Bungie to help build Sony Live Services Center of Excellence

[Shoot]

This got a little lost in the news last week. In their investor conference Sony talked about their plans for Bungie and how they'll fit into Playstation.

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/irday/pdf/2022/GNS_E.pdf

Jim Ryan commented on his plans for Bungie right after the acquisition.

PlayStation: Bungie deal is about multiplatform, live-service games

PlayStation's acquisition of Bungie may not result in exclusive PS5 games, but it will allow the platform holder to sig…

www.gamesindustry.biz

"I would back us to do [live-service games] ourselves, but when you have the potential to have a partner like Bungie who has been there, done it all before, learned the lessons and have got this wonderful, brilliant team who is there and has the potential to help us... we think we can take something that would have taken a certain number of years, and significantly decrease the time it will take to get it right."

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The Sony CFO also commented similarly.

After buying Bungie, Sony goes all-in on live service games

Sony plans to launch 12 different live service games, integrating technology and expertise from its acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie.

techcrunch.com

"The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space," Totoki said.

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As we all know live service games will be a major part of Sony's portfolio going forward so Bungie is being given a very big responsibility.

Sony expects to spend 49% of its PlayStation Studios development budget on live service games by the end of the year. By 2025, Sony plans to bump that to 55%, up from just 12% in 2019. By the end of 2025, Sony projects that it will have 12 different live service games of its own, up from just one now.

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So what are your thoughts on the Sony Live Services Center of Excellence and Bungie's role in it?

 

[Deleted member 93062]

Hopefully massive chunks of the game don't get removed.

But this is a good move by Sony. We've seen how hard it is to get a good live service down. Having specialized teams that work across the entire first party lineup is something Sony does really well.

 

[Mcfrank]

Makes me really excited for TLOU factions. Hopefully that can be a rewarding long term game like Destiny.

 

[Kadzork]

Any initiative to improve live service games is a good thing in my book.

 

[gabdeg]

I love excellence.

 

[Dust]

 

[BabyDontHurtMe]

Having a center of excellence seems to be a good idea, yes

 

[Darkkahn]

Excellent.

 

[cooldawn]

How many live service games can you have before cannibalisation and how many live service games can you have in a market being flooded with them in time?

Something has to give. Not all of them are going to be successful.

 

[Venatio]

 

[Ehoavash]

Hm seeing how valuable Sony finds Bungie, it confuses me more and more why Activision let their relationship break..../ Let the destiny IP go unless it wasn't making money for them?

 

[Shirkelton]

Sounds like a gym.

 

[Genesius]

I mean the reason so may GAAS games fall apart is because they're trying to chase Fortnite without doing what Fortnite does, which is constantly update. And I mean, constantly. If you've never played Fortnite for whatever reason, you should give it a whirl this week and then check out the end of season event happening on Saturday.

The fucking money and effort put into that game is VERY obvious. I think so many of these companies want to do a live service game and then get caught completely off guard by how much content they need to generate to keep it going.

Sony setting up an entire "division" just to support those games seems like the most common sense thing they could possibly do. It's going to take an army.

 

[overthewaves]

Hm seeing how valuable Sony finds Bungie, it confuses me more and more why Activision let their relationship break..../ Let the destiny IP go unless it wasn't making money for them?

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They weren't making enough money for Activision's liking + the pressure of releasing an expansion every 3 months was too much.

Now bungie sort of just recycles content every 3 months with 1 big expansion a year. It's a much lighter load. Bungie has also added way more mtx in the game now vs how it was before it was f2p.

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

This aspect of the acquisition is something I'm pretty curious about. Wonder if it'll lead to their games succeeding more reliably

 

[JaseC64]

Makes me really excited for TLOU factions. Hopefully that can be a rewarding long term game like Destiny.

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Yeah this will benefit games like Factions. If ND releases the part1 remake first then this will give them time for Bungie to help them out before launch sometime next year.

 

[Kaswa101]

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Amazing

 

[shinobi602]

 

[vivftp]

 

[Yuntu]

I still think 12 live service games running is a very, very hard thing to pull off.

 

[scitek]

It's like Bill Nye's 'Toy Boat of Science' on a slightly grander scale.

 

[Saladin]

Excellent move. But 12? Thats a lot. Half of them are going to get killed

 

[theAllseeingEYE]

How many live service games can you have before cannibalisation and how many live service games can you have in a market being flooded with them in time?

Something has to give. Not all of them are going to be successful.

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I agree that the number of live service games they seem poised to release over the next several years almost sounds like too much.

But it could be moreso that Sony really just wants to get a much stronger foot in the live service door, have invested heavily, and just want to do everything they can to ensure that at least a few of them of moderate are strong successes.

So long as Sony diversifies thier live service catalog, they can certainly have several games that stand alongside each other.

