My takeaway: (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Thursday, June 01, 2017, 12:10 (2973 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

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

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

What a disappointment. Really puts into perspective what Bungie decided was vital to ship in Destiny 1 Version 1. Their focus doesn't usually seem to be in the right places, it just happened that a few passionate people managed to pull the successful bits together. On a game the scale of Destiny 1 with a team as large as it is now, if the majority of the studio is misaligned, a few good actors can't influence the final product the way they once could. In fact, the fact that it was likely a smaller team working in some relative isolation on the Vault of Glass is how that turned out so well

Regarding what Bungie decided to ship in vanilla Destiny, it seems obvious that Destiny development was troubled, and therefore their choices were probably extremely limited at a certain point in the schedule. That's likely because they made poor choices early on, but I doubt those choices looked poor at the time (or not focused on the right things, as you put it). I take your point about smaller teams being able to focus and deliver better content, and it seems like Bungie has taken that approach for a while now with their DLC. That given me optimism, as does the explicit comments that Smith and Noseworthy have made about keeping groups alignmed. Also, Bungie has a history of more than making up for past mistakes in their sequels.