Recently, Bungie ushered in the 30th anniversary of the company's founding, whether it was the former Halo or now Destiny, Bungie's contribution to the field of FPS games is obvious to all. Spencer, head of Microsoft Xbox, also said in a recent interview: "Now Microsoft has the ability to keep Bungie, but I also understand the temptation to create a career independently as an independent company."
Today, let's review Bungie's entrepreneurial history, which is more or less a story about independence, and Microsoft's "old enemy" Apple appears quite frequently...
(1991-2000, entrepreneurial stage)
The timeline goes back to the 1990s, when Alexander Seropia, a mathematics student at the University of Chicago, inspired to start his own company, having previously made the free-to-play game Gnop!, which resembles PONG, which simulates two people playing table tennis. Srobia received a lot of attention as a result, and some people even wanted to buy the source code of the game, so the game company became his first choice, and In 1991Bungie came into being.
That same year, Bungie released its first commercial game, and the first since the company's founding, Operation: Desert Storm. The game was largely funded by Srobia's friends and family, who released it under the company's name before Bungie was officially founded, eventually selling about 2,500 copies.
Then, another "protagonist" of Bungie, Jason Jones, met Srobia in an artificial intelligence class at the University of Chicago. Jason was trying to make his own game, Minotaur, but the engine was rough overall. Obviously, Srobia did not miss the partner, and we were able to see the later story, it can be said that the meeting between the two made Bungie's original personnel framework take shape.
Srobia worked with Jason to further flesh out the game, which was finally released in 1992 as Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete. The game differs in that it relies on the then-less common Internet modem and AppleTalk protocol, and rarely supports running multiplayer mode. Of course, players can also choose the single-player exploration mode, but this mode has no final goal and only helps to discover how the various props in the maze work.
Although the title also sold only about 2,500 copies, Bungie then licensed the game engine to Paranoid Productions, which used the engine to create Odyssey: the Legend of Nemesis, which brought a rare benefit to Bungie in the early days of entrepreneurship and allowed them to start their next project.
Fast forward to 1993, And Then Bungie Studios launched the first-person shooter for Apple's Mac, Pathways into Darkness. The title received critical acclaim and multiple awards when it was released, making it Bungie's first commercially successful game.
Inspired by Wehrmacht Headquarters 3D, The Road to Darkness was originally designed as a 3D version of Minotaurs: Labyrinth of Crete. But Bungie soon discovered that the top-down view mode of the previous game was not suitable for three-dimensional visual presentation. And the need for a high threshold of online systems, to the game marketing brings many difficulties. To avoid the same dilemma in the new game, Bungie reworked the game's underlying design so that it no longer depends on the network.
Jason recalls that in addition to programming the game, he was also responsible for writing the plot and game manuals, and Srobia was in charge of Bungie's business, as well as designing packaging boxes and promotional materials for the game. The shortage of manpower made the development extremely cramped, but thanks to the help of Jason's friend Colin Brent, he designed most of the environment and creatures of The Road to Darkness, which greatly reduced Jason's workload, and Brent's skills in art were better than Jason's. After the release, on Macworld, many players posted praise for the game's graphics and smooth operation, and the monsters in it were greatly praised. At that time, many players felt that they were not just things drawn with lines, but a stylized product of many whimsical ideas.
In the end, more than 20,000 copies of the game were sold, far exceeding Bungie's expectations. And won Apple MAC Games' "Adventure Game of the Year Award" and Macworld's "Best Role-Playing Game Award". The studio then used the money it earned to expand the team and rented a dedicated office on Chicago's South Side. After moving to the new location, he began to work on another first-person shooter, Marathon.
Released for Apple Macs in December 1994, Marathon was the first game in the Marathon Trilogy series, and Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity were released in 1995 and 1996, respectively.
Marathon's science fiction theme seemed particularly new at the time, and Marathon's mission was to travel to the universe and establish colonies on its fourth planet. At the beginning of the game, the player is riding a shuttle machine returning to Marathon from the colony when an alien ship attacks the system... In addition to the main single-player mode, Marathon also has a multiplayer deathmatch mode that can accommodate 8 players to play within the same LAN. After the game was exhibited at the Macworld Expo Apple Eco Show, player enthusiasm was particularly high, and orders flocked to it.
There is no doubt that Marathon was a commercial success, selling more than 100,000 copies before Its release and eventually over 150,000 copies in October 1995. Several media outlets gave high ratings, winning Macworld's "Best Online Game Award" in 1995, and Computer Game World in 1996 also named the game the 64th best game ever. Looking back now, Marathon has been called a powerful response to the shortage of games on Apple's Mac. In 2012, Time magazine also listed it as one of the 100 best video games of all time.
However, Bungie announced that the game would be ported to Windows 95, and many Mac players were not very happy, but Bungie did not change its cross-platform strategy, and the Windows 95 port was released in September 1996.
