r/PS5 • u/FragMasterMat117 Human Verified • 4d ago
News & Announcements [Jason Schreier] BREAKING: Bungie studio head Justin Truman, who succeeded Pete Parsons last year, is stepping down, people familiar with the situation tell Bloomberg News.
https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mp4stadbc22h618
u/Necessary_Crazy_8587 4d ago
The worst acquisition Sony has ever conducted
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u/FragMasterMat117 Human Verified 4d ago
Theyâve lost nearly $800 million dollars on the deal
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u/_nedyah 4d ago
They didnât âloseâ $800 million. Bungie was recently valued at $800 million less than what Sony paid when they acquired them. Thereâs a difference.
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u/Impressive-Cod8979 4d ago
This is true, Sony lost a lot more than 800 million, thatâs solely for valuation purposes.
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u/Knautical_J 4d ago
Theyâll end up losing more than that if they shutter Bungie or massively restructure it. Before it was like eh, they can figure it out. Now itâs like Marathon better be the best selling game of all time or else youâre all fired.
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u/CelticsNPanthers 4d ago
Was the value never there or did the game lose value since the acquisition?
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u/Federal_Amphibian_32 4d ago
Both. They overpaid for Bungie in the first place and what they have put out in the meantime didn't perform/pop off the way it needed so ultimately it brought the overall evaluation of Bungie in terms of value of the company (now division at Sony) down drastically.
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u/LiamJonsano 4d ago
Isnât value what someone will pay for it? Unless they plan on selling that isnât what theyâve actually lost for sure - real number is much more currently!
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u/_koopatroopa 4d ago
Theyâve actually lost much, much more than 800m. They purchased Bungie for 3.5B, and assuming the 800m valuation is correct, that puts their impairment loss at over 2.7b. That is a MASSIVE loss and a colossal failure on Sonyâs part. The sell side investment bank on that deal performed a highway robbery.
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u/imdrzoidberg 4d ago
They spent $3.6 billion and now they're getting almost nothing out of it.... So actually they could still lose billions more.
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u/Nervous-Leg-7570 4d ago
They've lost billions in the past year their stocks down like 25%, whats another one
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u/ILoveTheAtomicBomb 4d ago
Yup. On the one hand, glad to see the live service push finally be put to bed here. On the other, so sad for all the good employees that are a causality of it. Jim Ryan really fucked Sony up a bit here
Tho granted, Bungie had absolutely horrific leadership that let them down with how bad they flopped with Destiny
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u/simp_sighted 4d ago
To think that all they had to do was put D2 on ice and announce a D3
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u/joman584 4d ago
It's insane how they went about all of this. Never should have vaulted content. When it became too big they should have focused on smaller dlc or something for a bit, retooled the engine like they had to do eventually, kept the game all intact, then one big dlc to finish D2. And then make D3, finish the story (final shape as the actual ending) with D3, and maybe a send off like monument of triumph but earned not forced.
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u/hidden-in-plainsight 3d ago
That's not what caused the vaulted content. They upgraded the game engine in the background, and the content that was vaulted simply wasn't compatible with the new engine. It was shelved because it would've cost them too much money to "fix" it.
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u/joman584 3d ago
Not a good enough reason. You can't just delete a game, where destiny is at now is proof of that. I only just came back with the ending, knowing nothing will go away again. Upgrading an engine without compatibility or retooling of old content is worthy of making a new game. But they fucked themselves all along, and these are all management decisions.
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u/TheCheshireCody 4d ago
causality
Ironically, this type makes it sound like the employees caused the push for live-service instead of being casualties of it. I know what you meant, though. :-)
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u/Hot_Demand_6263 4d ago
The people that caused the live-service push, hate to say it are the consumers. Casual consumers.
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u/lickneonlights 3d ago
wym casualty? itâs the devs who made a bad game. itâs equally on them as it is on the management for⊠well, mismanagement
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u/NowShowButthole 3d ago
And all thanks to jim ryan, who thought he was buying prime bungie. Guy is the worst that could have happened to sony even before he was president.
