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Bobby Kotick: Destiny was not meeting expectations, tying up important development resources

entremet

entremet

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Oct 26, 2017
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Thought this deserved its own thread. During the QA of the earnings calls, someone brought up the Destiny divorce. Kotick was rather frank, saying not meeting expectations, tying up important development resources. Obviously, this is Activision Blizzard's perspective and Bungie may feel differently, but it was interesting Kotick mentioning this on the record.

What meets expectations these days lol.
 
Rocketz

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With Activision hitting record numbers but still "falling short of expectations" I assume they had ridiculous goals for the series and it wasn't making the profit it wanted as it ate up costs and resources.
 
Dezzy

Dezzy

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I'm really glad that we still have other companies that only care about being able to pay their employees and fund their next game, rather than focus on raking in as many billions as possible. If they all had the same mindset as Activision, gaming would suck.
 
EvilBoris

EvilBoris

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I guess the expectations were it would become the next Tony Hawks or a guitar Hero or COD or Skylanders.
 
gschmidl

gschmidl

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Tying up important resouces like, uh,

"Activision Blizzard says that -- despite its "record year" -- it's laying off 8% of staff."
 

Deleted member 46948

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I'm very curious to see what awesome games will Activision come up with that will finally "meet expectations".
 
fuzzyset

fuzzyset

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It should be made clear that, as publisher, "development resources" = money. And "not meeting expectations" = you, Mr Shareholder Investor, could have made 7% return, but only made 5%.
numbers for illustration
 
a916

a916

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entremet said:
Thought this deserved its own thread. During the QA of the earnings calls, someone brought up the Destiny divorce. Kotick was rather frank, saying not meeting expectations, tying up important development resources. Obviously, this is Activision Blizzard's perspective and Bungie may feel differently, but it was interesting Kotick mentioning this on the record.

What meets expectations these days lol.
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Context is important here... Activision's expectations are a lot bigger than smaller publishers. They put down a massive investment for Destiny.

Billfisto said:
I wish more companies would be happy with just making enough to provide everyone with a comfortable living.
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That's not what shareholders of publicly traded companies want.
 
funky

funky

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It seemed like Destiny FINANCIALLY was only going downhill and Destiny 3 would need to be a greater investment then previous titles as it would at the very least be a cross generation title and they gave it up instead of making the investment.

Cant say I blame them TBH. Destiny has its hardcore base but ultimately failed to have a larger audience. They had their shot to save face with Destiny 2 and blew it.
 

francium87

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Oct 27, 2017
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How much of "not meeting expectations" was due to loot boxes, one-use shaders, mediocre expansions (the first couple, including locking content at first for those without the expansion)?
We'll never exactly know.
 
Nome

Nome

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I don't think Destiny 2 met anyone's expectations in any way.
 
Apathy

Apathy

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Important development resources? Does he mean the studios that Activision actually owns that were helping Bungie?
 
cw_sasuke

cw_sasuke

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Cant really blame Activision if they think those resources are better spend on strengthening their own IPs. Next-Gen is coming.
 

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Nome said:
I don't think Destiny 2 met anyone's expectations in any way.
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And part of that was ironically Activision Blizzard's influence.

Bungie have a lot to prove now being independent, but let's see if they carry on acting like they were under their masters who claimed they weren't doing good enough.
 
nekkid

nekkid

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Considering how much it cost, I'm not surprised they were disappointed with the results (by which I mean revenue, not quality). They both did well compared to almost any other game, but for their investment they were probably hoping for GTAV numbers.
 
Twentieth

Twentieth

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Oct 26, 2017
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Bobby Kotick doesn't meet expectations. Activision doesn't meet expectations. Not Destiny, not Bungie, just the predatory management and board members.
 
Hyun Sai

Hyun Sai

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Oct 27, 2017
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Did they really imply that Bungie released Destiny in its launch state and Activision studios fixed it ?
 
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Welfare

Welfare

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I assume Bungie needing to delay both Destiny games impacted expectations and resources as well.
 
Bold One

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Tying up resources for other projects? you mean the people you are now sacking?

Nice try, Bobby
 
Fisty

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Yeah I assumed the multiple studios assisting Bungie with content could now go to COD or something. Not that I would ever take Activision's side on anything, but it makes me curious how much of a role Acti played in Destiny's downfall
 
Liam Allen-Miller

Liam Allen-Miller

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I mean, this sounds right. When you but down a bazillion dollars on a ten year franchise plan I would certainly hope you're expecting to make a fucklot more money. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dentiny kind of... trended downwards over time?
 
Scuffed

Scuffed

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The_Land said:
At launch sure! At this point in time Destiny has never been at a better place though.
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This can't be said enough. They really fixed their shit with Forsaken. Many Devs get credit for turning games around and Bungie did that with Destiny. I was hard on them here too for a long time. Currently Destiny 2 is very good.
 

Deleted member 2321

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Yup. Bungie needed 2 extra studios to get content out of the door and all of it underperformed and disappointed.

So it was in fact tying up a lot of resources.

Activision "lost" Bungie, but won High Moon and Vicarious Vinsons (back).
 
cw_sasuke

cw_sasuke

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i-hate-u said:
What "own IPs"?

Outside of Blizzard, what do they have other than COD and Crash at this point?
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...and you know CoD didnt have a single player portion last year - they prob. also want to make sure that they have enough ready for the next-gen launches or getting games like Spyro/Crash ready on Switch for day 1.

They have plenty of own titles they can invest into.
 
Garlador

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Twentieth said:
Bobby Kotick doesn't meet expectations. Activision doesn't meet expectations. Not Destiny, not Bungie, just the predatory management and board members.
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thumb_activision-am-i-out-of-touch-activision-no-its-the-12662267.png


Never the person up top's fault... always the underlings...
 
RoKKeR

RoKKeR

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This seems unbelievable to me honestly. Destiny is one of the biggest names in gaming and that's still not enough...
 
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