Bungie unleashes a Massive Pre-ComiCon Scrolltacular in the Weekly Update. Warning: Reading Glasses recommended. Again.
Happy Friday and welcome to the Bungie Weekly update my friends. Would you believe that we have a mere eight more updates left between now and the release of Reach? The project is steadily winding down but that doesn’t mean we’re winding down on things to talk about. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
It’s been a busy week and after a helping hand from Luke last Friday (who also steps up in a big way today), I’m back in the saddle and ready to quite possibly drop one of the biggest and most jam packed updates in Reach history. Get comfortable, we’ve got a lot to cover! (honestly, probably TOO much to cover, but seeing as this is the last update I’ll be spearheading for a while, I’m pulling out all the stops so Urk can’t possibly top this down the road).
Chris Barrett, one of the top executives at one of the video game industry’s leading studios, was fired this spring after he was accused by several female employees of inappropriate behaviour, according to people familiar with the matter.
Starting at Bungie Inc. in 1999, Barrett rose through the ranks as an artist and then a director on the popular Halo and Destiny franchises and served on Bungie’s board before the company was bought by Sony Group Corp. for $3.6 billion in 2022. Until last summer he was also the director of Marathon, which the studio is hoping will become its next big game franchise. But in late March, he suddenly left the company.
“The investigation found that Barrett called lower-level female employees attractive, asked them to play truth-or-dare and made references to his wealth and power within the studio, suggesting that he could help advance their careers, according to two people familiar with the case.“
🤦♂️
Not a good look for Bungie and I don't know why he tried pulling something like this. What will come of Marathon after this. This is the me too era and most men in high positions should know they need to be turtling up in the workplace and not even make those types of comments to other employees.
It's not even worth doing if it wasn't the me too era. Promising advancement for doing romantic or sexual things is wrong no matter what era it is. It's just plain scummy.
Also they must have had some damning evidence because most execs get away with it if it's just someone's word against the other.
That comment was said for the guys who can't help themselves. Of course it shouldn't be done regardless of what era. It's just that he should be smart enough to see the time of day and know to not do those underhanded things.
Insider Gaming writes: "A former Call of Duty: Black Ops Executive Producer has joined Sony to work on a brand new game with Bungie for PlayStation."
Loads of people joined if you look on twitter
Some with 15+ years at Teryarch and such.
It’s deffo a shooter
A good campaign with multiplayer hopefully.
Wish they'd give Killzone or Resisitance a chance. And Socom.
@Romulus
They're not getting an ex Cod producer and Bungie to make some grand single player game, that's for sure
It doesn't have to be some epic open world RPG with 300 hrs of content on a map the size of Texas. Just a simple classic 10 hr linear campaign like they used to make. Give us that "30 seconds of fun" like you used to brag about.
If known projects are any indication, and based on the description they gave, the game is likely Project Gummy bears, which would still be a MP/Live Service game (though at this point it’s impossible to tell if they have pivoted in any way since branching to the new First Party Studio)
-In August 2019, Bungie announced that they were working on a new incubation projects that would be “a team-based action game inspired by several genres in a brand-new, science-fantasy universe. It draws inspiration from fighting games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and frog-type games, wrapped up in a lighthearted, comedic world.”
It supposedly had really good internal feedback, for whatever that is worth haha
Another science fantasy universe, eh? Bungie really is a one-trick pony. At least it's inspired by a bunch of new genres. Though Bungie has zero experience with any of them so I can't imagine what could go wrong.
Something like Halo/Vanquish would be great, I'd love a sci-fi shooting game like that.
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The creator of Halo and Destiny laid off more than 200 people this week including several top executives
*Including several top executives, but not the trashbag Pete Parsons
American CEO's only debuff is getting to be the public punching bag while they net millions, this guy is a grade-A asshole.
Having 1300 employees and only having 1 viable out the door product Destiny is an absolute Irony of mismanagement, to the highest degree.
"Employees in one department recalled a post-layoffs Q&A session where a department head was asked if leadership taking salary cuts to prevent layoffs had been considered, only to respond that Bungie was “not that type of company.”
Sony overpaid for this apparent dumpster fire & these "high executives" are cashing out.
But the employees at the bottom lvl living paycheck to paycheck get fucked, welcome to America 👍
I dont think Sony overpaid. Unless we want to pretend they didn’t create one of the most high profile games. They said from the beginning that Destiny would be a 10 year game.
Whether there was mismanagement or not, I would say yes, thus the lay-offs. (Although this seems to be a industry wide thing)
As to executives “cashing out” not sure what you
mean, they are being laid off. Otherwise, If you mean they are getting paid bank, then yeah, but that is not only Bungie, that is all corporations.
Exactly shady bullshhi, mfs with those titles get on my damn nerves
It's sounding a lot like the mismanagement was so rooted that without the buyout Bungie could have been another closure we would be talking about. As crazy as it seems.... If true, I am glad Sony got a hold of them and hopefully can the leadership and right the ship.