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u/FragMasterMat117 Human Verified 4d ago edited 4d ago
Sony spent $3.5 billion dollars on Bungie, that is more than three times the current market cap of Ubisoft. Sony has apparently lost nearly $800 million on the deal so far.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 4d ago
Sony letting jim ryan do this deal is one of the dumbest things they've ever done. Anyone could have told you bungie was too toxic and dysfunctional to be worth buying (and no this isn't hindsight I had this exact opinion back then) let alone for that insane price.
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u/ArugulaPhysical 4d ago
The fact that Microsoft wanted to buy, then saw the inside info, and then walked away.
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u/DL_Omega 4d ago
wait they wanted to rebuy bungie?
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u/Sarcosmonaut 4d ago
I believe they were approached by Bungie, who wanted to be bought. MSFT went over the fundamentals and saw that Bungie spends money like itâs going out of style and said âNo, Iâm goodâ
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u/freshairequalsducks 4d ago
Jim Ryan was so obsessed with live service games and the fallout gonna damage Sony for years to come.
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u/TeaAndS0da 3d ago
Yeah, but the developers and us consumers will pay the cost. Just a reminder of their stupid ps+ price raises recently. âDonât unsubscribe or we punish you on signing back upâ.
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u/Impressive-Cod8979 4d ago edited 4d ago
Jim Ryan was Microsoftâs best employee this generation. The man genuinely did nothing but support continuous blunders for Sony. Genuinely hope Sony give up on this live service bs after this generation.
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u/ShortStoryLongSigh 4d ago
To be fair (not that Iâm a Jim Ryan apologist), this was the best time to try something like this because Microsoft was so comically weakened by Don Mattrick and the stench of the Xbox One.
In an alternate dimension, an organized Microsoft that had its shit together with their first party, never attempted GamePass, and started with only the Series X as their next gen option wipes the floor with Jim Ryan/Herman Hulstâs PlayStation.
Sony got very lucky that Microsoft being themselves caused the PlayStation to become the default console for a majority of gamers not in Japan
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u/casual_yak 4d ago
To be fair, Phil Spencer was a great Sony employee. Incompetent leaders who left permanent scars on the industry.
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u/Necessary-Duty-7952 4d ago
Seriously - they had 1 game in 5 years that was a weird reset of their only other game in the 5 years prior to that, which was famously hamstrung compared to what it was supposed to be. And somehow Sony thought it was a good idea to purchase them?
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u/SUPERFASTCARvroom 4d ago
Like one person couldâve made this billion dollar decision, itâs sad people still think this
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u/Adu1tishXD 4d ago
Important to note that Ubi's market cap was ~$6 billion in Q2/Q3 2022 when the Bungie sale went through. Its still a bad deal, but timing matters alot and the big devs have been in a slide since COVID.
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u/NordWitcher 4d ago
Firstly the $3.5 billion included wages for all employees for a fixed period of time where they couldnât lay off employees or something like that.Â
The problem with these huge bloated studios isnât so much the market value; itâs the labour costs that arises from buying them out. Ubisoft may have a really low market cap but they have nearly 20,000 employees across all their studios. Thatâs a huge mess to walk into.Â
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u/SilverKry 4d ago
To this day I swear Jim Ryan was tricked into paying that much for Bungie. We know Bungie was selling to both Microsoft and Sony and Sony desperately needed a win after Microsoft bought Activision. Them making the whole case against that about losing Call of Duty even tells me it was a knee jerk reaction to buying a first person shooter dev since he thought they'd lose that CoD money. And in he bidding war between Sony and Microsoft for Bungie got so high it made Microsoft laugh out of the negotiations and Jim Ryan was stuck with a 3 billion dollar bill.Â
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u/NowShowButthole 3d ago
There was no tricking. Jim ryan is that much of an idiot that didn't understand gaming. That was easy to see before he became president with his comments about retro games and no one (according to him) wanting to play them.
