Your Destiny is on another Console

January 31, 2022 10:16 AM

Sony buying Bungie for $3.6 billion Destiny studio will remain multiplatform, able "to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play"

This would be the second time Bungie has been bought by a platform holder. Microsoft acquired the studio in June of 2000, securing its then-upcoming shooter Halo as an exclusive title for the original Xbox's 2001 launch.

Bungie would regain its independence shortly after the launch of Halo 3 in October of 2007. It produced two more exclusive Halo games for the company -- Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach -- before signing a 10-year deal with Activision that would lead to the creation of the Destiny franchise.

The deal caps off a massive January for games industry acquisitions. Take-Two announced an agreement to acquire Zynga for roughly $12.7 billion on January 11, and Microsoft followed up with a $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard a week later.

posted by CrystalDave (36 comments total)

I hate seeing all this consolidation of AAA game producers. Particularly that it's the game platform companies that are buying them up. I fear in a few years half the games I want to play will be Playstation exclusives, the other half will be Xbox exclusives, and another quarter will be Facebook Oculus Meta exclusives.
posted by Nelson at 10:29 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]

Nelson: "Playstation exclusives, the other half will be Xbox exclusives, and another quarter will be Facebook Oculus Meta exclusives."

Agreed. Time to get to work on those emulators…
posted by signal at 10:33 AM on January 31, 2022

Video games belong in arcades. Consoles were a mistake.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:53 AM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]

look, if sony can just have them make a new single player marathon i'll be happy...
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 10:55 AM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]

look, if sony can just have them make a new single player marathon i'll be happy...

We played it over the AppleTalk network in my college dorm and it remains one of the best online gaming experiences of my life.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:04 AM on January 31, 2022 [6 favorites]

My coworkers and I used to play Myth after work as we waited for traffic to die down. Then we'd watch the replays of our games and laugh at our mistakes or triumphs. Great fun.

Sony may be trying to lock down some revenue streams, but it really feels like at some point there will be just two or three companies cranking out massive games with movie-sized budgets. (Or movies based on the games. Or games based on the movies of the games. Or games based on the movies of the book. Or... you get the idea.)

Durandal, where are you? We miss you, you Rampant AI scamp.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 11:11 AM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

I hate seeing all this consolidation of AAA game producers.

Me too, but for what it's worth, the 20x difference between Bungie ($3.6 Billion) and Blizzard/Activision ($68.7 Billion) isn't really about AAA games. Yes, Activision has several important franchises (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo), and Bungie really just has one current cash cow (Destiny).

But the real thing Activision has that Bungie doesn't is Candy Crush. Mobile gaming absolutely dwarfs AAA gaming in terms of world-wide revenue generation. If you discount hardware sales (which put Sony at #1), the largest video game company in the world, by far, is Tencent, which makes its 14-ish billion dollars a year in revenue almost entirely in mobile and social media games.

So yes, the AAA console parts of these deals are important for Microsoft and Sony. They add shine to the hardware sales and create buzz and potential exclusives, which sucks. In MS's case they also add content for their games service, which is starting to be a real revenue production engine, and it's completely valid to worry about that consolidation. But that's not actually where the valuations come from, and for the moment it's not the reason that Activision is worth 20 times as much as Bungie or (for that matter) the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, which Disney bough for about the same $4 billion.
posted by The Bellman at 11:18 AM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]

Hard to believe Bungie is worth almost twice as much as Minecraft.
(I guess those were 2014 billions.)
posted by straight at 11:22 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

On a side note: Halo Is getting a series on Paramount+. It doesn’t have Neil Blomkamp or Peter Jackson attached, so I feel a bit skeptical about how hardcore it’s going to be. There have also been some story changes that I’m ambivalent toward.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:37 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hard to believe Bungie is worth almost twice as much as Minecraft.
(I guess those were 2014 billions.)

This is a pretty good point. In September 2021 Destiny 2's active player count was 1.2 million players. That's a lot. But in August 2021 Minecraft had 141 MILLION active players. Microsoft got one hell of a deal when they bought Mojang.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:54 AM on January 31, 2022

I would not say that mobile gaming "dwarfs" AAA games, at least not yet. I think it is a little over half the market at this point, but growing quickly.

Tencent makes a ton of money with mobile games, but I do not think it is the bulk of their revenue, they are also own or partially own the major social media network, video streaming service, and online payment system in china. I think that the financial stuff is their biggest earner.

I am not sure how their gaming revenue breaks down, but they are also pretty heavily invested in the console/pc market. They own Riot Games. (League of Legends) 40% of Epic (Fortnight and the Unreal engine), a big chunk of Activision, Ubisoft, and a bunch of other big studios.
posted by St. Sorryass at 12:15 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is a pretty good point. In September 2021 Destiny 2's active player count was 1.2 million players. That's a lot. But in August 2021 Minecraft had 141 MILLION active players. Microsoft got one hell of a deal when they bought Mojang.

Minecraft's revenue in 2014 was much smaller than what Bungie pulls in today from Destiny. At least 2x, if not 3-4x. Plus, Sony isn't just getting Destiny, they're getting the AAA games that Bungie is incubating and has been staffing up for.

As for the mobile/console/pc discussion -- King, the Activision/Blizzard studio that makes Candy Crush, earned more in Q3 2021 than either Activision or Blizzard themselves did.
posted by Jairus at 12:32 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

Video games belong in arcades. Consoles were a mistake.


I am old enough to remember the smell. Console availability fragmentation doesn't scare me half as much.
posted by srboisvert at 12:46 PM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

There have also been some story changes that I’m ambivalent toward.

I hope that new version of Cortana is deliberate and leading towards something, because, um....
posted by mhoye at 12:53 PM on January 31, 2022

Video games belong in arcades. Consoles were a mistake.

