Kotick: Bungie the Last "High Quality" Independent Studio Left

[Lyri]

For the sake of argument, let's just say he's doing both, because, quite frankly, you could spin it either way.

If you like.

Thanks for the heads up guys, but still I think Kotic may have a point.

I have to disagree. Let's look at the timeline and see what we're dealing with here.

2000-2010
Bungie: Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo ODST, Halo: Reach. One series of general high quality.

Valve: Half-Life 2, Episode 1 & 2, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike: Source

Epic: Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Shadow Complex.

And that's just talking about the games, nevermind the massive contribution Epic and Valve have had to the gaming community through Steam and gaming engines such as Source and Unreal Engine 2.0-3.5

Bungie is a talented developer, but to say they're the "last high quality" one is arrogance of an almost astounding level.

Bungie has had 10 solid years of development on one series, true that. Yet look at what has been given to us from those ten years, characters, universe, back story.
Halo went above and beyond what a lot of games go beyond.
Fps, RTS, books it's one series that popped up out of nowhere during the launch of Xbox and look at the company now, it's a behemoth, from one title.

Valve has just given us well, games.
Half-life is STILL unfinished, as much as the fans want it the relevance of it as a gaming title has long since passed.
Once upon a time Half-Life would have dominated alot of titles, but if Episode 3 dropped out now I doubt it would do so well, more like watchmen as a movie. It'll do great for a week or two then tank.
None of those titles by valve as developed to the degree that Bungie put into Halo.

I only own Halo:CE, I'm no fanboy by any means but I certainly recognise Bungies work on it.
I won't go into Steam and Unreal Engine because I'd believe Kotic would only be talking about games development, could be wrong though.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Bungie has had 10 solid years of development on one series, true that. Yet look at what has been given to us from those ten years, characters, universe, back story.
Halo went above and beyond what a lot of games go beyond.
Fps, RTS, books it's one series that popped up out of nowhere during the launch of Xbox and look at the company now, it's a behemoth, from one title.

Valve has just given us well, games.
Half-life is STILL unfinished, as much as the fans want it the relevance of it as a gaming title has long since passed.
Once upon a time Half-Life would have dominated alot of titles, but if Episode 3 dropped out now I doubt it would do so well, more like watchmen as a movie. It'll do great for a week or two then tank.
None of those titles by valve as developed to the degree that Bungie put into Halo.

I only own Halo:CE, I'm no fanboy by any means but I certainly recognise Bungies work on it.
I won't go into Steam and Unreal Engine because I'd believe Kotic would only be talking about games development, could be wrong though.

I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree here.

I love Halo, and I love the franchise it's become. But Bungie does not deserve to be called the "Last High Quality Independent Developer." Matter of fact, I'm adamant that NO company deserves that title.

It's not about the fact that Halo has become a franchise and, arguably, has accomplished more as a series than most, it's about the fact that dozens of other independent studios exist and many of them consistently put out amazingly high quality games.

 

[Super Toast]

The man is a true idiot.

 

[Tsaba]

I only own Halo:CE, I'm no fanboy by any means but I certainly recognise Bungies work on it.

Could have fooled me, no one here is bashing bungie, everyone is just upset that this knucklehead is oblivious to other awesome game makers, and would rather make it sound like Halo is the only thing that has been amazing this last 10 years, and like JeanLuc has been saying, the guy is denying the contributions of the Unreal Engine, and Valve's greate line of games.

Half-life is STILL unfinished

Funny, I could say the same thing after watching the ending of Halo 3.

Moral of the story: Kotick is a moron.

 

[DazBurger]

I believe that Kotick is trying to suck major ass on Bungie.

Why?

I guess he dont want to be the one who's head will be rolling at stage 6.
... Or the one to be shot into the sun?

 

[Traun]

Valve has just given us well, games.

With the risk of getting some flack from the moderators. After this statement people should stop listing to you. It was already explained to you that Valve created Steam - a pioneering service in online distribution and the Steam engine, which is still used and is considered one of the best physics emulator to this day(the best one when it was available). Not to mention the support towards the modding community.

This is not an opinion, this is you not reading comments.

