http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

I haven't read this yet, but thought people would like a place to discuss.

I'm pleased (gratified might be a better word, none of this news actually makes me happy) to see my supposition that the dev tools sucking is why the vanilla missions are all so homogenous and didn't have variable encounters or spawns in the vanilla release. It explains a lot, and is pretty much a best-case scenario for what went wrong, technically, with the game. Hopefully Bungie has hired some serious tools programmers to reboot the whole dev-side workflow and get more powerful (and faster) tools in the hands of the other devs.

I'm pleased (gratified might be a better word, none of this news actually makes me happy) to see my supposition that the dev tools sucking is why the vanilla missions are all so homogenous and didn't have variable encounters or spawns in the vanilla release. It explains a lot, and is pretty much a best-case scenario for what went wrong, technically, with the game. Hopefully Bungie has hired some serious tools programmers to reboot the whole dev-side workflow and get more powerful (and faster) tools in the hands of the other devs.

Hearing about the state of the tools was news to me. I suspect that's destination for the job posting of "PC Game Developer." Someone(s) to cleanup & improve the tools, not someone(s) to port Destiny to the PC.

And yes, the rest of the story was pretty much "known". It makes me wonder if Destiny would have been better off with a more linear story as what we got was some crazy and confusing patchwork of encounters with a loose story hung on it. The strength of the Destiny story to me is the background, the grimoire. I personally would like the presentation of the story to be a linear thing, and then afterwards have an open world with quests, bounties, strikes, and raids to complete.

http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

I haven't read this yet, but thought people would like a place to discuss.

I've always felt that Staten was a pretty lousy writer, with overly grand, opera-style ambition that overrode a decent story or rich universe...

Jason Jones and others seem to have agreed. That said, the Warmind/Osiris-centric story sounds like it would have been awesome, but would have required at least another full year in the oven to avoid what we got.

Hey you beat me to it :p

http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

I haven't read this yet, but thought people would like a place to discuss.

The team ultimately decided to focus it around a single major map—the Hive ship that had been cut from vanilla Destiny—as well as a new public space on Mars, complete with strikes and a new raid. (That entire last Mars chunk was later cut and passed to Activision subsidiary High Moon Studios to develop for Destiny’s full-sized 2016 sequel, a source said.

So Bungie is outsourcing parts of the sequel? What a terrible idea.

The only point you have to deliver on is that when people leave your game—because they will—when they leave your game, they need to be happy.

Wise words from blizzard, which Bungie seems to be ignoring. The longer you string along your players, the more likely they leave tired or burned out. It's like they are doing the exact opposite.

Hey you beat me to it :p

... with a post of little content. ;) I liked the points you brought up. Maybe the admins can merge the two threads.

So Bungie is outsourcing parts of the sequel? What a terrible idea.

That really depends on the communication level. Bungie already "outsources" different area's of the game to different teams. So really, it depends on how well they communicate.

The only point you have to deliver on is that when people leave your game—because they will—when they leave your game, they need to be happy.

Wise words from blizzard, which Bungie seems to be ignoring. The longer you string along your players, the more likely they leave tired or burned out. It's like they are doing the exact opposite.

I don't think so. They listened with TTK. Just because it's not perfect for 100% of the fan base doesn't mean they didn't listen to Blizzard. It just means it takes time to get it to that point for a majority of the fan base.

His wasn't there when I started writing. I feel usurped :p.

http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

I haven't read this yet, but thought people would like a place to discuss.

I've always felt that Staten was a pretty lousy writer, with overly grand, opera-style ambition that overrode a decent story or rich universe...

Jason Jones and others seem to have agreed. That said, the Warmind/Osiris-centric story sounds like it would have been awesome, but would have required at least another full year in the oven to avoid what we got.

The disaster/chrunch-time-hell that Bungie has gone through is management's fault, not Joe's. They shouldn't have let it get as far as it did before pulling the plug. I can't take the argument that they were kept in the dark because there was content being developed based on the story.

His wasn't there when I started writing. I feel usurped :p.

Yup, I sniped ya. ;) Sorry.

I'm not surprised that they're taking a page out of Blizzard's playbook. The parallels are pretty obvious. Ironically Diablo 3 was another game I was hyped for that disappointed me greatly on release. Activison companies are starting to make a habit of doing that.

No problem. It is a long read so I understand.

I'm pleased (gratified might be a better word, none of this news actually makes me happy) to see my supposition that the dev tools sucking is why the vanilla missions are all so homogenous and didn't have variable encounters or spawns in the vanilla release. It explains a lot, and is pretty much a best-case scenario for what went wrong, technically, with the game. Hopefully Bungie has hired some serious tools programmers to reboot the whole dev-side workflow and get more powerful (and faster) tools in the hands of the other devs.

Hearing about the state of the tools was news to me. I suspect that's destination for the job posting of "PC Game Developer." Someone(s) to cleanup & improve the tools, not someone(s) to port Destiny to the PC.

And yes, the rest of the story was pretty much "known". It makes me wonder if Destiny would have been better off with a more linear story as what we got was some crazy and confusing patchwork of encounters with a loose story hung on it. The strength of the Destiny story to me is the background, the grimoire. I personally would like the presentation of the story to be a linear thing, and then afterwards have an open world with quests, bounties, strikes, and raids to complete.