I just had a long-overdue flash of insight about the origins of microtransactions.
posted by box at 12:55 PM on January 31, 2022 [8 favorites]

I just had a long-overdue flash of insight about the origins of microtransactions.

Twenty five cents, same as in town.
posted by mhoye at 1:03 PM on January 31, 2022 [12 favorites]

Video games belong in arcades. Consoles were a mistake.

I feel like I would have been much more willing to engage with this sentiment prior to about March, 2020.
posted by solotoro at 1:10 PM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]

Video games belong in arcades. Consoles were a mistake.

If your players are limited to simple PvP contests, sure. Arcade games were a limited game designed to maximize the number of quarters or tokens you could milk from players in a minimum amount of time. They were never intended for long form play.

Consoles opened up a world of games that could be played over an extended period and multiple sessions as well as being a godsend for the less social, whether it be through inclination or capability.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:26 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Arcades themselves were a symptom of moral decline from the true righteous pastime of mumblety-peg.
posted by Drastic at 1:47 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

Consoles were a mistake.

Careful what you wish for
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 1:52 PM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]

Consoles were a mistake.

No, computers were the mistake. Consoles merely a further postlapsarian stumble.
posted by fallingbadgers at 1:57 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Or games based on the movies of the games
Hello, fellow Ratchet & Clank fan!
posted by xedrik at 2:41 PM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

Teaching sand to do math was a mistake.
posted by straight at 3:26 PM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

On a side note: Halo Is getting a series on Paramount+

"You know what would make a good basis for a TV show? A character with no face or personality who never speaks!"
posted by star gentle uterus at 3:28 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Wasn't the Mandalorian great? Good ol' buckethead.
posted by Nelson at 3:33 PM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

"You know what would make a good basis for a TV show? A character with no face or personality who never speaks!"

To be fair, there are a lot of characters on TV with no personality that I wish would also stop speaking. Putting a helmet on 'em would be a bonus.

I'm interested to see what Bungie does next. I liked a lot of the Halo worldbuilding (and the soundtrack for Halo 1 was just really fantastic, they do great set pieces), but missed the earlier games and didn't have the necessary hardware for either Destiny (I do now, but definitely don't have the time -- Olli Olli World comes out this week!).
posted by curious nu at 3:48 PM on January 31, 2022

Well, Halo (2001) ranks as one of the best SF stories I ever experienced. But that's the problem, the Mandalorian already did it. So it looks like they're going in a different direction, there's a whole team of Spartans now, etc etc.

And Destiny... the story didn't do much for me. But I loved the game mechanics, it's one of the only games that truly gets gameplay diversity right. Most games of this genre were about chasing incremental power gains, and you'd always use the weapon that did the most DPS. Destiny 2 was refreshingly different in that all weapons did very similar DPS, what you were chasing after was that perfect weapon that had the visual and handling characteristics that just resonated with you.

Basically, you played with the weapons you loved, not the weapons you were forced to use because it had the best stats. (sure, some perks did a tiny bit more damage, but it was so small it was really irrelevant most of the time).
posted by xdvesper at 3:56 PM on January 31, 2022

Too bad Dying Light isn't a Sony mark, as that's what's up now.

I would not say that mobile gaming "dwarfs" AAA games,

It sure causes casualties.


if sony can just have them make a new single player marathon i'll be happy...

Halo is Marathon and has always been. The campaign in Infinite isn't bad, but it doesn't have the old Bungie flavor (the Destiny 2 item text is the only thing that does).
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:27 PM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

(And while Destiny's setting isn't quite as identical, I've always considered the three to be in the same loose continuity.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:43 PM on January 31, 2022

@snuffleupagus: (And while Destiny's setting isn't quite as identical, I've always considered the three to be in the same loose continuity.)

While it is of somewhat murky canonicity, the items from the 30th Anniversary Event in Destiny 2 have some winks to this too, with Marathon and Halo themed armour ornament sets, and some weapons clearly drawn from the earlier games.

There's some interesting speculation at the moment about whether the current light vs dark storyline is going to end up tying back to the W'rkncacnter plotline from Pathways into Darkness / Marathon. That would be cool.
posted by curious.jp at 6:00 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's some interesting speculation at the moment about whether the current light vs dark storyline is going to end up tying back to the W'rkncacnter plotline from Pathways into Darkness / Marathon. That would be cool.

They were teasing Destiny in both ODST and Reach, and the Marathon storyline showed up in Easter eggs in both (maybe only Reach?) so it’s plausible.

(Still kinda mad that 343 fridged Cortana in 4 and made a hash of 5, so who knows. Forward Unto Dawn - the live action Halo 1 prequel, if you find your way to the torrents - was better than it had any right to be.)
posted by mhoye at 6:06 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

(Reach reminded me of Douglas Adams’ Mostly Harmless - Clearly the best work of the series, and just as clearly secretly and quietly hated by its creator. It’s pretty clear that Reach is the story of the development of Halo told via Halo, if you have the right eyes to see it.)
posted by mhoye at 6:30 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

On a side note: Halo Is getting a series on Paramount+

Halo already has a series. Here's Episode 1.
posted by hippybear at 6:46 PM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]

I don't care about the big AAA games the same way I don't care about the AAA movies. Interesting stuff comes from the little guys with imagination. I do not need to see picture perfect graphics, just cool gameplay and story. Rimworld, Into the Breach, stuff like that. As long as there are little people tootling away on their own there will always be plenty of good new shit.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:25 AM on February 1, 2022

I still think of Bungie as "the folks who made Myth: The Fallen Lords" (1997).

Because it's unambiguously the best game they ever made. Halo is way too corporate, man.
posted by Justinian at 10:34 AM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]

TIL Bungie's GC is a Very Online lawtweeter.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:45 AM on February 1, 2022