i dont really dig activision, and i havent liked much from bungie in a long while, but marathon was one of my favorites.
Durandal for president!
Bungie-Activision contract calls for Destiny in 2013
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Developer's contract with Activision calls for timed exclusivity of MMO-style first game on Xbox 360 and Xbox 720; Marathon revamp mentioned.
When Bungie signed its publishing partnership with Activision, the developer committed to four games and four downloadable add-ons in eight years, with the first set for release exclusively on the Xbox 360 and its successor in 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times. A PlayStation 3 version of the game would be planned to follow in the fall of 2014. The details come from Bungie's 2010 contract with Activision, which was recently unsealed as part of the publisher's ongoing legal dispute with Jason West and Vince Zampella, co-founders of original Call of Duty studio Infinity Ward.
The paper reports that the original agreement had Bungie on the hook to deliver four "massively multiplayer-style…sci-fantasy, action shooter games" under the code name "Destiny." The quartet would kick off in the fall of 2013 with a game for the Xbox 360 and its successor, with subsequent installments to launch every second year thereafter for Sony's consoles and PCs as well. For the years in between those main installments in the series, Bungie would produce downloadable expansion packs under the code name "Comet." The first such add-on was slated to hit in 2014.
In addition to the Activision projects, the contract revealed a possible revamp of Bungie's Marathon series of shooters. Under the agreement, Bungie can devote up to 5 percent of its staff to work on an action shooter prototype for the franchise.
The deal also lays out royalty payments and bonuses for the developer, with Bungie receiving 20-35 percent of operating income from its titles, and $2.5 million a year from 2010 through 2013 if it met certain milestones. Bungie will also receive $2.5 million if the first title in the Destiny series receives an average critic score of 90 or better on GameSpot sister site and reviews aggregator GameRankings.com.
Bungie hasn't detailed release plans or platforms for its first series for Activision, and these plans were only current as of the April 16, 2010, signing of the contract. The deal was signed just four days after West and Zampella announced a partnership with Electronic Arts for their new studio, Respawn Entertainment.
As of press time, an Activision representative had not returned GameSpot's request for comment.
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
160 comments
I dont like Activitision, was a dissapoint when I knew about bungie's and Activision contrat and more dissapoint for infinity ward, but bungie is free to do anything with that project, plus is invinity ward ppl is working with them, I hope be wrong but some COD influences can be there, I like halo but I am specting something diferent no Halo, no F@g fo duty.
Seems to me the next thing to saturate the video game market will be SciFi Shooter MMOs. I can think of three off the top of my head: Planetside 2, Dust 514 (My pick for which one I'll play.), and now this.
Why do I have a feeling that this is just going to be Halo but with different looking combat armor. Also, ew. Activision.
@varunvikram1 lol agreed. But alot of people don't so they probably will make an assload of money :P
First person shooter, plus MMO...AND, if they put in some forging, then it will sell. I think that's the future of games - allowing gamers to forge their own worlds, stories...kind of like Minecraft. It's hit or miss...
2 Like sorry but i just have a very strong feeling that their new game won't blow people away the same way halo did. they went way downhill with halo reach, so my expectations and anticipations are extremely low for their new game.
1 Like I agree - seemed they lacked motivation and creativity for Halo Reach. Especially since they slapped on the multiplayer maps.
If I have to wait a year for the same game to come out on PC or PS3/4, don't expect me to buy it Bungie.
1 Like @Ovirew I don't have to play it right away, but why should I get excited for a 2013 game released in 2014 as a simple port, probably with no improvements (as they'll be working on the expansion pack and next game in the series) and when new games coming out in 2014 will probably blow it away?
@kkee Yeah, but then that 2014 sequel won't come out until 2015 right?
And also, a year isn't really that much time. There have been games that got ported to other consoles over a year later. A lot of 360 exclusive games, mainly JRPGs, have been since ported to the PS3 over a year later. And some of them still did pretty well despite that.
I guess my opinion is that if the game is really good and worth getting, then it will be worth getting and playing over a year after its release. If it isn't, then is it even worth getting at all?
2 Like If Bungie can survive Microsoft they can survive Activison. I still have great faith in Bungie.
@DudeoftheRock how can you say that they blew halo with halo reach!!!!! I still have my doubts about 343 but they will make halo better.
1 Like Bungie, after being one of the few developers to 'get things consistantly right' over the last decade, need to tread vvvveeeerrrrryyyy carefully now...
1 Like I think Activision is going to run Bungie right into the ground. They had more freedom with MICROSOFT of all companies! A 3 year gap between each Halo game! Games take longer to make now, yet publishers are giving less and less time. Not to Mention Bungie lost a lot of members to 343 industries...
1 Like The only sincere MMO effort for consoles that I can think of was FFXI, and that still has a massive fan base on consoles. If they made this decent, free-roaming MMO world with typical Bunjie shooter action, I don't see any reason for it to fail. Contrary to popular belief, consoles can handle more than 16 people in one area.
@MooncalfReviews Actually, it doesn't even have to be a shooter (thought it's Activision so I'm sure that's probably what they want/expect). Bungie did make Myth after all too.
1 Like A few people commenting seem to be a little confused. The game will be an "MMO", there has been no word of it being an MMORPG.
4 Like " Bungie will also receive $2.5 million if the first title in the Destiny series receives an average critic score of 90 or better on GameSpot sister site and reviews aggregator GameRankings.com."