I don't think you guys realize how much Damage Bungie failure has done to PlayStation and their fans. Sony placed a big bet on Bungie when they over paid for the.studio and shifted their focus into making live service games. That happened at the sacrifice of numerous possible 1st party PS5 exclusives you all could be playing.
No not at all. That is a bunch of lies you tell yourself so you can sleep at night. Sony explicitly stated that their bread and butter single player games are not being replaced. If any company has a “gaas focus” its MS, which only produces gaas games. Sony never “shifted focus to gaas” as you are conjuring up out of thin air.
Sony paid 3.1B for bungie, considering they have Halo and Destiny under their belt, I would say money well spent. In fact this was a major coup. For comparison’s sake MS paid 68.9B for Activision alone.
"No not at all. That is a bunch of lies you tell yourself so you can sleep at night."
Sounds like the kettle calling the pot black.
We all know there has been a significant decrease in single-player games output from Sony's 1st party studios. We haven't seen anything from Naughty Dog nor do we know what they are currently working on 4 years into the PS5's cycle. Sony has recently backed down from the live service stuff but any new game going into development not will likely be fore PS6 considering the typical generation lasts an average of 6 years.
Not sure why you even brought Microsoft into this discussion but just a few days ago on their earnings report it was revealed that the acquisition increased their gaming revenue by over 40%. That seems like a significant win for them.
"Sony paid 3.1B for bungie, considering they have Halo and Destiny under their belt, I would say money well spent."
Microsoft paid 7.5B for the entire Zenimax and all their studios and IPs. How is Bungie worth almost half of that with only 1 IP bringing in revenue?
We also have formor Bungie employees saying Sony overpaid for the studio.
https://www.resetera.com/th...
Well, it is lies, not sure how effective it is for your sleeping pattern.
Even ignoring Sony’s official statement regarding its single play focus for the future, Sony has also stated, on multiple occasions, that in today’s industry, the games are taking longer to make. This rings true as their direct competitor has had less releases than Sony since the beginning of the generation. Additionally, the effects of the chip shortage put a hiccup in the sale of consoles (especially for PS5) and that could contribute to developers adjusting their projects.
Sony’s acquisition of Bungie was a major get, for comparison’s sake, MS paid over twice as much for Zenimax which I do not believe was a wise decision at all.
Sony has not “backed down” from live service, they had a very successful live service game in Helldivers. They need to continue in this space, as MS is focusing exclusively in live service and Sony needs to compete.
MS’s recent report involved the numbers of Activision purchase, and neither one of us has the expertise nor the information to predict if “40% increase” is a positive result following the expenditure of more funds than MS has made in GROSS revenue in the ENTIRETY of its existence in console industry. (I hope you understood the gravity of this sentence)
@DivineHand
"Sounds like the kettle calling the pot black."
Nope
"We all know there has been a significant decrease in single-player games output from Sony's 1st party studios."
MS has had a far greater issue with software this gen. Right from day one. It was so bad they would have been toast without buying Activision, and there's nothing honourable about them do that, they've run so many purchased studios into the dirt. They can't make Call of Duty exclusive, time will tell if they can even afford to make big Activision games exclusive.
M$ paid 7billion for zenimax and got starfail and redfail, !!
both of which did damage to Xbox’s brand name
Specially when the news broke that Xbox had cherry picked review sites for starfail to get the meta critic into the 8/10 range
Short sighted as many who played it would have felt miss sold and turned off the brand
Sonys brought bungie for a large sum, they haven’t put that game yet, so have to see in future how that pans out
@all Above. You guys are fanatics to the point where this is embarrassing. I am not sure why you are talking about Microsoft and Xbox when the discussion is about how the bet on Bungie impacted the output of 1st party Sony exclusives. You guys see one thing that puts Sony on a negative light and you are quick to defend and even name the competitor when they were not even mentioned in the initial discussion. One of you even tried to make investing in live service content a good thing. Most of you make claims without siting a single source and when someone provides a source that contradicts your argument, it is ignored.
It's almost like you guys tuck in these pieces of plastic before you go to bed each night.
It's like there is a script.
If something bad happens to PlayStation.
Response: but Microsoft does this or Microsoft fails at that.
Wrong. I see someone who os making false claims based on nothing but his own feelings or wishes and posing it as fact. I’m simply correcting him. Also, I see you defending MS on the daily, why are you acting holier than thou?
I'm not an expert and feel free to take my opinion with a handful of salt but I think Sony overpaid for Bungie. It was a hell of a lot of money, they only have one IP worth mentioning and it seems there were significant issues with how they were being run.
Destiny was a mistake, then they quadruple doubled down on Destiny 2....this studio needs different IPs
Great update :)
This Spartan looks freaking awesome!
That was an awesome update. Tons of info, I'm surprised they showed all the initial armory offerings. I wonder what that utility option is for. Reach is just getting better and better as time goes on. I can't wait to get my hands on day 1. Avatar unlocks is pretty cool too. It took two guys 5 hours to beat the first mission on legendary (with all skulls)! I probably won't even try that though.
One of the best Bungie Updates I've ever seen. So much info.