By Nelson Schneider - 12/10/23 at 02:17 PM CT
It’s always kind of bittersweet to see something we once loved start turning into doo-doo. As a former Squaresoft fan, I know the feeling well. But more recent generations of Gamers are getting to experience some of that despair with the ongoing downfall of former-Microsoft-studio-turned-third-party-turned-Sony-studio, Bungie.
We will probably never know the full story of why Microsoft allowed the former ‘Halo’ studio to buy its independence after 7 years of servitude in 2007. However, we did get to witness Activision-Blizzard (now officially part of Microsoft) take the blame for ‘ruining’ Bungie and saddling their shiny new ‘Destiny’ IP with a variety of unsavory monetization features.
We also witnessed Bungie fans singing the praises of the studio gaining full independence from the Corporate Games Industry to become a small-time Indie studio, since surely that would remedy all of the ills plaguing their game(s). Right? Wrong! And don’t call me Shirley!
Bungie continued acting in ways contrary to what the fanbase (and Gamers at large) expected and wanted. I personally had enough of them when they gutted all of the legacy content from “Destiny 2” in order to put more pressure on players to buy new content, when they attempted to ‘Sunset’ all legacy equipment (effectively forcing long-time “Destiny 2” players to re-grind their entire loadout, seasonally), and when they added kernel-level DRM in the form of BattlEye to the game in order to protect a PvP mode I hated and refused to play anyway.
After that clean break a couple years ago, my personal experience with the continued downfall of Bungie has been filled with gleeful schadenfreude. It would come to pass, not so long ago, that Bungie was having money troubles, and so sold themselves to Sony for a few billion dollars, in a mockery of the massive Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. But being bought up by a first-party publisher and console maker doesn’t seem to have done anything for Bungies misfortunes, especially since both Bungie and Sony seem to think Live Service games still have some sort of bright future.
As of last month, with the release of the Season of the Wish, “Destiny 2” reported the lowest player engagement numbers in franchise history. To make matters worse, there is reportedly boardroom talk between the studio and Sony stating that if Bungie can’t get it together and start making good, profitable games again, their independent board of directors will be dissolved and fully replaced by Sony. As icing on my personal Germanic Emotional Suffering cake, it seems that the first big budget cuts at Bungie as it attempts to right its listing ship have all been to the studio’s recently-added DEI departments (which they call IDEA, by rearranging some of the letters).
Ultimately, though, as far as I’m concerned, Bungie and Sony are made for each other. They’re both has-beens in Gaming who have simultaneously and incongruously sold-out to both greed and Woke pandering. When – not if – Bungie fails to keep its freedom, I don’t actually see anything changing with Sony toadies at the helm. It’s time to grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the dumpster fire.
