[kagemaru]

Thank you GAF for doing all the work

Short Recap:

-Massively multiplayer style, sci-fantasy action shooter series codenamed Destiny with expansion packs codenamed Comet.
-Four games releasing in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019.
-Four expansion packs releasing in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020.
-The main games will be retail.
-There will be other DLC, subscriptions, microtransactions, and value added services.
-The first game will be an Xbox 360 and "Xbox 720" timed exclusive.
-Activision and Bungie are considering a PS3 version of the first game in 2014.
-The second game is targeted for 360, 720, PS4, and Windows PC, though the contract notes that some of those SKUs may be dropped if they decide they are not worthwhile or not technically feasible.
-Activision can terminate the contract without penalty if Destiny doesn't sell at least 5 million units in the first six months, or for any reason they please after the second expansion pack releases.
-Bungie is also working on a Marathon game, but currently no more than 5% of their staff (nor more than 5% of their key staff) can work on it, and the amount of employees that can work on it goes up slowly as they hit cumulative profit goals. There are also limits on when Bungie can release Marathon. For specifics on this see the contract images at the bottom since it's pretty lengthy.
-The game is targeting a rating of Teen/PEGI 16, but Bungie is not contractually held to hit this mark.
-The contract implies the game has in-game game masters, like those people who work for Blizzard and handle user requests in World of Warcraft while playing some kind of digital representation in the MMO world (or at least being accessible through in game chat).
-Bungie will receive a $2.5 million bonus if Destiny achieves a GameRankings.com rating of 90 or higher on Xbox 360 as measured 30 days after release.
-Bungie will also get a 20% royalty of the first $100 million in cumulative operating income, 24% on the income between $101-$400 million, and 35% on the income $401 million or above. These royalties are subject to a penalty of 2%, 2.4%, and 3.5% respectively if the games are delayed for reasons caused by Bungie within reason (i.e. if an earthquake destroys their studio they're not at fault, but if they just don't get the game done on time they are). These last two bullet points I'm leaving in the contract itself to cut down on OP length.

LA Times Article:

Details of video game publisherActivision Blizzard Inc.'s high-profile deal in 2010 with Bungie Inc. to make an original game series has been made public for the first time as part of a separate lawsuit involving the Call of Duty game franchise.

The deal with Bungie, considered one of the hottest studios in the industry, at the time helped Activision save face in the midst of an ugly legal fight with former Call of Duty developers Jason West and Vincent Zampella, whom Activision had fired a month earlier in March 2010. But at what cost?

Activision's contract with Bungie, recently unsealed as part of Activision's lawsuit against West and Zampella, outlines exactly what those costs are.

The 27-page agreement calls for Bungie to develop four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games," code-named "Destiny," released every other year, beginning in the fall of 2013. Bungie also agreed to put out four downloadable expansion packs code-named "Comet," every other year beginning in the fall of 2014. Activision has never disclosed release plans for Bungie's titles.

The first Destiny game will initially only be available on Microsoft's Xbox 360 consoles, as well as its potential successor, which the contract refers to as the "Xbox 720." Later games would be made for Xbox consoles as well as Sony Corp.'s expected successor to the PlayStation 3, and on personal computers.

Bungie would be entitled to royalties ranging from 20% to 35% of "operating income," the amount left over after Activision deducts its costs, including development, production and marketing expenses.

Under the contract, which may have been amended since it went into effect on April 16, 2010, Activision would also pay Bungie $2.5 million a year in bonuses between 2010 and 2013 if the Bellevue, Wash., studio meets certain quality and budget milestones. Bungie gets another $2.5 million if the first Destiny game achieves a score of 90 or better out of 100 on GameRankings.com, a site that summarizes reviews by game critics.

The contract also reveals for the first time that Bungie is working on a potential successor to its Marathon game, which became a cult hit after it was published in 1994 for the Apple Mac. The document refers to Bungie's right to devote no more than 5% of its staff to develop an action-shooter prototype dubbed Marathon while Bungie remains under contract with Activision.

Full contract found here.

Damn shame that their plans had to be revealed through the legal battle between Activision and Jason West & Vince Zampella IMO. Still sounds like an ambitious project and I for one can't wait to see what this turns out to be.

[Prophecy2k]

I don't understand... who are bungie battling in the courts? Activision?

Also, does this imply that they are not making an MMO?

[Platon]

I guess they don't battle anyone, but Activision is and therefore, for some reason that is most likely only apparent to legal people, it seems that they had to show the contract in court...

[kagemaru]

Yeah I didn't realize I worded that poorly, sorry. I changed it so that it better reflected what I meant.

[Alucardx23]

Destiny ViDoc - Pathways Out of Darkness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwOUi4JDC4o

http://i.minus.com/i453Akh2M1xRa.gif

[jayco]

mmm... didn't like the video too much. They talked a lot about what they wanted Destiny to be, but very little about the game itself a not a single bit about gameplay mechanics. An IGN reported said that we shouldn't expect it to be released this year, so it looks that Bungie has still a lot of work to do. Hope they'll show something soon.

By the way, the OP should be updated.

[Laa-Yosh]

It is a tease.

Concept art is gorgeous; ingame implementation not as much though.

[Scott_Arm]

I'm getting a Borderlands with a persistent game world vibe.

[(((interference)))]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-world-shooter

Eurogamer has a good article on Destiny.

I'm certainly interested, hope they allow 4 player splitscreen like Halo (unlikely though)

[jayco]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/17/399...t-look-preview

Polygon has a nice preview of the game too.

[dragonelite]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

It is a tease.

Concept art is gorgeous; ingame implementation not as much though.

