Bungie’s integration into SIE deepens

[mibu no ookami]

Now they have team internally that can support multiplayer titles. Everyone keeps referencing live service. I keep thinking MP expertise in networking/online design.

This sucks in terms of having a memories of what Bungie use to be for sure. But I also look at it that this was the plan at somepoint. If there was no plan for integration into PS studios to help the overall stable of studios and strengthen them then we would have seen them straight up close bungie to recoup money.

You and many others are fundamentally misunderstanding what this team does...

I think maybe it's that gamers aren't familiar with what non-developers do at gaming companies.

This team in particular hasn't even existed for much more than 2 years and they're strictly involved with publishing.

You are also correct that gamers also don't understand PMI (Post Merger Integration) which was indeed always part of the plan.

This team has nothing to do with network, online design, or really anything technical in nature...

 

[Bryank75]

 

[Yurinka]

It's a model that you'll never be able to explain to these people.

It's entirely lost on them how big a success Helldivers 2 has been.

Well, it's something common in investments, not only in gaming. I don't know if it has a name, but I know that in gaming several publishers and business angels use it.

 

[Yurinka]

Did you read?

They are support but also in creative. As in concept art, things like that. Thats what you want to retain.

To be clear, the biggest internal support team is PlayStation Studios Creative Arts, with offices in places like San Mateo, LA or Malaysia. They have different teams and support most 1st and 2nd party games. They have many teams, these are the ones credited for GoWR:

• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts - Production
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts - Motion Capture & Scanning (San Diego & LA offices)
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts - Animation
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts - Art
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts - Engineering
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts - Research & Development
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Visual Arts - Studio Support
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Operations
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Creative
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Music
• PlayStation Studios Creative Arts: Sound

That person pretty likely will join PS Studios Creative Arts in that area of "Creative" (game design), where pretty likely will have (if they don't already have it) a team to support GaaS teams in GaaS things.

To help and support most SIE GaaS games directly in gamedev with support stuff, maybe helping to develop the GaaS specific game design areas (stuff like in-game economy, progression and rewards, user acquisition funnel, user retention features, MP specific design things and many things more), in the same way this team helps the other 1st party games in this case design but in the others as we saw tith programming, audio or art.

This would be a step beyond the SIE Live Service Centre of Excellence they had in the past, where they moved Bungie talent to periodically review the plans and progress of the GaaS things of SIE GaaS games with the other (non-Bungie) SIE GaaS experts.

In this case, this would be part of the "we're moving some Bungie staff to other SIE teams" thing they mentioned when they announced that were downsizing Bungie: some of that people would move to Sony's main support team.

Bungie's trajectory was going this direction as we know they were insolvent without Sony.

Destiny has the fastest selling new IP record and Destiny 2 made more money. I don't know the exact amount, but must be a few billions. Halo also did great. This is why Sony bought them.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

So far Destiny, Gran Turismo, MLB, Helldivers already are popular. Firewall Ultra and Concord weren't.

Marathon, Fairgame$, Horizon Online, new IP incubated at Bungie, Bend's new IP, ex-Deviation's game are in the works.

These are the 12, 3 of these replacing 3 cancelled games.

The idea in these kind of investments where they invest in 12 or 20 projects at the same time is that one or two become megahits, some of them become pretty popular / successful, a few do just ok, a few tank and a few get canned. The idea is that the profit from the successful ones more than compensate the loses of the unsuccessful ones.

So either a Megahit or a Megashit is the plan. So far Helldivers 2 is a megahit but they didn't capitalize on it. The game is so simple but needs quality of life stuff like skins and colors at the minimum.

 

[Yurinka]

So either a Megahit or a Megashit is the plan.

No, only a stupid would think that out of 12 projects all of them would be megahits. As Jimbo said, they didn't expect all of them to be big hits at all.

Investors and publishers know that even if the projects may start looking great on paper some of them will fail or do just ok. And well, some projects are also only destined to cover some small niche. As I assume in this case was the idea with Firewall Ultra (to try with a online MP shooter for PSVR2).

So far Helldivers 2 is a megahit but they didn't capitalize on it. The game is so simple but needs quality of life stuff like skins and colors at the minimum.

As I remember someone mentioned it was the top grossing (or best selling?) game of the H1 2024, I don't remember if in Steam or PS.

Since launch in this half a year or so they added a shit ton of new content and features to the game, plus rebalancing and fixes. It also included many quality of life things, plus a lot of weapons and armor pieces of many colors. They also added multiple skins/colors for your ship, the pod used to deploy the soldier to a planet, the exosuit mechs and something else I may forget.

 

[mibu no ookami]

The game is so simple but needs quality of life stuff like skins and colors at the minimum.

Someone doesn't realize how small Arrowhead Studios is. The game took them 8 years to develop for a reason.

The engine is a dead engine. Recruiting and onboarding staff to work on that engine is going to prove difficult. Just fixing some of the primary issues with the game took them months. You think they're going to drop major content out and it hasn't even been on the market for a year?

Where do you get these expectations?

If you look at their LinkedIn, they've increased headcount 9% in the last six months, which means in the last six months they've probably hired like 11 people.