 

[hobo_welf]

huh, i must say when i think of indie games halo and half-life aren't the first that pops up, but i must admit, i love the guy, i think hes hilarious, even when his company makes games less enjoyable with annoying DRM its so stupid i just have to laugh, its like we are in a sitcom and im the disapproving dad and hes my rascal son and every time he does something stupid i just throw up my arms and say my catch phrase "Oh, bobby" *shake head while smiling* *laugh track*, this episode of silly ceo and friends was brought to you by DRM, DRM, because every gamer is a pirate.

That was a great post. Honestly there's no sense in getting all worked up about Koticks ramblings. Better to just laugh it off. If I were to feel strongly about the man, it would be simply because I'd love to know absolutely nothing about a given subject, then buy people who knew everything about it, and make money of their knowledge. It's what Charles Schwab did (senior not junior), and he was the first man in the world to get paid a million a year.

 

[Lyri]

]
I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree here.

I love Halo, and I love the franchise it's become. But Bungie does not deserve to be called the "Last High Quality Independent Developer." Matter of fact, I'm adamant that NO company deserves that title.

It's not about the fact that Halo has become a franchise and, arguably, has accomplished more as a series than most, it's about the fact that dozens of other independent studios exist and many of them consistently put out amazingly high quality games.

None of them have developed a single title like Halo, not one.

There was some article somewhere around these parts about how much it costs to make a truly A+ title these days (something to do with ME2 IIRC)
None of these independent companies have done really, I'll point out Half Life being the only near example that could have done it, but it fell short with that whole not being complete thing it has going (don't agree? Maybe Gears, seems to have a good multiplayer scene).

Halo was just one of those titles that took a company from rags to riches, it (when it debut'd) had an engaging story, excellent graphics and a fun multiplayer.
Each and every title there after continued with this, then they branched to RTS and then back to FPS and finally to it's conclusion.
Didn't it even get it's own multiplayer competitive scene too?
At every turn, Halo has had something for everyone in some way.

Whilst your other companies may make great titles, they don't get played like Halo does.
One company made one series that stomped all competition from the off. I'll agree with Kotic, if anyone gets it, it's Bungie.

 

[L-J-F]

:| Wow, scary thing is this doesn't surprise me. Is he TRYING to work as the world's worst PR man ever?

 

[Lyri]

This is not an opinion, this is you not reading comments.

this is you not reading comments.

not reading comments.

I won't go into Steam and Unreal Engine because I'd believe Kotic would only be talking about games development, could be wrong though.

Come again.

 

[hobo_welf]

words words words

Although this is a double post, I couldn't help but notice your ability to give Bungie a metric shitton of credit for something that is at best, a half assed and bloated world of lore with more holes in it than World of Warcraft and at worst a mockery of lore in general, and then follow that up by short selling Valve, which creates a very small amount of lore for every game it makes that of just about the highest quality in games at all. Additionally you forgot about the fact that Valve made Steam, which sells more video games than Gamestop and EBGames combined.

Excluding Half Life as an IP, they made franchises out of several mods (TF2 and CS:S) and gave smaller development studios with limited resources and great ideas (Turtlebox or whatever) the ability to make a franchise for them (L4D 1 & 2).

While we're on this subject, I'd like to point out that 10 years is a little over-generous. There are no links between Halo and Marathon, excluding a few references involving numbers that were thrown in for the hell of it. Halo's lore has changed several times over the years and even the games can't decide what mechanics they want to use or throw away. I love Halo as much as the next fratboy, but if you're gonna talk up Bungie like that, you'd better worship the ground Valve walks on.

 

[Agiel7]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Valve get a slice (albeit only one they can get a marginal profit on) from their Steam sales?

If they do, with respect to the fine folks at Bungie, Valve must make a catastrophic amount of cash from those sales on top of the sales for their own games.

 

[hobo_welf]

Valve has just given us well, games.

With the risk of getting some flack from the moderators. After this statement people should stop listing to you. It was already explained to you that Valve created Steam - a pioneering service in online distribution and the Steam engine, which is still used and is considered one of the best physics emulator to this day(the best one when it was available). Not to mention the support towards the modding community.

This is not an opinion, this is you not reading comments.

Source uses the Havok physics engine.

 

[Thorvan]

Not really. Team Fortress 2 and the Left 4 Dead games are great fun. Plus there's Alien Swarm that Valve put out for free. Those games were great. Not to mention Portal 2 coming out next year.