This, i got sucked into the hype again with concept art same thing happened to me with Codename:Kingdoms concept art looked so good got Conan vibe from it. Then the reveal generic roman empire vid.
Hopefully we will get some gameplay stuff wednesday and hopefully it will be a next gen reveal on the playstation event.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by (((interference)))

I'm certainly interested, hope they allow 4 player splitscreen like Halo (unlikely though)

I'm confused. Halo didn't have 4 player split screen when we tried it last week. In fact hardly any games support 4 player split screen this gen, which is a tragic shame.

[Alucardx23]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

I'm confused. Halo didn't have 4 player split screen when we tried it last week. In fact hardly any games support 4 player split screen this gen, which is a tragic shame.

Halo 3 & Reach support 4 player split screen multiplayer, on Reach there is even a glitch that allows you to play 4 player coop on the campaign. But yes, 4 player split screen was more for kart racing games this generation.

[Shifty Geezer]

It's the coop I'm talking about. I'll go google that Halo 4 glitch!

[Alucardx23]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

It's the coop I'm talking about. I'll go google that Halo 4 glitch!

Unfortunately it's only possible on Halo Reach.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzOPJO9-HXY

[Alucardx23]

Destiny sounds like Borderlands with more MMO elements, good stuff, but I don't like it when they announce games so early, they should have shown more gameplay.

[Silent_Buddha]

And since Activision usually brings everything to PC, there's hope I'll finally be able to play a Bungie game on PC again, happy days!

I'm hugely excited for this. Have really liked Bungie ever since I got in on the BETA for Myth: The Fallen Lords. It'd be incredibly if they ever made another Myth game, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Regards,
SB

[ShadowWolf64]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

It is a tease.

Concept art is gorgeous; ingame implementation not as much though.

The brief gameplay segments appear to be from the xbox 360 version and graphically it looked nice.Hope to see alot of more of it at E3...

[Nisaaru]

After looking at the artwork I could imagine the same kind of designs being used in a Halo environment. Looks more like HaloNG to me with the motivation to own their IP again after loosing it to Microsoft due to the split. I don't really believe that Bungie couldn't sell MS the idea of some MMO FPS in a beyond Halo setting.

[AzBat]

Saw one of the Destiny posters at Game Stop today. They were double-sided & looked nice. Evidently they were giving them away to people who placed a $5 pre-order on the game, but only the 1st 25 people. Ship date was listed as 1-1-2014 since they're not sure when it ships.

Tommy McClain

[Prophecy2k]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

It is a tease.

Concept art is gorgeous; ingame implementation not as much though.

Absolutely right. Bungie has some super duper talented concept artists, however I always find their in-game models to be quite off the mark. It's weird too as I loved the in-game models and art in Halo 1,2 & 3. I just found everything they've done after that to be a bit meh. This game looks interesting though, and even though the in-game/engine stuff shown so far doesn't quite capture the phenominal artwork of the concept art, I still find it more appealling visually than any of their last couple of games.

Wished they'd have waited till they had something of substance to show though. It almost seemed a bit arrogant to me for them to so hype an event to reveal a game, and instead of showing stuff they just showed a bit of concept art, some in-enigine renders and then talked up the rest. Someone should teach them the art of brevity, in that a good trailer can do all that is required to communicate your vision for a game, much better than seeing 5 mins of random folks chatting up how awesome your idea is.

Either way, I'm keeping my eye on this one.

[Scott_Arm]

I'm definitely a lot more excited about this, having read the preview, than I've ever been about any Halo game. The concept art is a lot more interesting to me than anything they've done in Halo. Seems like Guild Wars 2 might be the closest to the model they're going for, but I guess we'll have to wait and see once they give out some more details. Kind of wish I had a better system to play it on than 360. Hopefully next-gen is out before this game releases, so I can play the first episode on something that isn't ancient.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Nisaaru

After looking at the artwork I could imagine the same kind of designs being used in a Halo environment. Looks more like HaloNG to me with the motivation to own their IP again after loosing it to Microsoft due to the split. I don't really believe that Bungie couldn't sell MS the idea of some MMO FPS in a beyond Halo setting.

The main reason they left Microsoft was that they didn't want to make another Halo game. They wanted to make something different, something NOT in the Halo universe. So I doubt they were all that sad to not have the Halo IP tag along with their departure.

Had Microsoft allowed them to work on something other than Halo after Halo 3, there's a good chance they would have stayed.

But by the time Reach was finished, there was no way they were going to stay even with 343i being created. As they likely felt that Microsoft would still pressure them to work on the Halo IP.

Regards,
SB

[dragonelite]

God i hope they can fix their coop netcode in all the halo it was really bad.

[Nisaaru]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

The main reason they left Microsoft was that they didn't want to make another Halo game. They wanted to make something different, something NOT in the Halo universe. So I doubt they were all that sad to not have the Halo IP tag along with their departure.

I doubt they easily gave up the successful IP they worked so hard on. If you have such a trademark game universe you keep it if possible.

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Had Microsoft allowed them to work on something other than Halo after Halo 3, there's a good chance they would have stayed.

They split October 2007 from MS. A month after the Halo 3 release and that has surely taken a long time to negotiate. Then made ODST and Reach to full fill their obligations while probably already working on their new Destiny IP.

Reach was released September 2010, the Activision deal happened in April 2010.

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

But by the time Reach was finished, there was no way they were going to stay even with 343i being created. As they likely felt that Microsoft would still pressure them to work on the Halo IP.

Regards,
SB

If MS let them split and build up 343i(founded 2007) to continue the Halo series it doesn't look to me as if MS really played hardball here with Bungie's creative interests. Why shouldn't MS be interested into new IP developed by people with a proven record?

Therefore I think the whole thing is more motivated with IP/Control/Money.