I agree completely. They'd have been much better served having a linear story that takes you to all of the worlds, and then open it up with all of the side missions etc. afterwards. The current questification helps a LOT because it keeps track of which storyline you're following at any given time (totally unclear to me in the initial launch), but it's still not as good imo as what you're suggesting.

I'm not surprised that they're taking a page out of Blizzard's playbook. The parallels are pretty obvious. Ironically Diablo 3 was another game I was hyped for that disappointed me greatly on release. Activison companies are starting to make a habit of doing that.

I feel the same way. Activision's marketing department is great at saying things that sound like, but aren't, promises, and then underdelivering on them like crazy.

Sadly, D3 is the first of the games I was really hyped for that I felt burned by and contributed to my current stance of never pre-ordering anything.

I'm in the same boat as you, I felt so burned by Diablo 3 that I am super wary of launch day purchases.

Of course I didn't follow that rule with Destiny because I totally trusted Bungie to deliver a quality product.

http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

I haven't read this yet, but thought people would like a place to discuss.

The team ultimately decided to focus it around a single major map—the Hive ship that had been cut from vanilla Destiny—as well as a new public space on Mars, complete with strikes and a new raid. (That entire last Mars chunk was later cut and passed to Activision subsidiary High Moon Studios to develop for Destiny’s full-sized 2016 sequel, a source said.

So Bungie is outsourcing parts of the sequel? What a terrible idea.

I would be concerned too, except High Moon does exceptional work. Their last Transformers game was one of my favorite 360 games. To me, this just means more awesome devs working on Destiny.

So, I have a comment-blocker extension in Chrome so that I don't see random crap (unless I choose to) when I'm listening to a song on YouTube, etc. Comments become a grey box when it's active. What's funny is that when I go to Kotaku, the entire article is literally a grey box. While it's probably just because of the way their site is built, it's sort of funny and fitting. :)

I guess that's how I see these kinds of articles, too. A lot of it DOES line up with things we know, but a lot of it it still feels like gossip and opinion. I started to really doubt parts of it when an EXO in a random concept art piece became freak'n Rasputin... that just sounds like bad fan-fiction to me! It reminds me of when there was a 'leak' before either Halo 3 or Reach, when a former employee claimed Bungie was integrating RTS elements into the game. You'd get to a big battlefield and switch to Cortana who could summon and order units and vehicles around. That obviously, didn't happen. :)

Since the sources are all anonymous in this article and the journalist pulls on a number of older gossip threads we've heard before, one can't tell where the journalist's inference ends and where facts begin. How much is hearsay? How much are his own conclusions? What were the tones and settings the anonymous quotes were made in? And were those quotes coming from interns and temps? Or were they integral parts of leadership that may have actually known what was going on?

Without answers to those kinds of questions, without the ability to discern facts from opinions, I can't take it as anything more than just gossip and speculation* that references a lot of facts, thus making its opinions feel more like truths. Which is annoying, and perhaps more importantly, dangerous journalism to me. Well at least, it can be dangerous - but, you know, this is just a video game. :)

*When I used to work at Target, I remember a group of people that worked there that would huddle together around customer service and gossip about everyone else that worked there. "Did you hear what happened in the backroom yesterday???" and so forth in a big telephone game. That's what a lot of internet journalism feels like to me. I can't tell anymore where the Facebook comments end and the article begins.

Looking at the article and others like it from a different way, I also don't know if I really care about learning about every little thing in development - I don't need to know for sure what really went down. It seems like an obession sometimes to explain an issue a person might have with a game or movie by discovering how 'troubled' its development was. I just want to enjoy the game and look forward to its future. The author is dead and all that. ;)

When I go to a wedding, I don't want hear about all the stupid fights the couple had getting there, I just want to eat cake, get sick, and go home wondering "how did I know those people again?"

Outsourcing happens all the time. Not a big deal IMO. I'm sure parts of vanilla Destiny were outsourced as well.

It's a major story at a prominent website that is very confident in making many many claims. There's no way that story gets posted without extensive verification of sources because of the opportunity to be sued for libel, because of the claims contained therein. There's just no way that this is some sort of made up gossipy story, because Activision would be suing Kotaku in a heartbeat.

I don't think so. They listened with TTK. Just because it's not perfect for 100% of the fan base doesn't mean they didn't listen to Blizzard. It just means it takes time to get it to that point for a majority of the fan base.

TTK is a massive improvement for sure, but the game is still based completely around the same fundamental core as the original Destiny.

It's a major story at a prominent website that is very confident in making many many claims. There's no way that story gets posted without extensive verification of sources because of the opportunity to be sued for libel, because of the claims contained therein. There's just no way that this is some sort of made up gossipy story, because Activision would be suing Kotaku in a heartbeat.

If you look at what I said, I wasn't saying the sources were made up or something, I was saying that the way it is written does not allow me to discern the facts from fiction - the context of the source's quotes from the author's inferences and conclusions.

*edit*
Here's an example of how I see these kinds of things. Headline: "Bob 'fell down' in the backroom yesterday because Tom stacked the boxes wrong." The reporter has got Bob on recording saying he did indeed fall down in the backroom. But the part where it was Tom's fault might have been added from a quote by Suzy, the receptionist, who wasn't even around when it happened and simply inferred it. Without knowing the context of the quotes, the reader can't discern what really happened, despite the fact that the sources are verified. :)

http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

I haven't read this yet, but thought people would like a place to discuss.