This says a whole lot about the reviews you read. More like a pay to win game.
2 Like @FoxbatAlpha And, on the flip side of that coin, it tells of how much impact a poorly written "lower tier" reviewer can make on people's paychecks. Go to metacritic.com right now and click on the critics reviews tab for a current game.. say Max Payne 3. Some of those sites are... sketchy.
$2.5 million is a big check to bank on the "sketchy" coming through with insight and intelligible thought. No?
Is this a counter attack to Dust? Seems like so, they both are sci-fi shooters, and are MMO's.
2014 for PS3?
Well that's weird.. I kind of expected the new consoles for all parties to be out by then.
I'll keep an eye on it that's for sure, but I'm pretty 'shooter'erd out at the moment.
Providing it lives up to the brilliance that was Halo 1 & 2 then i'll be interested. After that though I pretty much lost interest in Bungie.
@warhawk-geeby Think how long the PS1 lived and the PS2 still going now.
As for an mmo shooter, I did enjoy MAG for a while, an improved version of that would be nice... But not interested if it's Halo/Cod clone.
um excited 2 see what bungie will do with this new title, but besides the name, i don't this it will be that different from fps mmo that other game devolpers dish out, still i will follow this til i got a better look at what this game is.Maybe e3 will short out my questions.
and i expect that game to be a copy of dust 514
ps3 then they will port it to the ps4
bungie do the same
but anw CCP has WAY brains..they know how mmos works bungie nothing at all
quality,gameplay CCP-DUST514 already won this
2 Like console mmo ?
its gonna fail big time dont care if its bungie or wtf big studios
the game will be dead in less than 6months
Xbox 720? Is that really professional, now? I find it difficult swallowing the term 'Next Xbox' from you guys and now you're officially calling it the Xbox 720? As the member below me has said, you should avoid using speculative terms as fact. Just call it the next Xbox (notice there is no capital letter on the word 'next') and hope you get away with it if Microsoft decide not to continue the 'Xbox' name.
I, for one, can't see how they could continue the Xbox name and stay original at the same time; it's probably time to evolve from it.
What's wrong with "Xbox 3" or "Xbox 720"? I'd rather that than name it something dorky like the "Wii-U" or "Vita".
"Xbox 3" on its own just sounds silly considering the 2nd (Current One) was called the Xbox [3]60. And 720 just sounds silly altogether to me and lots of other people apparently.
Xbox 720 - is that the official name? If not, I think the press should try to avoid stating speculative terms as fact. Not everyone reads game news as much as you do!
@Slagar "720" is only used in the subheader to save space. It is not used in the article.
@Slagar Glad to see you didn't miss the point of this article. I'll be surprised if 720 is the final name for it, but it's an apt working title that's been around for a few years now. Wouldn't be the first time a game or hardware has been known as one thing and given a new title at the last minute.
"The deal also lays out royalty payments and bonuses for the developer, with Bungie receiving 20-35 percent of operating income from its titles, and $2.5 million a year from 2010 through 2013 if it met certain milestones." Uh-oh! Sounds like someone's getting fired. Has Microsoft payed big money to get this first game as an exclusive? It's not like Activision to miss an opportunity to make some money by pimping a game out to everyone.
@u1tradt No I appreciate that you weren't taking issue with the credibility of what I said. What I meant was that it appeared you had issue with the credibility of the X-IW guys. I wasn't trying to turn this into a long-winded discussion about the whole affair. It was just a joke. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go facepalm myself with a brick wall.
Regarding my post: I meant they grossed upwards of half a billion, not made gross profits at that amount.
@PlatinumPaladin @u1tradt I never said what you said doesn't have credibility; there was no sarcasm in my post.
However I, personally, don't have much sympathy with the ex-Infinity Ward guys. As far as I'm concerned Activision got rid of them for disloyalty. Why would Activision sweat about giving them their royalties when they're involved in such a lucrative franchise?
I mean you have a franchise here that, for the past 3 years in a row, has made gross profits upwards of half a billion dollars within 5 days of the games's release. Why would Activision worry about a couple of million (at the most) in royalties when they're making that sort of money?
@u1tradt The ex-Infinity members accuse Activision of firing them so that they didn't have to be paid their royalties and bonus'. Jokes don't need to take a person's credibility into consideration. I was joking that Activision would cut their deal with Bungie short of paying them the last of the money that they owed.
@PlatinumPaladin @u1tradt Well, the whole trial with the ex-Infinity Ward members is based on Activision firing them for conspiring to leave Activision and take their game with them to a direct competitor. Based on that alone, I wouldn't believe everything those ex-Infinity Ward guys are saying. I can't see why or how Activision wouldn't pay Bungie their bonus fees if they meet their targets anyway.
I get the Microsoft paying big money part now. You may have a point there. However it also may be possible that their previous contract with Microsoft probably had a clause in it that prevents Bungie from releasing their games on a different platform for a certain amount of time after they eventually do decide to leave Microsoft. That would explain why the game would be released on PS3 2 years later. Although your point also has credibility here.
I still don't understand who's going to get fired though.
@u1tradt None of it?!? Okay. The part about the first game being an exclusive is fairly self-explanatory. As for the "someone's getting fired" part: the whole royalty payments, bonuses and milestone based payments is part of the charges the ex-Infinity Ward members accuse Activision of not following through with. It's a joke.
@PlatinumPaladin @u1tradt Pretty much everything after your quote. None of it makes any sense.
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