The success of "Marathon" allowed Bungie to officially gain a foothold in the game industry, and also laid the foundation for the success of the next two sequels. Marathon 2 uses an updated version of the original game engine, supporting higher resolutions and higher color depths, which not only improves the loading speed of players, but also adds many environmental sounds to the game. The most notable improvement to marathon infinity was the addition of Bungie's own level creation software, Forge, and their physics and in-game image editor Anvil, which allowed players to create their own levels and scenes using the same tools as the Bungie developers. Obviously, this development concept has also been carried over to Halo.
Bungie went on to release Myth: The Fallen Lords in 1997, Myth II: Soulblighter in 1998, and Oni in 2001. But between the length of the article here will not be introduced, since the mention of "Halo", Microsoft is also time to appear.
(2000-2007, Microsoft era)
Bungie was one of the best developers of Mac games, and in 1999 they announced their next game, Halo. Originally a cross-platform work planned to land on Windows and Mac, Apple "boss" Steve Jobs was also publicly displayed at the 1999 Macworld Expo Apple Ecology Exhibition.
However, at this time, a few people,000 Bungie suffered a financial crisis in the research and development stage, and even on the verge of bankruptcy, continuing to be a Mac game developer is obviously not a wise choice. There are many reasons why Bungie accepted Microsoft's acquisition invitation, but the stable development environment of the Xbox platform should be an advantage that cannot be ignored. Jason, one of the founders, said in an interview that at that time, several companies threw olive branches to Bungie, and they were worried that other companies just wanted to buy a ported version of the Mac or did not have a detailed development plan.
The aforementioned Myth 2: Ghost Messenger had a serious malicious bug that would empty the user's hard drive, resulting in a large number of recalls before the game was released. Bungie also lost a lot of money as a result, coupled with repeated revisions in the development of Halo, which made accepting the acquisition the most direct solution to financial problems. Bungie founders Srobia and Jason fought for the opinions of others in the studio and eventually agreed to Microsoft's acquisition, becoming first-party members of Microsoft Game Studios.
The later story probably made Apple bitter, Microsoft BOSS Bill Gates and well-known actor Dwayne Johnson teamed up to unveil the original Xbox console for it. At the 2000 E3 Game Show, shortly after the public preview of the original Halo, Microsoft announced that Bungie had been acquired by them, and Halo became the exclusive game of Xbox.
In 2001, with the support of Microsoft, the original halo was officially released as Halo: Combat Evolved. Since then, the ecology of FPS types in the field of console games has been completely changed, and Halo has become one of the most well-known exclusive IP of Xbox. At this time, Bungie was no longer the appearance of the small workshop at that time, and many talents emerged from the mature team. For example, Marcus Lehto, the father of the Sergeant Major, was the first developer to co-produce an early prototype of Halo with Jason. Jaime Griesemer was the "glue" in the development of the Halo series, participating in all aspects of game production, and was also responsible for designing the host-side FPS operation mode that was widely circulated in later generations. Regarding the development team and story of Halo, it is a long article to tell in detail, and we have the opportunity to talk about it in detail.
All in all, Halo: Battle Evolved sold more than 6.5 million copies, allowing Bungie to continue to develop two sequels. Released on November 9, 2004, Halo 2 generated more than $125 million in revenue for Microsoft on its first day and sold more than 7 million copies since its release. Halo 3, released on September 25, 2007, broke the record again, earning $170 million in 24 hours.
The creation of the trilogy established Microsoft Xbox's position in the console game field and made Bungie one of the most well-known developers in the entire gaming world. But it is precisely because everything is on the right track that the contradiction between gameplay and commercialization has begun to appear between the two. Microsoft is conservative about change and evolution in order to ensure sales, but it is clear that Bungie still wants to ensure gameplay as the first priority. Finally, shortly after the release of Halo 3, on October 1, 2007, Microsoft and Bungie officially announced their "breakup" and formed an independent limited liability company, Bungie LLC.
(2007-2019, Activision Blizzard period)
From a small workshop of two people to a well-known development team in the game industry, Bungie's courage to re-choose independence is commendable, but it still comes at a cost. The talents of the development team mentioned above have left a lot due to the development pressure of "Halo", and the company's attribute changes have been lost. More importantly, the intellectual property rights of the Halo IP also remained in the hands of Microsoft, and two more Halo games had to be produced.
At the 2009 E3 Game Show, Bungie unveiled a sequel to the trilogy, Halo: ODST, and in 2010, halo: Reach, the last Halo series developed by Bungie. Bungie then officially ended his corporate career at Microsoft. There is nothing wrong with a commercial cooperation where interests are paramount, a game development team wants to ensure gameplay is also reasonable, the two "break up" in addition to the concept of game development of the deep reasons are now untestable, in the end to explore the right and wrong has no meaning, Bungie story continues.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the number of game companies increased, and the cost of game development also increased rapidly. Separated from Microsoft's "big rich man", Bungie faces increasingly serious industry challenges, and it is reasonable that the independence period is relatively short. On April 29, 2010, Bungie and Activision Bllizard announced plans to launch a partnership.