The team ultimately decided to focus it around a single major map—the Hive ship that had been cut from vanilla Destiny—as well as a new public space on Mars, complete with strikes and a new raid. (That entire last Mars chunk was later cut and passed to Activision subsidiary High Moon Studios to develop for Destiny’s full-sized 2016 sequel, a source said.

So Bungie is outsourcing parts of the sequel? What a terrible idea.

I would be concerned too, except High Moon does exceptional work. Their last Transformers game was one of my favorite 360 games. To me, this just means more awesome devs working on Destiny.

But now I have the same problem as Marty with regard to the marketing: what's legitimate? When I buy a Bungie game, I want a BUNGIE game. Will I have a way to know which parts of Destiny 2 are Bungie authentic, and which are farmed out? Will it matter?

There is a reason that lots of good directors do not use second units. The reason being, you need a second unit director. As Chris Nolan put it, if I don't actually need to direct any of that, then what's the point?

If millions of dollars were spent creating what they ended up cutting, management either was:
- not involved enough
- changed too much too far into the process

Essentially they flipped over to "gameplay rules all" and the story wasn't a prime motivator. But much too far into development.

I don't disagree with some of the changes they wanted to make. I think they suffered from "hey, we now want to make this game, not that other game we've mostly finished", rather than finishing what they started and making year 2 build out on that in all these other ways.

We'll never know really.

I guess that's how I see these kinds of articles, too. A lot of it DOES line up with things we know, but a lot of it it still feels like gossip and opinion. I started to really doubt parts of it when an EXO in a random concept art piece became freak'n Rasputin... that just sounds like bad fan-fiction to me!

And isn't that the reason the story was scrapped? The whole point was that it totally sucked in the eyes of the rest of Bungie.

I guess that's how I see these kinds of articles, too. A lot of it DOES line up with things we know, but a lot of it it still feels like gossip and opinion. I started to really doubt parts of it when an EXO in a random concept art piece became freak'n Rasputin... that just sounds like bad fan-fiction to me!

And isn't that the reason the story was scrapped? The whole point was that it totally sucked in the eyes of the rest of Bungie.

Heh, maybe. Can't say. :)

The problem isn't Kotaku or the article, it's that free news on the internet has reduced budgets of legitimate news sources while clickbait revenue streams are growing companies that only spew drivel. The result is that you no longer trust the integrity of reporters. Free news has made you cynical.

Want to solve the problem? Pay for your local paper.

I agree. In my experience working on games, massive late changes can be laid pretty squarely at the feet of management.

But now I have the same problem as Marty with regard to the marketing: what's legitimate? When I buy a Bungie game, I want a BUNGIE game. Will I have a way to know which parts of Destiny 2 are Bungie authentic, and which are farmed out? Will it matter?

I make video games for the American working man, because that's what i am and that's who i care about.

Truth is, I make video games for the American working man because I'm a hell of a salesman and he doesn't know any better.

What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public.

That's a fairly cynical reading of things my friend. You really don't trust journalists to accurately report on things.

That's a fairly cynical reading of things my friend. You really don't trust journalists to accurately report on things.

I don't automatically trust them, nor do I immediately assume they are false. I think it's more about skepticism rather than cynicism, and it's very much case-by-case. There's been plenty of times that I've found an article insightful and worth ruminating on. There's also been plenty of times where I feel like I'm just reading an opinion with out-of-context quotes, sometimes even seeing an article later on with the source of such quotes clarifying what they really meant. Heck, I've read articles on events that I actually witnessed that didn't seem to relate what happened well. :)

When I do read the news, and it's regarding a controversial or complex topic, I like to read multiple articles from different sources to find the overlapping facts. But whenever the writer's voice becomes prominent and the facts recede, and I don't have anything to compare it with, I tend to not put much stock in it until I see otherwise.

I know that I worked on a fairly simple game for a couple years with a friend and if you had interviewed us both afterward you probably would have gotten very different stories on what happened in that time!

And this article was concerning a story that spanned 4 years long or longer, involved hundreds of different people and disciplines as they worked together to build a very complex game. Yet this article took around 10 minutes to read. What I got out of it was some anonymous quotes (that could have come from the coffee-machine repairman for all I know), previous speculations, and the author's quick spin on what could be a massive tale. To me, none of those things are really helpful or enlightening. I don't think it's all necessarily wrong, I just don't know what's true.

If this article had been longer, more in-depth, gave more context to the quotes, and more distinctly separated what the reporter had discovered and what he concluded, I might have had a completely different reaction. :)

I'm hoping Cody's "History of Bungie" novel that he's mentioned before will be much more introspective. ;)

That's quite the mouthful. This is always the problem with trying to figure out what's happening in the games industry. Insiders can't speak because of NDAs or other fear of retribution, so they always need to be quoted anonymously. Essentially it boils down to whether or not you trust the journalist has credible sources that are telling the story accurately.

I'm guessing in this instance he does, because there are several things in the story which could be considered damaging to both Bungie and Activision, and if what was said was false they would sue for libel. He's really going out on a limb publishing what he did. I guess we'll find out if Bungie or Activision pushes back.

