In the Marathon and Myth era, it was clearly both-- and on the Mac side at least there were not a lot of engine options, to the point that they were the ones licensing an engine for use.

If you are referring to Damage Incorporated, Richard Rouse was a friend of Alex Seropian's. Bungie never licensed their engines on a scale comparable to other comapanies' engines. In fact, I can only think of Damage Incorporated / Prime Target, and Stubbs the Zombie off the top of my head.

Reading through the 343i section... I guess a lot of people are right to skip it. It doesn't feel like I'm hearing from the people who made the games. Kiki and Bonnie and Frankie and Ryan feel more like upper level managers who never crawled into the guts of the engine with a map and a box of wrenches, you know? They talk about concepts and they talk about creating, but it's shallower and less detailed than the Bungie employees who could say who the level designer was and what content almost wound up on the chopping block.

It might be partly because of the focus of the piece. I remember telling Claude how excited I was writing a segment for my own book on the differences between the Halo and Oni animation systems (they both had very different features. In some aspects Oni was superior, and in others Halo was).

His response (jokingly) was that only the most die hard fan would even care about that. As people have said elsewhere, most of that wasn't printed in the Vice piece anyway because it was focused on the drama and conflict. And 343 is not going to speak freely about that kind of thing, so naturally they come off less interesting.

Do you know why the infamous "This cave is not a natural formation" line wound up being so out of place? Want to know why the Elites' voices were backwards pitch shifted Johnsons? Ever curious why Cortana uses some British idioms like "Sod off!"? Where did the symbols on the back of the Elites come from? When was the Warthog born? What was the exact moment Jason Jones decided to switch to first person and why? What aspects of Halo made John Carmack jealous? How much exactly did Microsoft pay for Bungie?

You'll have to read a different history book for stuff like that.

What it's like to still enjoy Halo in 2017

https://twitter.com/TheHALOMemes/status/869723078854680576?s=09

Holy shit. Send the covfefe back their bomb! Hilarious.

THAT SAID, You'd think that with all they learned about making Halo over the years that the whole starting-over-Destiny-mid-cycle thing wouldn't have happened.... I mean, c'mon. You guys have done this before..... did you not learn from the mistakes?

THEY may have learned, but certain other people may not have…

Nobody has given the real reason and full context for Destiny's troubles. I'm wondering if Jason Schreier's book will present the whole picture.

Jason Schreier's book will likely just be a compilation of regurgitated internet-facts most of us already know.

That is possible. For instance, his article on the 'supercut' was technically correct in that the facts were all right, but it again did not provide the context for why the supercut was the way it was. Context which would make Joe look much more favorable. I know he knows this, so I would be willing to bet his book will dig a little deeper.

Like, even this mega article was 95% known facts with a little bit of 5% new for 'ah!' moment that tied some parts together more.

If someone is chatty enough to talk, they're gonna be chatty to others, so anything they've said have already likely percolated to the internet. That's why I assume it'll be mostly a collection of stuff we already know, a little nugget that is new, some other stuff that's basic_game_development_problems.doc and some tabloidification to make it more spicy looking than it actually is.

https://twitter.com/TheHALOMemes/status/869723078854680576?s=09

Geeze.

Where do I start?

...

*sigh*

While the particulars are new, the jest received from this lengthy verbatim of text is not for me. After all, this is an industry I've been trying to jump into for a fair amount of time. The grass is high. The waves are large. The rocks craggy and sharp. The gray sky is infinite and mixed with the salty air of critical clueless gamers. You have to be the right kind of crazy (or incredibly naive) yet skilled to swim those waters. It also helps if you have a friend and aren't a total ass.

There is no (overall) shortage of digital craftsmen and woman in the videogame industry. This is an industry that has taken some of those who would been implied by necessity into a desk job to instead be able to draw their own wings and be paid for it. Wings of line, of sound, & of code. This isn't to say there isn't a desk job or two in the industry, it's just - a different sort of dress code usually.

I have mentioned this sort of thing in the past, yet I shall say it again, but far more directly - Management. Management. Management.

The difference is healthy alert staff and a game that ships on time (usually) or soul crushed, exhausted & used up staff smashed into a paste with a game - that might not ship AT ALL! Where it can all be lost and locked behind the NDA vaults. No updated Demo Reel for you! Oh!... and overtime/crunch time is apparently paid with food, because money is expensive.