For the next four years, Bungie produced no new works, and finally came out on September 9, 2014. Bungie COO Pete Parsons said in an interview: "We want people to treat the Destiny universe the way we treat Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars. To achieve this, Bungie and publisher Activision Blizzard have reportedly pledged to sign a $500 million 100 million 100 million deal.
At the 2014 E3 Game Show, one of the founders, Jason Jones, personally unveiled the new game. Since joining Bungie in 1992, Jason has lost the appearance of his youth, but his enthusiasm for games has not diminished. Destiny's exquisite graphics, beautiful music, good first-person shooting sense, characteristic racial styling, and game diversity brought by unique professional skills all make people applaud.
But since it is produced by Bungie, it is inevitable to compare with the company's previous works. Compared to the halo series' immersive single-player campaign, destiny's plot seems to lack that drive, with many players saying that the entire storyline is too obscure and a lot of settings lacking roots that make people full of doubts. In addition, the gameplay of "brush brush brush" has also been criticized, and due to the drop rate problem in the early stage of the game, players need to do the same task repeatedly but it is difficult to get the reward they deserve.
After the release of "Destiny", players can see the potential of the game, but it is difficult to continue to play because of the disadvantages of gameplay, plot and so on. Fortunately, the follow-up update saved some word of mouth, and as of November 2015, the number of registered players reached 25 million, and the final evaluation can be described as a mixed reputation. Although the development cycle of "Destiny" in 4 and 5 years is not short, the release of "Destiny", which was originally scheduled to be released in the autumn of 2013, has been postponed to September 2014, and its plot content and gameplay values and other problems can still let us see the hint of rushing. According to Bungie founder Jason, the game was originally conceived as an open-world work, but the development map was linear due to the plot story, after many modifications disrupted the rhythm of the original development, due to unstable schedule and impractical development tools, which eventually led to unsatisfactory quality in the early stage of the launch.
But in the end, Bungie's "fate" is not completely in his own hands, because of the contract restrictions with Activision Blizzard, the sequel is quickly put on the agenda. Three years later. Released on September 6, 2017, Destiny 2 focuses on gameplay, from the MMOPS model formulated by Destiny to the game. However, the release was still due to the lack of content of the game and received many bad reviews.
However, compared with the previous game "Destiny 2", the overall game rhythm is deliberately slowed down, maintaining an unparalleled shooting feel and sense of blows, and the difference in the sense of blows of different types of weapons is very obvious, but new players have to "toss" for a long time to get their weapons equipped. The plot learns its lesson, and as it is updated, it has constructed a huge worldview with an epic smell. In addition, the author also wants to mention in particular the excellent community atmosphere of "Destiny 2", as a small white into the world, if you are willing to ask the lone wolf stage without shame, you will definitely be able to get the help of countless big guys. Looking at Destiny 2 from today's perspective, I personally think it is already a relatively good work.
(2019-2025, return to independence)
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, Bungie's story is a story about "independence", and many netizens joked: "Bungie is not suitable for other people's sons." About two years after Destiny 2 continued to operate, Bungie once again proposed to terminate the contract with Activision Blizzard, but this time they did not lose their "son", and the intellectual property rights of the Destiny series will continue to be owned and operated by Bungie.
The reason for this independence is actually more obvious, Activision Blizzard has said more than once that the sales of the Destiny series have not met expectations, and Bungie often emphasizes the importance of creating independence. The contradictions between the two sides seem to have a long history, Bungie's talent is beyond doubt, whether it is Halo or Destiny presents an excellent underlying design, but throughout the company's history several times near the release announced major changes or tear down reconstruction is also true, while we criticize Activision Blizzard only focus on profit, Bungie's problems in project management, talent retention and development process can not be ignored. But in any case, Bungie finally "regained freedom" on January 11, 2019.
Peter Parsons, then CEO of Bungie in 2020, said, "You need to make a change when you feel like you're not doing your favorite job or not achieving your goals, when you don't feel like you're one of the greatest entertainment companies in the world, when you don't believe your work will be one of the great achievements in creativity and technology." That's what we do – decisively. ”
Bungie, who has returned to independence, launched the Destiny 2 expansion pack "Moments of Light" last year, and the "Phantom of evil" expansion pack is also scheduled to be released on February 22, 2022, and Bungie's executives also said that they have carried out a number of new project incubation work since 2017, "hoping to launch a game other than Destiny by 2025." After that "decisive", what kind of work will be made, we still don't know, but in the end, the production team that has brought "Halo" and "Destiny" has changed a batch of members, the overall tone is still to make a good game that players like, as long as this atmosphere is still there, I will probably always look forward to the follow-up works...
At the end of the article, I still want to wish Bungie's 30th anniversary, hoping that we can see the "Destiny 2" with better gameplay and more substantial content, and also hope that the work from 2025 will not disappoint players. OK, so let's talk about it today, what is your favorite Bungie game? What else are you looking forward to for Destiny 2? Remember to leave a message in the comment area to share. If you think we're doing a good job, you can like and follow. Of course, comments and suggestions are also welcome, so let's see you in the next article. Meow ~ !!!