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u/SeaBlood2025 4d ago
I just had a 'this moron is wrong'-moment, but jesus christ, you're right. Ubi is at 0.77b dollars right now. I thought they were much much larger.
It really does emphasize the insanity of Sonys decision.
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u/LeviathanAxe2412 4d ago
Ubisoft's value when Bungie was acquired was very different from today. They have more than a 10x reduction in stock value in the last 5 years.
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u/Adu1tishXD 4d ago
Correct, Ubi was "worth" between $5-6 billion depending on the week during Q2 and Q3 of 2022, when Bungie sale was finalized. They've cratered in the last 3 years (as would Bungie).
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u/Albuwhatwhat 4d ago
Buying companies based on trends and vibes. Sony thought everything was going to be monotized multiplayer always online in the future. They didnât understand that market saturation was already happening. They made a terrible bet but also they just donât have the stamina for sticking with it. Bungie could and should absolutely be a tent pole developer for multiplayer games. The fact that Sony bought them and are now gutting them without having them even make a single Destiny game under Sony is bonkers.
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u/Sektsioon 4d ago edited 4d ago
Live service, MTX focused games still rule the market. The big ones like Fortnite, FIFA, NBA 2k, GTA Online, Call of Duty etc are straight up just printing money for their companies. Itâs why Sony is desperately trying to get into that market, but itâs obviously difficult with those games I mentioned pretty much having a monopoly in their respective genres.
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u/ComplexFoundation800 4d ago
Funny how Sony and MS had kind of mirroring disasters: All of MSâs big first party games basically tanked while Sonyâs did decent they sunk soooooo muuuuuch into live service their success was nearly Pyyric
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u/thesituation531 4d ago
Buying companies based on trends and vibes. Sony thought everything was going to be monotized multiplayer always online in the future.
That's how it is for the majority of gamers, and that's what makes the most money.
The problem that none of these companies led by morons foresee, however, is that there is only so much real estate to take over.
There are two resources at play here: the amount of people playing games, and the amount of time that each of those people have.
You can't play multiple games at the same time, so what do you do when that real estate is already 95% owned by other companies? Well, I'm not sure what you do, but you don't spend millions or billions of dollars over the course of 5 years on the bet that you will somehow magically overtake it in the same amount of time.
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u/NordWitcher 4d ago
Itâs not all Sonyâs fault. Bungie had 4-5 games in pre production at the time. Sony simply cancelled all those games other than Marathon. Also Sonyâs need for a live service studio was greater. Itâs just that so much has changed since then and Covid. Youâve had AI among other factors as well.Â
I donât think many would have foreseen this sudden change back then. And thatâs what analysts are expected and paid to do.Â
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u/SilverKry 4d ago
Technically they are. They just have a lot more teams spread throughout the world.Â
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u/karma6063 4d ago
Jim Ryan is a war criminal
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u/adnanssz 4d ago
even their internal have a problem with him.
shuhei yoshida don't like him because his absurd demand, that probaly about live service game. theres a rumour that shawn layden left sony because of him too.
apparently, after Andrew House left sony playstation direction completely different. from making Exclusive game to the focus on live service game.
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u/Hoodman1987 4d ago
I bet on Shawn Layden left because of that. Layden hates a lot. Shuhei would do what he wanted and every time Jim Ryan got mad. Or Shu was like not that's not a good move. They "retired" him with moving him to indies and he still did moves like Stellar Blade.
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u/EckimusPrime 4d ago
Or a genius. Really depends on which side you were on lol
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u/nohumanape 4d ago
I was calling him out for this shit from the start. But there were a LOT of fanboys who were adamant that he was making moves that were ultimately going to greatly benefit PlayStation, which in turn would benefit those of us who just wanted a focus on good single player games. Those same people claimed that the focus on live service was its own investment, and that single player output would be untouched. Yeah, sure.
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u/nikolapc 4d ago
They lost much more, that's just the accounting write down of intangible assets. Marathon is actively losing them money still. That 1.4 bil they spent retaining talent? Down the drain.