Not only that, but with a sea of creatives you have to watch out for the most dangerous sea creature of them all - FEATURE CREEP! (*1930 Horror Scream Goes here*)

If you aren't careful about where you put your resources, that sucker will tip your ship over, and leave you for dead. It's a slow death. Fortunately, presuming the features aren't tied down into the core of the ship, you can throw features overboard and appease the beast.

...

I am having way too much fun with this sea/ship metaphor. ^_^ ... I digress...

TL;DR

Games are the Tuna. Calvin is the one paying the bills (*Oh lawd - what a thought*). Game Devs go through with all this madness because game devs LOVE TUNA!...er... GAMES! The problem is, Calvin knows it and abuses are made.

-----------------------------------------------------

I'll reply to this post with my more Halo-centric thoughts later on.

Where can I preorder your book?

Watch for my next Kickstarter.

You're going to kill my market! :-p

By the way, Echoes of the First Dreamer is almost here.

Don't tell anyone.

- Marty

Enjoyed your contributions to that article, Marty. I hope you are well.

Thanks for your gracious reply.

I just re-read that part of the article, and you're correct! It really can be misinterpreted.

I work with Jaime everyday and I guarantee he didn't actually mean that Halo 2 had a skeleton crew. I'll ask him what he really meant or said.

The really hard part about history, is not only who is writing it, but how well people actually remember stuff. I truly believe that my memory is spot on.

Until someone actually corrects it.

Overall, the story was accurate. I'll be happy to chime in with my recollections (as flawed as they might be) from time to time.

The main thing I want to get across is just how much pleasure and enjoyment we all got out of working on Halo all those years, despite how hard it got.

- Marty

[*]Halo 2 was left with a "skeleton crew" at one point while the rest of the team was working on a different game. While I expect that's an exaggeration, the sentiment that a large portion of the team was not working on Halo 2 shows that there wasn't a lot of heart in developing it.

Dear Mr. Effortless,

Sorry to butt in on this private conversation - I've learned the hard way that nothing is private on the internet.

Even with so many of us being interviewed at separate times, and still so many others in the world that could have been interviewed, a couple of interesting observations by me.

The story is pretty well written and accurate.

People (such as yourself) still misinterpret what you read.

Halo 2 by no means had a "skeleton crew" ever. The entire team was working on Halo 2. Except for a few people who were promised that they could work on Phoenix/Gypsum. The problem was (in my opinion of course) that Jason left the Halo 2 team as the creative lead and went to work with the Gypsum team. The leadership of Halo 2 was not clear at that point, but we had plenty of people working really hard on it.

And they all put their hearts into it.

I have some amazing fond memories of all my years at Bungie. Those memories won't make news, but they might make it into my book.

- Marty

Thank you for chiming in, Marty; your reply is much appreciated. My use of "skeleton crew" was a quote from the article by Jaime Griesemer. Its entirely possible the quote was an exaggeration placed out of context and my apologies for perhaps interpreting it wrong. Much respect to you and your work. I cherish the Halo and Destiny soundtracks more than most music in my library.

[*]Halo 2 was left with a "skeleton crew" at one point while the rest of the team was working on a different game. While I expect that's an exaggeration, the sentiment that a large portion of the team was not working on Halo 2 shows that there wasn't a lot of heart in developing it.

Dear Mr. Effortless,

Sorry to butt in on this private conversation - I've learned the hard way that nothing is private on the internet.

Even with so many of us being interviewed at separate times, and still so many others in the world that could have been interviewed, a couple of interesting observations by me.

The story is pretty well written and accurate.

People (such as yourself) still misinterpret what you read.

Halo 2 by no means had a "skeleton crew" ever. The entire team was working on Halo 2. Except for a few people who were promised that they could work on Phoenix/Gypsum. The problem was (in my opinion of course) that Jason left the Halo 2 team as the creative lead and went to work with the Gypsum team. The leadership of Halo 2 was not clear at that point, but we had plenty of people working really hard on it.

And they all put their hearts into it.

I have some amazing fond memories of all my years at Bungie. Those memories won't make news, but they might make it into my book.

- Marty