Bungie saw Halo Wars as 'whoring out' the franchise - Report

lol, if Halo Wars was "whoring out" then every game after is gang-rape. Or something.

how is this news? any who it is an old story, developers wanting to do a good game, and publisher getting in the middle and messing up "good" part.

Well at least it ended up a pretty decent game. I understand Bungie's position, they don't want to give cannon fodder to the idiots that just want to scream about things being milked nor do they want to let the brand quality slide (which is a potential risk when handing it over to someone else) but overall I don't think it's really too bad. People who want to buy Halo buy Halo, it's very convenient that early on in development the original Halo kept switching between being FPS and RTS anyway and that the game is focused around a war so why they'd think an RTS game would somehow be so bad is beyond me. If it was a dodgy action game then yeah, but we're talking about a pretty good fit, that turned out pretty well and was handed to a pretty good dev studio.

Good game in the end.

I loved halo wars, the only RTS game I have been able to play on consoles since the good old C&C games

While they have a good point, HW was still a fairly good game. Would have been better if the Flood were a playable race, though....

I liked the game, 'course I would have to admit I'm not some idiot, and went in buying the game thinking it was an FPS. I knew what I was getting into, and I liked Halo wars, still do... I spent 3 months playing the Multiplayer... it was fun.

I'm not surprised about Bungie, they've been that way for a while now... anyone remember them charging a Million dollars just to look at a Script for the Halo movie? Bungie's reasoning for charging that much money to look at a "pitch" was, "at least we know they are serious, and not wasting our time." I guess they were protecting the Halo franchise...

Its sad they gave it up and left...

HaloWars was a good game. Esemblem did a good job on that one.

at least it wasn't as bad as guitar hero...they drove themselves off a cliff with that franchise....

They were absolutely right all the way around, maybe the best RTS on consoles.

Thought it turned out to be a great game, it's naive to think the brand didn't mean double the sales it would have gotten otherwise.

Bet this affected Bungie's thoughts on Microsoft big time. Wonder if Bungie would still be associated with Microsoft if M$ hadn't have done this? We'll never know.

Yes, it was whoring out. The sad thing is that it probably did sell better because it was attached to Halo. Gamers can't complain about the lack of new IP's if all we do is gobble up sequels and spinoffs.

Ah yes, this gives me a good excuse to say "ALL UNITS!"

That's too bad that Bungie felt that way... I think Halo Wars is a pretty fun game (though it does muddy the story waters a bit, it doesn't do it too badly). Too bad there will probably never be a sequel.

They shouldn't have called it Halo in a bid to attract the Halo fans, shooter fans are not likely to go to a strategy game since a strategy game requires patience, thought and taking your time to do things right, while a shooter is little more than running around shooting anything that moves.

The game should have been named and done differently while still being a strategy game. The obsession and fad with catering to shooter fans is tiresome and frankly needs to stop.

That's kind of funny, because Halo was an RTS game early in its development. Bungie thought it would be cool to experience the battles from "inside the helmet" and it evolved into the FPS we saw debuted at MacWorld. Then Microsoft got their hands on it and again further altered the concept.

I don't get why Goodman is saying this now. Halo Wars is a good game and received good reviews from Halo fans.

Isn't he kind of biting the hand that feeds him, in a way? Why would he be upset about releasing a successful game? Sounds like a great way to burn bridges.

That's because it kind of was. Then again, so was ODST, priced at $60. So Bungie can hardly stand on their pedestal.

That's rather ridiculous. It wasn't that bad of a game and to say it was whoring out their franchise is a bit of a stretch.

I really enjoyed that game, more so than any other RTS on a console in fact. Shame they didn't want it made in the first place.

thats what you get for selling your soul to big corporations. guess money can buy everything these days even principles.

In addition... Any franchise based around a conflict is screaming for a RTS release.

Well I thought it was good and it tied in perfectly so :p

It was one of the better RTS on consoles, but RTS just arent very good on consoles.

'Why don't you just paint over what you have with Halo stuff?' - You gotta love MBA corporate muppets sticking their nose into development issues.

Halo Wars was a good game. A rare RTS that plays well on consoles. I can see why Bungie would have been pissed. Halo Wars worked out luckily

Having read this, it's unthinkable this ever has been released.

Cool story.

i dunno i liked the game... sure it's not my fav RTS game but it's still good

Umm wasn't it Bungie that wanted to make the first Halo a strategy game to begin with.

Awww poor babies. Maybe they shouldn't have "whored out" the whole damn company to Microsoft in the first place, then bailing on the whole thing releasing rights to the Halo brand. It's their own fault, they let money and greed influence their decisions and they have to live with the consequence. Oh damn well, cry me a river.