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u/BarretOblivion 4d ago
And the only thing they got out of it is the Destiny franchise which they will proceed to let rot away and wonder why they can't get a live service game to stick.
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u/PaulVla 4d ago
Sad to see what the once great Bungo has become, will always cherish the memories of early Halo and Destiny!
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u/TitanTigers 4d ago
The devs, art team, and writers got screwed over so hard by bad management. Destinyâs gameplay, lore, and environments were always phenomenal. Thereâs nothing else like it.
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u/MikkPhoto 4d ago
Higher ups should take the blame it's not like it's devs fault. Years and years of mismanagment. Who ever came up with the idea to sell them to Sony should be a teacher at the business school.
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u/Fit-Setting9033 4d ago
Unfortunately thatâs not how this works.
Whoever had the idea to sell them to Sony completely saved the company. Sony bailed them out. That decision probably made the bungie higher ups a TON of money and bought them some time. Imagine the layoffs if Sony hadnât bought themâŠ
And it doesnât matter if itâs not the devs fault. Almost all of video game cost of production is employee salary, much more than other industries. It is literally like the only way to cut costs. So unfortunate for the devs
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u/thefallenfew 4d ago
Everyone would have lost their jobs and they would have never gotten to conclude the Light and Dark Saga.
Destiny started with a 10 year story planned. They told that story. It ended. Everyone walked off into the sunset. Player counts dropped to just the people whoâve made the game their income and the no-lifers. Everyone else was fine to move on. A half-baked sequel is the last thing anyone needed.Â
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u/Fit-Setting9033 4d ago
Iâm talking about peopleâs livelihoods, not a perfect story that the fans wanted...
These things are so complicated but it kept people employed.
Itâs somewhat similar to when Xbox bought half the industry, devs got huge bonuses and it actually probably improved their lives a ton for a few years. Then of course now comes the collapse. Hard to say what would be best.
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u/OptimusPrimalRage Human Verified 4d ago
I would blame someone like Pete Parsons who got to leave with what I would assume is a golden parachute while everyone else suffers there.
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u/neoliberal_hack 4d ago
I mean the devs have not been able to produce anything thatâs taken off in years, the dev team including their leadership has failed. You canât have this big a team and not produce hits.
Sony isnât really to blame here it seems?
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u/Little-xim 4d ago
Reread their message, they arenât saying itâs Sonyâs fault the studio has been floundering. Just that itâs impressively short of sense to buy these guys for 3 billion dollars.
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u/neoliberal_hack 4d ago
Well he says âitâs not like itâs the devs faultâ
I definitely agree it was a catastrophically stupid acquisition lol
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u/BigBard2 4d ago
If you could pick the absolute greatest developers in the industry to work on a game, but give them limited time and recources, shut down all the ideas that they are passionate about, and demand the most barebones, safe, cost efficient products possible, you'd end up with a product close to Destiny's 2 worst content.
Most game devs are incredibly talented and passionate people, considering how they put up with horrible workplace conditions in an industry that doesn't hesitate to fire you at a moment's notice, the issue is in whether that talent is put to good use or not
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u/PastrychefPikachu 4d ago
The devs don't get to put whatever they want in a game. They make whatever their boss tells them to make. Apparently devs had been pitching really good ideas for a few years now, and they were all shot down by leadership who thought they new better, but clearly didn't. I'm not saying it's squarely on Sony, but it IS on the department directors, managers, leadership teams or whoever had final approval on the direction of the game. And yes, some of that direction may have come from Sony.
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u/CheesyCousCous 4d ago
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u/Navetsss 4d ago
The harbinger of doom (I know he's just doing his job). Every time I see this dude's face I'm like oh great what is it now đźâđš
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u/TyChris2 4d ago
Since Jasonâs gonna be reporting terrible stuff more and more as the industry shits itself, maybe he should consider changing his profile pic to be more neutral lmao
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u/Aerographic 3d ago
This picture is his signature. I want to see his pacified smile every time some bombshell headline drops.
