Bungie Wants Destiny to Have Star Wars' Cultural Impact

[StewShearerOld]

Bungie Wants Destiny to Have Star Wars' Cultural Impact

Bungie COO Pete Parsons thinks that Destiny can achieve more than Halo.

There are a few franchises that have legitimately shaped the cultural landscape around them. This tier of instant recognition, of cultural importance, is perhaps the ultimate goal for creators of entertainment to strive for. It's also the goal that Bungie's aiming for with its social shooter Destiny.

"We like to tell big stories and we want people to put the Destiny universe on the same shelf they put Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars," said Bungie COO Pete Parsons. It's a stratum of success that Bungie has perhaps broached upon in the past. Its work on the Halo series enthralled millions of fans, many of whom would follow the franchise for years after its initial inception. That said, Parsons thinks Destiny will eclipse even Halo's success. "We were extremely proud of what we achieved with Halo... I'm pretty convinced we are going to do it again with Destiny in a way that maybe even Halo never achieved before."

The key to Bungie's plans for greatness may lie both in Destiny's social focus and the company's longevity based plan for the game. "I think the big [next-gen] advancements are how do we keep bringing people together? How do we make a game that's not just about 'here are a bunch of people in the same room together', but it's about what we want to do, which is to give you really finely crafted storytelling and competitive multiplayer and remove the barriers between those two," said Parsons. "You can build your avatar for weeks, months or years while enjoying storytelling and then move into multiplayer in that same build."

While Destiny's eventual ability to stand alongside the titans of entertainment is still perhaps up in the air, you nonetheless have to appreciate the obvious ambition driving both Parsons and Bungie. Many studios and publishers occupy themselves with the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123044-Ubisoft-Says-to-Expect-More-Annual-Sequels>short term; what they can get to gamers the fastest with the biggest profit margins. Bungie isn't the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126094-Witcher-Dev-Rejects-Hit-and-Run-Business-Strategies>only developer aiming to win the long game, but it's nonetheless refreshing to see a studio set embrace ambition rather mere adequacy.

Source: <a href=http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-08-23-bungie-destiny-can-surpass-halo-sit-alongside-star-wars>GamesIndustry International


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[4RM3D]

XXX Wants YYY to Have Star Wars' Cultural Impact

Rinse and repeat...

Of course everyone wants the Holy Grail. Mass Effect came close but then they blew it. As for Destiny, it's looking okay, but nowhere near Star Wars'ish impact. Unless you are referring to the failed MMORPG game.

 

[Stinovitch]

They aren't even bringing it out on pc, so how do they expect the game to have such a huge impact as star wars had by leaving one of the major gaming platforms without it? It could be succesful, but you have to come up with something amazing to have the same impact as star wars had.

 

[KaZuYa]

Most Developers drop the PC either because Microsoft/Sony pay them for exclusivity but here is not the case so in my view they either want full control over content with no exceptions or it's going to be utterly mediocre like HALO and consoles can hide the fact a FPS is poorly made by not being a optimal platform to play them on.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

I'm going to give you a little hint.

If you want to get that title, you just can't say that's what you're going for.

Just remember, you are much more at the mercy of the players' opinions than you think. Get on their bad side/shift their opinions the wrong way, and you've lost your only chance. And, there are no do-overs.

 

[Pinkamena]

Yeah good luck with that.

 

[Erttheking]

Well I think the game looks good but I don't know if it's going to be THAT big.

 

[kailus13]

"We like to tell big stories and we want people to put the Destiny universe on the same shelf they put Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars,"

So in other words, the DVD shelf?

It should be noted that the movies and books mentioned were for all ages, meaning that they could reach a larger number of people.

 

[LordMonty]

Aim lower you crazy cats, you'll only disapoint like everyone.

 

[Sam Lowry]

Wow, They are REALLY confident about this game...

 

[Compatriot Block]

At least they are still making games that they love like they did with Halo. Say what you will about Bungie, but at least they always shoot for the best game they can possibly make.

And I know that half of the Escapist seems to have a hate-boner for Halo, so I can't imagine this thread going anywhere positive.

i<3ubungie

 

[Hagi]

Which, to me, makes it rather even more weird that they're not bringing it out on PC. One of the things that made all the things he mentioned so very big is that they've stuck around in various forms for decades.

And, out of platforms that could run this game, there's really only a single one that has a shelf-life of decades, the PC. Along with the Gameboy it's the only big platform on which you can play games released over a decade ago. And Destiny obviously won't be running on the Gameboy anytime soon.

None of the current big consoles last that long and, if current trends are anything to go by, their future replacements may very well not be backwards compatible. Meaning that between 2020 and 2025 when the next console cycle comes along if this game has managed to make it that far and is still enjoying success it'll be sequel time along with all the risks and possible mistakes that come with that.

 

[vun]

Just putting this out there; how many of the cultural titans set out with that goal in mind?

 

[Compatriot Block]

When Disney bought Lucasarts, they managed to greenlight a new trilogy of films in the blink of an eye.

When Warner Bros bought the rights to Harry Potter, they greenlit an unheard of seven films to be produced back to back.

When New Line greenlit the Lord Of The Rings, they were willing to put in around $200 million to bring the book trilogy to the big screen.

How's that Halo film adaption coming along? Oh, that's right. Dead in the water.

It's nice to want things, I suppose...

Yeah, you're comparing book-to-movie transitions to a game-to-movie one. Which, to my knowledge, has never worked well. Thus I think the hesitation to get it rolling makes a little more sense than a wildly successful book series or a money-printing film series doing the same.

 

[Grabehn]

Yeah... nope, Star Wars like many other things is something that "happened" the dumb "We want X to be as important as Y" has never really worked. Game-wise it reminds me a lot of the "We need to sell trillions cuz dem CoDs sold trillions" And then their games become a simple money sink.

Make something good because you want to make something good, not because you want it to be as popular as something else, I doubt Lucas in the beginning said "I want a multi-million franchise that people will hate me for changing afterwards" but "I want to tell a story" instead, although that case is a tad different.

 

[RandV80]

Destiny is going to be cross platform is it? I mean I'm sure it will be a great game and sell a ton but lets see how 'big' it gets when you aren't Microsoft's flagship console seller. Some will dispute this but I've always felt while it's worthy of praise a lot of Halo's hype was having the full force of Microsoft's marketing behind it. Like the creation of a 'Halo day', or I'm pretty sure I remember the Halo 2 launch date getting a blurb on the CNN news ticker.

The initial Halo sold extremely well, but at 5 million sales there were other games that had it beat that never built up the same sort of hype, which makes me suspect a huge covert marketing push from MS. Or at the very least, being the loan system seller franchise early Xbox adopters gave it some massive hype. So getting to my point with Destiny, Bungie dropping the exclusive angle could gain more sales but will probably lose on the 'cultural' impact by no longer being Microsoft's flagship console seller.