Destiny Dev Says Activision Understands the Art of Making Games

Not only does big-name publisher Activision know how to sell games, but the company is also well-versed in the art of actual game production. That's according to Bungie director of production Jonty Barnes, who had nothing but praise for Destiny's publisher in a recent interview with OXM. Asked if Bungie needed to challenge Activision on any game ideas, Barnes said this was not the case.

"No, I don't think so," he said. "I mean, I think they're just very smart--they understand the games industry. I've worked with a lot of publishers over the years, obviously as it's my 25th year, and I was certainly impressed with the expertise that they had and the amount of gamers that exist within the organization."

"Quite often you can meet some very smart business people, but they don't really understand the art of games, but I've been very impressed with Activision," he added. "So... they pay very particular attention because I feel that they really care about what the game is rather than just doing their jobs."

Overall, Barnes described Activision as a "great partner," and one with the resources and expertise to help Destiny reach a large audience. "We wanted to make sure we reached as many players as possible, and we had something, as you can imagine now, with Destiny, if you think going back to the early days of our agreement signing with Activision, it was a hugely ambitious project and a huge thing for us to be doing," he said. "And they've been a great partner and being an ambitious partner to match that so... yeah. I've got nothing but great things to say about them."

Bungie and Activision signed a decade-long, exclusive publishing deal in 2010. According to Bungie-Activision contract details that emerged in 2012, Bungie is planning to release follow-ups to Destiny every other year following its release next month. However, there is some reason to doubt that this might be the case, as the documents also indicated that Destiny would be exclusive to Xbox 360 and Xbox One for the first year.

This is not only not the reality of the situation (Destiny will be released on all platforms simultaneously), but in fact, Bungie has closely aligned with Microsoft competitor Sony for Destiny in a number of ways.

Destiny launches September 9 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4. Bungie recently confirmed that the game will not support player-to-player trading, at least not at launch. For more on Destiny, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.