That's quite the mouthful.

Sorry, I was just trying to explain myself.

http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

I haven't read this yet, but thought people would like a place to discuss.

The team ultimately decided to focus it around a single major map—the Hive ship that had been cut from vanilla Destiny—as well as a new public space on Mars, complete with strikes and a new raid. (That entire last Mars chunk was later cut and passed to Activision subsidiary High Moon Studios to develop for Destiny’s full-sized 2016 sequel, a source said.

So Bungie is outsourcing parts of the sequel? What a terrible idea.

I would be concerned too, except High Moon does exceptional work. Their last Transformers game was one of my favorite 360 games. To me, this just means more awesome devs working on Destiny.

But now I have the same problem as Marty with regard to the marketing: what's legitimate? When I buy a Bungie game, I want a BUNGIE game. Will I have a way to know which parts of Destiny 2 are Bungie authentic, and which are farmed out? Will it matter?

There is a reason that lots of good directors do not use second units. The reason being, you need a second unit director. As Chris Nolan put it, if I don't actually need to direct any of that, then what's the point?

I don't think that's a fair comparison. Videogame development is already broken up across many "teams", even within a single studio. In some cases (Bungie during the Halo Reach days) the studio a actually spread out across several buildings. So in this case, High Moon can ostensibly operate as yet another team working on a portion of Destiny, reporting to the same leads all the other teams report to.

I think multi-studio development can complicate things or cause problems, but it can also lead to incredible results. Games like Mass Effect, GTA, or almost anything by Ubisoft wouldn't be possible without multi-team collaboration. Ultimately, it's Bungie's job to make sure everything in the game is up to the standard they believe in.

On a side note, multi-team development is also way healthier for the industry. It keeps more people working on a constant basis and helps avoid the "balloon-up during crunch then fire half your staff after launch" issue that makes life hell for so many developers.

On a side note, multi-team development is also way healthier for the industry. It keeps more people working on a constant basis and helps avoid the "balloon-up during crunch then fire half your staff after launch" issue that makes life hell for so many developers.

I believe this was a basic idea that Alex Seropian had when founding Wideload Games. To have a core team to lead the project & hire/contract out the work.

I felt that Bungie with Destiny was trying to take an assembly line approach to things such that each team would always have work to do, I'm not sure if that has worked out as they hoped, especially with the recent eververse funding of the live team...

I mean, really. I'm not saying they made this up or didn't verify anything or something like that, but I am saying take everything with a grain of salt.

Kotaku (and Gawker in general) is like 90% reporting on rumors.

Yeah, I said this in the other thread, but if I read in a broadsheet newspaper or big magazine that some anonymous sources said something, I believe the story.

I don't trust Kotaku.

You're right, of course. To be more specific, subscribe to your local broadsheet. Like, if you live in London, don't buy The Daily Mail. If you live in NYC, don't buy NY Daily News or whatever that piece of crap is called.

I subscribe to one. It pays for itself in the coupons it comes with on Sunday. I just got deoderant for FREE. WHAAAAT

Looking at the article and others like it from a different way, I also don't know if I really care about learning about every little thing in development - I don't need to know for sure what really went down. It seems like an obession sometimes to explain an issue a person might have with a game or movie by discovering how 'troubled' its development was. I just want to enjoy the game and look forward to its future. The author is dead and all that. ;)

Pretty much this with three exceptions:

1. While I'm content for the (inherent?!) mess of development to stay hidden (since it's not like any of my serious creative works were happy and trouble free mid process) I do find a lot of value in behind the scenes, how and why thing were done type commentary. That's why I usually include a "Director's Commentary" with even the short fan fiction I write.
2. It would be nice to have some assurance that Destiny survived its major development pains. That TTK is not a lucky fluke and is in fact the first sign of a studio that made it through some serious troubles and will be doing more amazing work going forward.
3. I strongly disagree that the author is dead. :)

I am extremely familiar with Kotaku. In fact we study Gawker media in my journalism class that I'm currently taking.

There's nothing terribly suspicious about the reporting. I find it all to be plausible, and there's no particular agenda being pushed. He even quotes multiple sources within the company having completely different reactions to the story supercut, which is really interesting because it demonstrates the divide that was within the company.

Schrier isn't someone I have a particular fondness for, but as a seasoned J student, I found his piece to be fairly well put together.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. Videogame development is already broken up across many "teams", even within a single studio.

So are movies. There's preproduction, production, post production, vfx, sound mixing, color grading, titles, trailers, etc. Good producers and directors oversee all of that personally. Can you imagine if all of these teams were working independently? It would be a nightmare and there'd be no coherence.

These steps are done sequentially, in stages though, precisely because the producers keep everything consistent in terms of artistic intent.

Do you think Jason Jones is constantly directing and guiding the work of High Moon? If so, why not roll that development into Bungie with more hires? The reason it's being farmed out is because they are giving them autonomy.

So... All of Christopher Nolan's movies are made under one single company? Riiiight? Your analogy of the director overseeing every aspect of production would seem to fall apart real quickly in the real world where the credits scroll and scroll and scrooooooool with lists of separate companies that helped make the movie magic. In the Serenity commentary, for instance, Josh Whedon even mentioned their effects company added in extra unasked for unpaid for stuff because they believed in the movie so much. The Niarada's big warp jump away from Earth in Star Trek (2013) was similarly said to have been extra effects work done by the effects company. (ILM on that one?)