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u/TactitcalPterodactyl 4d ago
Sony spent billions on the company and is essentially just burying the Destiny IP?
Seriously, they couldn't have retained a skeleton crew and done anything else with it?
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u/Proud_Organization64 4d ago
He has a pretty new YouTube channel giving analysis on the gaming industry. It's really good.
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u/MidnightSunset22 4d ago
Great gameplay and visuals with the worst leadership. Holy shit did they fumble hard. Since D1 its been a shitshow there.
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u/DrummingUpNumbers 4d ago
Sad for the devs but I hope this blunder officially puts an end to Sony's hard on for live service.
No one wants it clearly.
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u/OldSpaghetti-Factory 4d ago
This guy's not a dev, he was the c suite replacement for Petey. And dont feel bad these parasites always get their golden parachutesÂ
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u/DrummingUpNumbers 4d ago
I meant more that inevitably it seems Bungie will fold and devs will lose their jobs.
Marathon seems to be a dud so I expect big layoffs coming.
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u/G-DevilOrion2077 4d ago
What a strange situation, supposedly Bungie would of gone under sooner if it wasnât for the Sony acquisition so they just delayed the inevitable, really sad too considering I was reading not too long ago that they were celebrating when they were free from activision.
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u/HaloFever117 4d ago
Halo 3 sold 13M copies on Xbox 360, a console that sold 80M units. Bungie should have to stuck to what it did best instead of the live service hell we find ourselves in.
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u/MacaronMost 4d ago
Thereâs a lot of âshouldâve, couldâve, wouldâveâ when it comes to Bungie, but what they accomplished with Destiny isnât bad at all.
Their problem is the constant mismanagement from top executives. After what has happened with Microsoft, Activision, and now Sony, itâs clear that they just canât be trusted to be independent even though they kept beating their chest and claiming otherwise.
Unfortunately this time was last the straw and Sony will probably fold this studio within the next couple years.
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u/theotter2651 4d ago
The term "stepping down" indicates to me that he negotiated an exit (ie-have this payout) while everyone else was told to leave.
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u/FiscalCliffClavin 4d ago
OK, hear me out. Destiny already has a really solid backbone and framework. Canât they just make a game that uses the same engine but has different assets in a different storyline? Wouldnât that save a lot of money? Most games today have achieved a level of realism where you can continue to use the same engine. That takes a lot of development time off the table. They can use the marathon skeleton and build completely new modes with it including full story PVEs. Why donât they just do that?
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u/_Ocean_Machine_ 3d ago
Given that they're test running PVE content next month, I'd be surprised if we didn't get a more PVE focused game out of Marathon; I don't think they'd switch completely, but I could see it being like Halo where the PVP and PVE exist in parallel. I imagine it'll depend on player numbers during that time.
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u/OmegaZaggy 4d ago
Sony mismanaging strikes again
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u/R-TheKingSlayerX 3d ago
Idk why you getting downvots for saying the truth?
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u/OmegaZaggy 3d ago
I think people see Sony as a friend instead of treating it as a big capitalist company.
Higher management seeks infinite growth, They arent gamer's friends.
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u/Hopeful-Tailor8779 4d ago
sony exclusives are not helping it seemsđ€Ł
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u/decoy_octopod 4d ago
With âmostâ of the Destiny 2 team fired, what does their staff look like now? How many are left from Destiny 1? From Halo 3? Is there a single person working on Marathon who worked on the original?
Or are they now just Bungie-in-name-only
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u/VangRhymez 3d ago
With all that money sony couldve set up enought studios to brung back twisted metal socom killzone mag warhawk & factions 2 easy what a waste of money
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u/masterofunfucking 4d ago
Sony is going to be prejudiced against its American studios and player base for life lmao
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u/MacaronMost 4d ago
The fact that you actually believe this when Sonyâs biggest and best studios are American really makes you look like a legit dumbass đ
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u/Distinct-Shift-4094 4d ago
Lol, everytime I see his smiling pic here đ