Yes, we all evolve in haste. It’s a race you never finish
We’re sure January used to be a quiet month, but 2019 has got off to a flying start. The industry was rocked this past month by the announcement that Bungie and Activision are parting ways eight years into a planned ten-year deal, with the Destiny developer assuming publishing rights of its muddled, yet intoxicating, online shooter. In Knowledge, we unpick the implications of a shocking, yet also entirely understandable, separation.
The Destiny experiment is no failure, yet nor has it been a resounding success. It is, however, an excellent case study for anyone making a living game. During its four-and-a-bit years, it has been by turns enormously generous and too stingy; adored by its players, and hated by them; and the jewel in Activision’s crown and its biggest disappointment – the various pendulums often swinging between extremes in a matter of weeks.
It’s an object lesson for anyone seeking to make something similar. In Hype this month we catch up with The Division 2, a sequel to a troubled, yet tremendously popular game. Developer Massive Entertainment has clearly followed the Destiny story – and is designing the sequel around what its existing players most want, rather than something to which the studio thinks a hypothetical swell of new players might be attracted.
Live games are a constant tightrope: developers are only ever one patch or content drop away from glory or a fatal fall. And the makers of this month’s cover game have even more on their plate. It’s an awkward time for EA to publish a game about chasing loot, its reputation still bruised after the Battlefront II fiasco. And it’s a tricky time for BioWare, whose recent track record includes Mass Effect 3 – a game with an ending that was so despised the studio reluctantly went back to change it – and Mass Effect: Andromeda, a game so poorly received that EA shuttered the BioWare satellite that made it. The pressure’s on, then, but our visit to the Edmonton HQ finds a team brimming with confidence. From what we’ve seen, they’ve every right to be. The Anthem story begins on p60.