That, and it's not like the best and most talented never have to scrap things and start over. Surely you're familiar with the various back stories of several of the Pixar movies hitting the crisis point ( with the original Toy Story even having been temporarily cancelled at one point!). Same for any number of games, Halo 2 and Tomb Raider (2013) being the two I'm most familiar with. Even creative projects with the best talent and management have problems, lose key people or fire them (Brave, The Good Dinosaur) have the director go back and rewrite major parts of a work (Inside Out!).

What makes Bubgie so different? (Other than they didn't really pull Destiny off after the crisis like the above examples or Halo 2)

So... All of Christopher Nolan's movies are made under one single company? Riiiight? Your analogy of the director overseeing every aspect of production would seem to fall apart real quickly in the real world where the credits scroll and scroll and scrooooooool with lists of separate companies that helped make the movie magic. In the Serenity commentary, for instance, Josh Whedon even mentioned their effects company added in extra unasked for unpaid for stuff because they believed in the movie so much.

Joss Whedon should have been more proactive about directing his vfx artists if that surprised him. And yes, every shot of the film is run by Nolan and whoever else is producing. That includes vfx.

Speaking with people who have worked on Avatar, James Cameron was very involved with the vfx artists, giving very specific direction.

It was said that Andrew Stanton's over direction of John Carter was one of the major reasons it flopped. Josh Whedon wasn't doing it right when he approved an extra piece of effects work (the beautiful build and transition from the Serenity ship to the title logo, I believe) but Andrew Stanton was when he reportedly oversaw numerous, costly reshoots?

Narrowing back down to Destiny, didn't we already know that High Moon had helped with the game's porting to its four consoles? Unless I'm mistaken, they're already involved. Given that Bungie's leadership was willing to scrap their own lead writer's story, why do you think they will be unwilling to supervise a partner company in a similar fashion to how Cameron had a strong say in every shot of Avatar?

Perhaps Bungie's leadership will (once again?) make bad decisions, but that's a different argument than them not being willing or able to make decisions and coordinate with a partner company.

Do you think Jason Jones is constantly directing and guiding the work of High Moon? If so, why not roll that development into Bungie with more hires? The reason it's being farmed out is because they are giving them autonomy.

Now that's just plain silly :)
The reason for outsourcing is simple:

Bungie: "We need more people helping out with content creation"
Activision: "Well we have this AAA studio just sitting here, waiting for work"
Bungie: "yeah, that'll work!"

Autonomy has nothing to do with it. This is the equivalent of a movie studio bringing in a 2nd VFX team to help out with a few scenes.

Destiny came out on September 9, 2014. Most of the development team was proud of the game, a source told me, and many were shocked to see harsh reviews; although most at Bungie had anticipated that players wouldn’t love the story, the team thought Destiny made up for that deficiency in many other ways. One source says they had internal surveys pegging the Metacritic score at around a 90 average; it turned out to be a 76. (Bungie then missed out on a major bonus, that source confirmed.)

You can give the illusion of randomness, but you want to weight it towards the player… The only point you have to deliver on is that when people leave your game—because they will—when they leave your game, they need to be happy.’”

For more information, read Chapter 13 of my Mega Post.

They also hoped to add a totally new feature called multiple fireteam activities, which a source described like this: “Imagine like you and I are in a fireteam, and we’re fighting down this one path that converges with two other paths and you get three fireteams all fighting together against a boss, or against some sort of mobs.”

This is exactly the kind of thing I was imagining when Destiny was being pitched. Just walking by some random on patrol isn't cool. It's not bad, per say, its just not really anything. At all. Oh look... All these horses and nowhere to gallop.

It’s not uncommon for a game’s scope to reduce during development, but Bungie had a unique problem. People who worked on this project say that one of Bungie’s fundamental issues over the past few years has been the game’s engine, which the studio built from scratch alongside Destiny. Four sources pointed to Destiny’s technology—the tools they use to design levels, render graphics, and create content—as an inhibiting factor in the game’s development.

“Let’s say a designer wants to go in and move a resource node two inches,” said one person familiar with the engine. “They go into the editor. First they have to load their map overnight. It takes eight hours to input their map overnight. They get [into the office] in the morning. If their importer didn’t fail, they open the map. It takes about 20 minutes to open. They go in and they move that node two feet. And then they’d do a 15-20 minute compile. Just to do a half-second change.”

“There was a bet that was, ‘Hey if we did microtransactions, I bet you we could generate enough revenue to make up for the loss of DLCs,’” said a source. “Instead of it going Destiny, DLC1, DLC2, Comet, DLC1, DLC2, they’re actually just gonna go [big] release and then incremental release. So it’ll just be Destiny, Comet, Destiny, Comet every year. It’s basically just switching the game to an annual model.”

This is about, as in actually,... time. It's about allocation. If this pipeline is truly as clogged as reported, (which might I add is absolutely jaw dropping for my green noggin which thought waiting for light maps to bake was a pain!) then it's no freaking wonder we got what we got. It doesn't make up for putting down a ton of cash & trust for a original flawed product, but it helps. Still not buying Taken King. It's not $200 good yet. Might not ever be. Might just have to wait till "Destiny 2".