None of those titles compare to Bungie with Halo.
Bungie is responsible for Halo and only Halo (still looking for confirmation, don't make me google this shit), it's been a massive, high quality project that's spanned the age.
Look at it's development, whether you love or hate the game aside it's been something extraordinary.

Show me commitment like that from Valve in one of their titles.

TF2 took eleven years to develop, and has beyond doubled in filesize with free updates. Half Life had an entire game redesign halfway through development. Valve puts plenty of commitment into their games, believe me; and really, the only reason Bungie has done more for that single series is because of being shackled down to it by microsoft.

OP; You know what, no comment. I'm not going to give this guy any more attention than he needs. This comment isn't particularly dangerous, so let's just forget this guy for now and move on.

 

[Moonmover]

Valve have put out a tonne of stuff though, not all of it is golden.
Epic games, you'll just have to pardon me and tell me who they are. The name rings a bell but meh, hell if I can remember them.

Off the top of my head, they made Gears of War and Unreal Tournament.

Perhaps you're misinterpreting his use of "High quality", as far as I'm aware Bungie have only done Halo titles, right?

They also made, off the top of my head, Myst and Marathon. Of course, those were both a long time ago. Bungie has been focusing exclusively on the Halo series for the past decade.

 

[hobo_welf]

I've gotta jump out of this argument too. As soon as you mention that you don't know what Bungie has developed aside from Halo and you're too lazy to look it up, I'm too lazy to educate your ass on just how much of a fine company Valve is. Your ignorance is acceptable.

 

[Agiel7]

In my summer fantasy, the game Activision pins all of its hopes on bombs spectacularly, and Kotick turns into a drooling loon who ends up in an insane asylum.

A man can dream...

 

[Kelethor]

Oh bobby, You so Craaazay

OT: Hehe, No.

 

[Lyri]

words words words

Although this is a double post, I couldn't help but notice your ability to give Bungie a metric shitton of credit for something that is at best, a half assed and bloated world of lore with more holes in it than World of Warcraft and at worst a mockery of lore in general, and then follow that up by short selling Valve, which creates a very small amount of lore for every game it makes that of just about the highest quality in games at all. Additionally you forgot about the fact that Valve made Steam, which sells more video games than Gamestop and EBGames combined.

Excluding Half Life as an IP, they made franchises out of several mods (TF2 and CS:S) and gave smaller development studios with limited resources and great ideas (Turtlebox or whatever) the ability to make a franchise for them (L4D 1 & 2).

While we're on this subject, I'd like to point out that 10 years is a little over-generous. There are no links between Halo and Marathon, excluding a few references involving numbers that were thrown in for the hell of it. Halo's lore has changed several times over the years and even the games can't decide what mechanics they want to use or throw away. I love Halo as much as the next fratboy, but if you're gonna talk up Bungie like that, you'd better worship the ground Valve walks on.

First off the bat, I didn't go into Steam. I don't think Kotic would be talking about that, but as I said earlier, I could be wrong.
Secondly, I don't even play Halo or like it a whole lot, I own steam and I've played all of the Valve titles noted here and I liked them more than Halo.
K, done.

Right.
The thing about Valves titles is, they're just what they are. TF2 IS a multiplayer FPS, one of the finer ones out there but that's all it is.
Half life IS the epic story of Gordon Freeman fighting the Combine. Portal is a sexy, sleek little single player puzzler but again, that's exactly what it is.
In my eyes, Valve makes great games sure but none of them seem to take that step to be that little bit more.

Halo, whilst being mostly famous for it's online play being loaded to the teeth with "wooting dickholes" is a single player game with a decent and expansive story (1-3, reach, missed any? *shrug*).
It's also a really good time on Multiplayer too, hell the fans were playing for a damn long time after they threatened to shut down the Halo 2 servers.
It even went competitive,
Bungie did well for themselves, Reach seems to be quite the swan song for all their hard work and honestly seeing the trailer for forge world.
I came.
I was tempted to shuffle my xbox off just to get it fixed so I could play (Note: I didn't).

It's a lot of ground for one title to cover, Valve has done it all sure but it's done it all through numerous titles.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to down talk Valve at all here. I guess I'm just looking at it differently.

Last post: Pretty much just repeating points now xD