My takeaway: (Destiny)

by EffortlessFury , Thursday, June 01, 2017, 14:27 (2822 days ago) @ Kermit

Everything that most of the fanbase love about the game (the lore/campaign, the arena style multiplayer) were happy accidents that most people in the company either didn't care about or looked down on, and all the things the majority of the company actually cared about usually failed without ever seeing the light of day.

Wow, that's not my view, but maybe I overestimate how hard it is to make great games. I saw a studio without a lot of structure and inconsistent leadership, working to innovate while also meeting enormous expectations. Most people were focused on what they were good at, and yes, we were lucky so many things turned out as well as they did, but at the same time, I'm not at all certain that a studio would have made better games if they didn't have these internal conflicts, didn't have skunkworks, and ideas that didn't pan out. They went to war with the army they had, and happy accidents are common in art. Bungie didn't know in advance what their fanbase would love, and if they focused their development for the sequels on what their fanbase HAD loved, they wouldn't have innovated like they did. What they seemed to focus on was what THEY liked or were interested in, which is the perfect approach for artistic endeavors. Doesn't always blend well with business objectives, but what are you are going to do?

I don't disagree that game development is hard and I'm understanding of that fact. Here's the bits that stood out to me that informed my summary:

• Halo 1 multiplayer was thrown together at the last minute and was a happy accident of a success. Not necessarily a ding against them, but then Halo 2 arena multiplayer was referred to as the "party game" and looked down on.
  
• Halo 2 was left with a "skeleton crew" at one point while the rest of the team was working on a different game. While I expect that's an exaggeration, the sentiment that a large portion of the team was not working on Halo 2 shows that there wasn't a lot of heart in developing it.
  
• All of the development woes surrounding the story and the inability to settle on a good
  forward direction.
  
• The general dissatisfaction with working on "another Halo game," even as early as Halo 2.

Now I get it, sequel fatigue is real and the leadership vacuum was probably the single largest problem that lead to many of these issues. Still, it really paints a picture of a studio without focus, direction, or any sort of attention span. What the studio eventually produced for Halo 2 was definitely lacking in the story department due to the cut final act, but even what was there and what they produced for MP was phenomenal and it wasn't even something most of the studio gave a shit about. That's why I say happy accident.

Granted, I exaggerate for the sake of making a point, I'm sure it's not as bad as these absolutes; there are likely more shades of grey in the truth.

I will also note that it puts one of their mottos into another viewpoint. "We makes games we want to play." It sounds like a great philosophy, and it is, but I wonder if it doesn't also have a twinge of "We don't care if you like this game, as long as we like it." Which, business goals aside, is a bit immature as well. At my job, I care very much about what I'm making, not just for myself, but for the people who will consume my work. If all of my goals were purely nepotistic, I probably wouldn't produce very high quality work.