...no one can reach consensus on how to fix the game in the time that’s allotted, you get a lot of sort of paralysis.

Something something communication is hard or something. Looking outside in with an excerpt, which makes this comment the "best comment", I find my self wondering - isn't that sort of thing the point of a lead? Or am I reading about a "Too many Cooks in the Kitchen" scenario?

All things considered, it’s remarkable that Bungie was able to ship anything in late 2014, let alone build a foundation as solid as vanilla Destiny.

Well... let's be real here, Bungie has experience for desperate situations.

http://fxville.com/clients

- No text -

Kotaku has jumped forward leaps and bounds in terms of the quality of their journalism in the past year.

Gawker Media might have had some ethical hiccups with their main brand in the past few months, but don't discount the current Kotaku because of old Kotaku.

Past few months? Try years. For a long long time I had them specifically banned in my host file (trying to go to Gawker would intentionally redirect me to good ole' 127.0.0.1) so I could not even accidentally follow a link and give them a page view or advertising cent.

Staten's alleged story would have been about 100 times better in year one than the nothing we ended up with. Year two, while nice, is so far a tiny step up from year one. Destiny's worse off. Maybe it'll be better off long term, though. That's where you may be totally right. What a waste of 1-2 years' worth of potential.

Past few months? Try years. For a long long time I had them specifically banned in my host file (trying to go to Gawker would intentionally redirect me to good ole' 127.0.0.1) so I could not even accidentally follow a link and give them a page view or advertising cent.

The only Gawker site I like is Jalopnik, but even that is arguably rubbish most of the time. The "reporting" there is a joke, but it's a frequently updated car blog that posts a lot about new cars, Nurburgring times, and a lot of actually irrelevant crap that I find interesting. I certainly wouldn't trust anything "breaking" from it, though.

But lifehacker is good people.

The problem isn't Kotaku or the article, it's that free news on the internet has reduced budgets of legitimate news sources while clickbait revenue streams are growing companies that only spew drivel. The result is that you no longer trust the integrity of reporters. Free news has made you cynical.

Want to solve the problem? Pay for your local paper.

I do. Best source of birdcage liner a man could ask for.

Past few months? Try years. For a long long time I had them specifically banned in my host file (trying to go to Gawker would intentionally redirect me to good ole' 127.0.0.1) so I could not even accidentally follow a link and give them a page view or advertising cent.

The only Gawker site I like is Jalopnik, but even that is arguably rubbish most of the time. The "reporting" there is a joke, but it's a frequently updated car blog that posts a lot about new cars, Nurburgring times, and a lot of actually irrelevant crap that I find interesting. I certainly wouldn't trust anything "breaking" from it, though.

i used to read Gizmodo every day, but then they banned my account about 4 years ago after pointing out a mistake (content, not grammar) in an article. If i see a gizmodo article in my facebook feed now that looks interesting, i just google it and try to find the original source material.

The disaster/[crunch]-time-hell that Bungie has gone through is management's fault, not Joe's. They shouldn't have let it get as far as it did before pulling the plug. I can't take the argument that they were kept in the dark because there was content being developed based on the story.

So, yeah. Management probably messed up by letting it get so far before pulling the plug. It's easy to make that call now, but at the time I suspect they were doing what they thought was best for the game.

It sure is easy to look back and criticize isn't it? This much I know, I'd struggle to lead a studio as large as Bungie and not make mistakes or let things slide for too long. It's a hard job and I'm certainly willing to cut Bungie leadership a little slack.

But lifehacker is good people.

Yep. Been reading them from their start.

Kotaku has jumped forward leaps and bounds in terms of the quality of their journalism in the past year.

Kotaku now is a very different site than it was 2-3 years ago. I've been quite impressed with their turnaround.

Bungie increased dramatically in size and I'd bet that senior management struggled to figure out how not to get too far out of touch with what was going on in the studio. It could be that they just trusted the story team to do their jobs but were unhappy with the results.

That's quite the mouthful. This is always the problem with trying to figure out what's happening in the games industry. Insiders can't speak because of NDAs or other fear of retribution, so they always need to be quoted anonymously. Essentially it boils down to whether or not you trust the journalist has credible sources that are telling the story accurately.

I'm guessing in this instance he does, because there are several things in the story which could be considered damaging to both Bungie and Activision, and if what was said was false they would sue for libel. He's really going out on a limb publishing what he did. I guess we'll find out if Bungie or Activision pushes back.

You seem awfully invested in this. Levi didn't say it was bullshit, he said he didn't have enough basis to decide if what he was reading was accurate, so he'd rather not make judgements. That's a completely reasonable point of view, and he shouldn't need to defend himself for it. It's clear you believe it's gospel (or close to it) - but he doesn't believe that. Can't you just let him have his opinion?

And you're dreaming if you think Activision is going to sue over an article like this, true or not; the bad press from the lawsuit would SWAMP whatever negativity the article generates.

