. And the conclusion in the wider market has always been “don’t force talented single-player game studios to make multiplayer games,” and this was aligned with that.
Bungie has endured cut after cut, even in the wake of a successful “make or break” launch like The Final Shape, which put up playercount records after ten years of the series’ existence. Instead of continuing to drive momentum from there, Bungie has been slashed multiple times to the point where the amount of content the much smaller team can put out is not pleasing its playerbase, which is fleeing rapidly.
Second, the $3.6 billion deal was structured so a number of executives or long-serving Bungie vets would get millions, if not tens of millions, when their part of the deal vested after a few years. That may be “fair,” given their history and the size of the sale, but it has also bred complacency, which is apparent within the company as they just sat around and waited for the payout. Some of the best leaders Bungie has had lately were not veterans, but given the state of everything, most have moved on rather quickly.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Bungie is still Sony’s best shot at making a mark in the live service space. Yes, the biggest success recently is Helldivers 2, but Arrowhead is bailing from the Sony partnership for their next game, which they will self-publish.
Sony has run into wall after wall with its live offerings. Concord is the biggest failure of a game launch of all time, no exaggeration. There is almost zero chance something like Fairgames is actually releasing with that studio falling apart. So yes, almost by default, Bungie is still the best.
Obviously, Destiny 2 is still declining in quality to this day. But at least a large chunk of that is the slashing of resources and revenue demands from the game. Fewer devs make less content. Decimating QA means more bugs, more often. And overall, the lack of any breathing room for Destiny to take a break and come back with a game that would be a success several years down the road, Destiny 3, is a huge issue. Sony gives Naughty Dog five years to make a new 40-hour game, why does Destiny have to be ground into dust as a series with no time to regroup and truly evolve?
As for Marathon, I have my doubts about its future, but Sony cannot pull another Concord here, no matter what. No matter the initial playercount, Marathon has to be given time to grow, learn, evolve and add new content over time. It’s already done so between alphas, and it’s easy to see potential for it to expand even beyond just the extraction genre, if given the time and resources to do so.
You bought Bungie for $3.6 billion, have demanded unreasonable things from them, and hacked away at their ability to build anything. This is not excusing leadership laziness or a large number of mistakes devs themselves have made, but Sony’s role in all this has been almost nothing but negative, and I have to wonder what might happen if they threw more resources at Bungie rather than taking them away constantly.
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