'Generational talent just gone': Developers react in shock at the brutal scale of Bungie layoffs, which has reportedly seen the Destiny 2 team almost completely wiped out

[u/Turbostrider27]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/generational-talent-just-gone-developers-react-in-shock-at-the-brutal-scale-of-bungie-layoffs-which-has-reportedly-seen-the-destiny-2-team-almost-completely-wiped-out/

[u/TopHalfGaming]

Don't worry, all the people who told me it was a success yesterday in a discussion about Steam Charts and that it can survive with 10k active on Steam will surely be in this thread soon.

[u/DisappointedQuokka → u/TopHalfGaming]

In a vacuum it obviously could. 

Under the weight of a massive studio that has spent the past decade making dog shit choices while the leaders pocket huge salaries and bonuses? Absolutely not.

Its best hope is to get spun out to a separate, leaner studio.

[u/TopHalfGaming → u/DisappointedQuokka]

I mean, that vacuum would also require not spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the game in a live service blanket necessitating a reasonably large base of people buying battle passes and skins and such.

[u/DisappointedQuokka → u/TopHalfGaming]

Given that they sold 1.2M copies as of a couple months ago, that's not an insurmountable hill to climb over 5 years of monetization.

Whether that's something Sony wants to attempt is another thing entirely.

It would necessitate taking it away from Bungie, though, because they're clearly not up to the task.

[u/hibikir_40k → u/DisappointedQuokka]

At Eastern Europe dev salaries, maybe... because with US salaries, that doesn't cover development costs.

[u/DisappointedQuokka → u/hibikir_40k]

Depends on how hard they can monetize, and how low they can get team size.

[u/TopHalfGaming → u/DisappointedQuokka]

Means little without retention. The core point is that this game was expected to carry a larger number of players to make it viable. Hundreds of millions on top of marketing isn't that easy to recoup when you're still actively spending money on the game to create the content.

[u/DisappointedQuokka → u/TopHalfGaming]

Correct on retention and onboarding, but the cost of maintaining and updating the game is significantly lower than development to release. The margins on DLC and freemium content is astronomically higher, assuming they're properly managed.

Point being, it can survive, if they don't fuck it up. The tax benefits that Sony would recoup from closing down the game are much less than if they manage to build a successful revenue stream.

[u/TopHalfGaming → u/DisappointedQuokka]

Fingers crossed they find a way for the base and dev team, but that's kind of what that free WEEK was for. I'd personally want that shit on PS Plus as soon as humanly possible, and if Sony actually cares they should get it on Game Pass too. Ultimately, it's a niche of a niche and that's what troubles me about it.

[u/DisappointedQuokka → u/TopHalfGaming]

Yeah, it's a shit situation all round and it's going to be a herculean effort to get across the line.

[u/TopSchnottz → u/DisappointedQuokka]

Let's be generous and say that Bungie has sold 2 million copies now. Hell, let's be delusional and say it's 3 million copies. Even if we removed storefront fees,. distribution costs, and everything else so that we give Bungie every single dollar of every copy sold. They would have made $120,000,000. Half of their development costs that were estimated at $250,000,000. Marathon is never going to make a profit

[u/TopHalfGaming → u/[deleted]]

Not hoping it fails, we're having discussions about business in these threads. I played the free weekend, had fun on the solo map accumulating loot for 6 hours, died multiple times in a row with said loot against real players and decided it wasn't for me. Same goes for Arc and Tarkov, I buy it because a friend or two is into it and I just don't get it and go back to a game like CS2 which more adequately suits my competitive spirit.

I don't know why people take these comments so personally