Without getting into the specific discussion between Fuertisimo and Levi, I do believe articles like this are important to some of us. Forget the fact that its about Destiny, I get excited any time I see an gaming-related article that comes close to actual journalism. For years, gaming magazines and websites have done little more than re-distribute press releases, with little or no original content of value. Like any other industry, there are interesting stories surrounding videogame development. Some gamers don't care, and I totally get it. I find behind-the-scenes stories fascinating, but the secretive nature of game development means we rarely if ever get an honest look at how games are made.

This article in particular suffers due to lack of clear and identifiable sourcing, as Levi pointed out. It makes it tough to keep track of "who supposedly said what", or how much is being mashed together by the author, etc. But Schreier does have a great track record, so I'm hesitant to write it off as clickbait BS the way I might if a similar article was written by some other members of the gaming press. If nothing else, I see it as an attempt to do more than parrot PR announcements, so I think it is significant in that regard.

Without getting into the specific discussion between Fuertisimo and Levi, I do believe articles like this are important to some of us. Forget the fact that its about Destiny, I get excited any time I see an gaming-related article that comes close to actual journalism. For years, gaming magazines and websites have done little more than re-distribute press releases, with little or no original content of value. Like any other industry, there are interesting stories surrounding videogame development. Some gamers don't care, and I totally get it. I find behind-the-scenes stories fascinating, but the secretive nature of game development means we rarely if ever get an honest look at how games are made.

This article in particular suffers due to lack of clear and identifiable sourcing, as Levi pointed out. It makes it tough to keep track of "who supposedly said what", or how much is being mashed together by the author, etc. But Schreier does have a great track record, so I'm hesitant to write it off as clickbait BS the way I might if a similar article was written by some other members of the gaming press. If nothing else, I see it as an attempt to do more than parrot PR announcements, so I think it is significant in that regard.

I'm not exactly sure why you might think that someone saying "I'm going to take this article with a grain of salt" means they don't care about the subject material. I care about the subject material a great deal - more, probably, than the majority of people reading this thread. But I'm not going to take it as truth as it stands.

The story he puts out jibes with the story I've gotten, over the years, from various sources, in a lot of ways. It also CONFLICTS in several (important) ways. (I'm not going into detail; the pieces I've gotten were explicitly off the record.) I'm not saying that makes the Kotaku article wrong, and my sources right - I'm saying that often, there are multiple interpretations of a single event, and that one particular narrative might not do the situation full justice.

I read this with the same interest as others here; I don't have Levi's aversion to gossip. (Heh - that makes it sound like I'm a gossip hound. I'm not, but when something is written about a subject that's near to my heart, I'll read it and THEN toss out the parts I think are crap, rather than saying "I don't need this in my head".) And I think it's an interesting piece, and it sheds light (possibly accurate light) on a number of hard-to-understand decisions. But I don't believe it's 100% accurate, and I don't believe that anyone who suggests they're withholding judgement should be chastised for doing so.

The fact that Schreier is respected by a number of people here is good - but it doesn't change the fact that some of what he wrote is at odds with stuff I'm pretty sure is true.

::shrug::

Everyone needs to make their own decision about how accurate this is - or even whether they want to bother reading it. And it's definitely an interesting conversation topic - as evidenced by the two large threads on this forum alone. But folks who express skepticism should be allowed that opinion. That's really all I was trying to say.

Without getting into the specific discussion between Fuertisimo and Levi, I do believe articles like this are important to some of us. Forget the fact that its about Destiny, I get excited any time I see an gaming-related article that comes close to actual journalism. For years, gaming magazines and websites have done little more than re-distribute press releases, with little or no original content of value. Like any other industry, there are interesting stories surrounding videogame development. Some gamers don't care, and I totally get it. I find behind-the-scenes stories fascinating, but the secretive nature of game development means we rarely if ever get an honest look at how games are made.

This article in particular suffers due to lack of clear and identifiable sourcing, as Levi pointed out. It makes it tough to keep track of "who supposedly said what", or how much is being mashed together by the author, etc. But Schreier does have a great track record, so I'm hesitant to write it off as clickbait BS the way I might if a similar article was written by some other members of the gaming press. If nothing else, I see it as an attempt to do more than parrot PR announcements, so I think it is significant in that regard.

I'm not exactly sure why you might think that someone saying "I'm going to take this article with a grain of salt" means they don't care about the subject material.

I didn't actually say that, nor did I mean to imply it :) I was saying that some people aren't interested in reading about what goes on behind the scenes, and I understand why. That's all.

I care about the subject material a great deal - more, probably, than the majority of people reading this thread. But I'm not going to take it as truth as it stands.

The story he puts out jibes with the story I've gotten, over the years, from various sources, in a lot of ways. It also CONFLICTS in several (important) ways. (I'm not going into detail; the pieces I've gotten were explicitly off the record.) I'm not saying that makes the Kotaku article wrong, and my sources right - I'm saying that often, there are multiple interpretations of a single event, and that one particular narrative might not do the situation full justice.

I read this with the same interest as others here; I don't have Levi's aversion to gossip. (Heh - that makes it sound like I'm a gossip hound. I'm not, but when something is written about a subject that's near to my heart, I'll read it and THEN toss out the parts I think are crap, rather than saying "I don't need this in my head".) And I think it's an interesting piece, and it sheds light (possibly accurate light) on a number of hard-to-understand decisions. But I don't believe it's 100% accurate, and I don't believe that anyone who suggests they're withholding judgement should be chastised for doing so.