You probably think they should just open up recruiting to include remote and hire an additional 50-100 people, and that's exactly how you end up getting layoffs...

They currently have 7 job openings on their career page.

Head of Engineering - Arrowhead Game Studios

If you’re looking to make the best co-op games in the world, you’ve come to the right place. We're proud to have some of the best game makers and collaborators in the industry working with us. ...

jobs.arrowheadgamestudios.com

You look at this job posting and its clear they're probably looking to move the game to a new engine (unreal) and probably looking to port this to Switch 2 and Xbox in the future and if not this game in particular, but future games whether they come from Sony or not.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

No, only a stupid would think that out of 12 projects all of them would be megahits. As Jimbo said, they didn't expect all of them to be big hits at all.

Investors and publishers know that even if the projects may start looking great on paper some of them will fail or do just ok. And well, some projects are also only destined to cover some small niche. As I assume in this case was the idea with Firewall Ultra (to try with a online MP shooter for PSVR2).


As I remember someone mentioned it was the top grossing (or best selling?) game of the H1 2024, I don't remember if in Steam or PS.

Since launch in this half a year or so they added a shit ton of new content and features to the game, plus rebalancing and fixes. It also included many quality of life things, plus a lot of weapons and armor pieces of many colors. They also added multiple skins/colors for your ship, the pod used to deploy the soldier to a planet, the exosuit mechs and something else I may forget.

Still needs a lot more. I play it daily.

 

[Vertigo]

I put about 10 hours into Helldivers . I doubt I’ll be the only one checking it out again when the pro launches.

 

[Old Gamer]

No, only a stupid would think that out of 12 projects all of them would be megahits. As Jimbo said, they didn't expect all of them to be big hits at all.

So, they were wise enough to know that not all 12 projects would work, but still decided to pour the vast majority of the first party studios resources onto those 12 projects...

 

[Bo_Hazem]

I put about 10 hours into Helldivers . I doubt I’ll be the only one checking it out again when the pro launches.

Helldivers 2 is jaggie as fuck and not sharp on base PS5. A Pro upgrade is a must.

 

[Yurinka]

So, they were wise enough to know that not all 12 projects would work, but still decided to pour the vast majority of the first party studios resources onto those 12 projects...

This GaaS investment is on top of their non-GaaS investment, doesn't replace it. Their non-GaaS investment grows over time, and the majority of their games under development aren't GaaS.

They didn't put the vast majority of the first party studios resources on them. GaaS like the PC ports, something made on top by mostly new people dedicated to it. In case of GaaS they were teams who in most cases already were GaaS/MP teams or were new teams built for it with MP/GaaS experience, not a replacement of what they previously did. Same goes with the PC ports, mostly handled by Nixxes, Iron Galaxy and Sumo Digital.

And well, it's something that wasn't invented by the GaaS or by Sony: in the 50 years of gaming in most companies, including Sony there has been a portion of games that don't end getting greenlighted for production, or that get cancelled, or that aren't profitable, or that just do ok. Sony must have a ton of non-GaaS examples.

Still needs a lot more. I play it daily.

Yes, but Arrowhead doesn't have let's say the size of Rockstar, Epic Games or Bungie.

When they saw they had way more success than they expected, they started to grow their team and expanded their plans for post launch. More than half a year is needed to grow and train the team, and after it to develop and release the extra stuff.

 

[mibu no ookami]

No, only a stupid would think that out of 12 projects all of them would be megahits. As Jimbo said, they didn't expect all of them to be big hits at all.

Investors and publishers know that even if the projects may start looking great on paper some of them will fail or do just ok. And well, some projects are also only destined to cover some small niche. As I assume in this case was the idea with Firewall Ultra (to try with a online MP shooter for PSVR2).


As I remember someone mentioned it was the top grossing (or best selling?) game of the H1 2024, I don't remember if in Steam or PS.

Since launch in this half a year or so they added a shit ton of new content and features to the game, plus rebalancing and fixes. It also included many quality of life things, plus a lot of weapons and armor pieces of many colors. They also added multiple skins/colors for your ship, the pod used to deploy the soldier to a planet, the exosuit mechs and something else I may forget.

A lot of people don't realize that sony greenlit 12 projects because they're historically behind on GaaS.

If each game has 20 percent chance of success and you only do 3 games... That means that you don't have much probability in getting a success out of those 3 games.

If you wait to do more games after the first 3 games, you're even more behind the gun as people cement into forever games.

Right now Sony has about 4 forever games

Destiny
Helldivers
MLB The Show
Gran Turismo

And they'll potentially have a 5th next year with Marathon and or Fairgames.

 

[Vertigo]

Well, they do launch another live service game next week when Destiny Rising goes into closed beta for mobile.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Well, they do launch another live service game next week when Destiny Rising goes into closed beta for mobile.

The game isn't from them. The game is published by NetEase.

 

[Vertigo]

The game isn't from them. The game is published by NetEase.

IP 100% owned and licensed from Sony and Bungie.

 

[mibu no ookami]

IP 100% owned and licensed from Sony and Bungie.

So is Marvel's Spider-Man. But it's not Marvel's game. It's published by Sony and developed by Insomniac.