The fact that Schreier is respected by a number of people here is good - but it doesn't change the fact that some of what he wrote is at odds with stuff I'm pretty sure is true.

::shrug::

Everyone needs to make their own decision about how accurate this is - or even whether they want to bother reading it. And it's definitely an interesting conversation topic - as evidenced by the two large threads on this forum alone. But folks who express skepticism should be allowed that opinion. That's really all I was trying to say.

I completely agree with all of this.

Basically, my post was triggered by a single line in your response to Fuertisimo where you said "you seem deeply invested in this". I was merely riffing off of that. With DBO being a Bungie fan site, any story about the making of Destiny is likely to drum up interest. I was just trying to bring up the fact that for me personally, I think articles like this are important for the games media. I wasn't arguing with anything anyone had said earlier in the thread. Seems my post came across that way to you, and I'm not sure why :-/

Basically, my post was triggered by a single line in your response to Fuertisimo where you said "you seem deeply invested in this". I was merely riffing off of that. With DBO being a Bungie fan site, any story about the making of Destiny is likely to drum up interest. I was just trying to bring up the fact that for me personally, I think articles like this are important for the games media. I wasn't arguing with anything anyone had said earlier in the thread. Seems my post came across that way to you, and I'm not sure why :-/

I should have been clearer; I meant it seemed he was pretty invested in everyone holding the same opinion as he held. (I was basing that off the fact that every time someone suggested they might take the article with a grain of salt, he jumped in with an aggressive defense - in some cases, with an attack.)

I didn't mean that he was (or should be, or shouldn't be) invested in the story itself.

I think we agree, for the most part - I think we just misunderstood where the other was coming from. :)

I wasn't arguing with anything anyone had said earlier in the thread. Seems my post came across that way to you, and I'm not sure why :-/

Due to the structures of forums, and expectations based upon previous conversations, our brains tend to interpret responses to a post as an argument unless it is explicitly stated otherwise. This is not news. We know this by examining how emails are perceived and how a well-placed emoticon can help clarify the tone of a response. This even happens in real life conversations with my wife. If I don't make it clear that my response to something is a side-note or a comment on the subject, it can easily be heard as a contrary opinion.

For feedback's sake, I read your initial response as an argument against the whole of Claude's post as well. Its positioning in relation to the post made it seem to me that you were arguing against the idea that a person could hold a skeptical position while at the same time being invested in the subject. I know that isn't what you intended to communicate, but it came across that way to me. Part of that interpretation lies at my feet, but accurate interpretation can be helped by explicit markers of the scope of your response. Just including the simple phrase, "I agree with this, but I want to comment on this" makes a huge difference.

Overall, I think you are a great communicator and I appreciate your thoughts. I only offer this because you were confused about why he interpreted your response in a way you didn't expect.

- No text -

It was said that Andrew Stanton's over direction of John Carter was one of the major reasons it flopped.

That is not the general consensus in the industry.

I'll defer to you on that one. I didn't follow it near closely enough to disagree.

It was said that Andrew Stanton's over direction of John Carter was one of the major reasons it flopped.

That is not the general consensus in the industry.

Really? All the articles I read said that his inexperience and his complete control over the whole process, including the marketing, caused the film to flop. The agreement seems to be that he shouldn't have been given that much responsibility.

The problem isn't Kotaku or the article, it's that free news on the internet has reduced budgets of legitimate news sources while clickbait revenue streams are growing companies that only spew drivel. The result is that you no longer trust the integrity of reporters. Free news has made you cynical.

Want to solve the problem? Pay for your local paper.

You know what? Don't. Do you know those people?

Those people knew about the problem of Internet journalism. It was foreseeable twenty years ago. As an industry they chose to ignore it and avoid it, and that led to the current situation.

And the decline of due diligence in local reporting began long before the Internet was even a factor.

I went to a local newspaper out of J-school and within a week was told that no kind of fact-checking was ever done because there was no time for it.

There needs to be a way for good reporting and editing to be done, and for there to be reasonable revenue streams to support it, and reasonable costs for consumers to purchase it.

The local paper isn't it, and hasn't been for a long time.

Just because it isn't good doesn't mean it isn't a better option.

Local papers have accountability people care about, and pay/own good news services like the AP. Want to get rid of the AP? Reuters? Bloomberg? Let your paper go out of business.

I'm hoping Cody's "History of Bungie" novel that he's mentioned before will be much more introspective. ;)

That's only going to work if people will talk to me. I've heard… things about how some people at Bungie see me. If it ever does happen, it would certainly come from a place of love. I mean, if my fan years were my age I could start drinking this winter.

The local paper isn't it, and hasn't been for a long time.

The local paper is probably the most valuable source for news which actually has an effect on you dude. Local shit actually impacts you. I could go a year without watching national news and still be fine.

It was said that Andrew Stanton's over direction of John Carter was one of the major reasons it flopped.

That is not the general consensus in the industry.

Really? All the articles I read said that his inexperience and his complete control over the whole process, including the marketing, caused the film to flop. The agreement seems to be that he shouldn't have been given that much responsibility.

That has everything to do with his skill as a director, not his level of involvement. And yes, marketing was the largest factor.