For example, a Battle Royale can exist alongside a Gran Turismo/Forza, a unique Sea of Thieves type service, a more traditional FPS, perhaps sports offerings, traditional MMOs. Also, if several of thier products are for mobile, that will just be tapping into completely new markets.

 

[Fisty]

How many live service games can you have before cannibalisation and how many live service games can you have in a market being flooded with them in time?

Something has to give. Not all of them are going to be successful.

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All Sony needs is one or two big earners. As it stands, Bungie's next will be big and Factions 2 could be big.

Hm seeing how valuable Sony finds Bungie, it confuses me more and more why Activision let their relationship break..../ Let the destiny IP go unless it wasn't making money for them?

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Activision had to feed the COD machine yet they kept having to put support studios on Destiny DLC despite not owning the IP. Was probably a bad deal from their perspective tbh

 

[meenseen84]

I hope they do a bunch of smaller scale GAAS games like Rocket League. Really, they only need one to hit to make it all worthwhile. Its anyones guess what this center of excellence is.

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

I still think 12 live service games running is a very, very hard thing to pull off.

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They'll probably be happy if 2-3 of those are successful enough to be warrant being supported for multiple years. There's probably so many because they know success isn't guaranteed but the rewards for even a few are high.

 

[BrickArts295]

How many live service games can you have before cannibalisation and how many live service games can you have in a market being flooded with them in time?

Something has to give. Not all of them are going to be successful.

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I think Sony is just throwing everything at a wall and hope something sticks. If they get a single Fortnite out of those 10 GAAS, then it would all be worth it in the end. But if they don't….it's either try again, back to single player or go the way of Evo & Cambridge for some of those teams.

 

[2Blackcats]

Hopefully they figure out how to leave servers on for way longer

 

[Fisty]

I think Sony is just throwing everything at a wall and hope something sticks. If they get a single Fortnite out of those 10 GAAS, then it would all be worth it in the end. But if they don't….it's either try again, back to single player or go the way of Evo & Cambridge for some of those teams.

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Think of it this way: the more GAAS games fail, the more studios Bungie will have to pump out content for Destiny 3 & Bungie New IP lol

 

[Deleted member 4494]

Servers of excellence is certainly not what I've experienced with Bungie, but here's to hoping.

 

[Dog]

 

[Jakartalado]

Excellent move. But 12? Thats a lot. Half of them are going to get killed

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Even if 10 of them gets a narrow life support, 2 live games moving billions of dollars is quite successful for Sony.

Again, Warzone, COD Mobile, Fortnite, Apex, Free Fire.... they are all moving billions per year in continuous life support (Warzone barely surviving due to terrible game management and game performance).

Sony just wants its own share.... they certainly have the knowledge and IP for that...

 

[LumberPanda]

Thirty Thousand?? 12, up from 1, in 3 years????

Over half of those are going to be shooters cannabalizing themselves, aren't they?

 

[LightKiosk]

So what are your thoughts on the Sony Live Services Center of Excellence and Bungie's role in it?

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Pretty smart and proves that they're not trying to just throw shit at the wall in hopes something sticks, they're clearly putting thought into it to increase the odds that a good chunk of them will succeed. If Bungie's role does end up proving to be that vital and contributes to the success of their live service initiative, their acquisition cost will look like a steal.

Thirty Thousand?? 12, up from 1, in 3 years????

Over half of those are going to be shooters cannabalizing themselves, aren't they?

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12 up from 1 until FY25 which will be March-ish 2026. 2 more as new franchises are coming out between now and March of next year.

I hope the majority won't be shooters, this is a good chance for Sony to diversify their output of games to hold people over between the big SP releases, and I'm low-key hoping a Sony platform fighter sneaks its way in as part of these 12 live service franchises. I know from personal experience that my group is desperate for something fresh we can all play to hold us over until GoW Ragnarok.

 

[catpurrcat]

Any initiative to improve live service games is a good thing in my book.

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Lol

 

[SP.]

Somehow I get the feeling this is going to be pretty detrimental to the "single player story driven" games I go to Sony for, but maybe I'm wrong. From what we know so far I've got a bad feeling about it.

 

[T0kenAussie]

Every time I read centre of excellence I think of a sporting team lmao

That sounds good though, like their other support group?

 

[quail_lad]

We've known that bungie's expertise is a big part of the acquisition, it's good to see that it's going to take a more tangible, formal form.

 

[quail_lad]

Somehow I get the feeling this is going to be pretty detrimental to the "single player story driven" games I go to Sony for, but maybe I'm wrong. From what we know so far I've got a bad feeling about it.

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All their existing single player teams are still making single-player games, it's just that most of Playstation's expansion is focused on MP and GaaS.

 

[RedHeat]

So is it safe to assume Bungie's budget will get a huge increase as well? I wonder how it'll effect the upcoming major expansions and seasons.

 

[SP.]

All their existing single player teams are still making single-player games, it's just that most of Playstation's expansion is focused on MP and GaaS.

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Doesn't it seem pretty naive to think that with their 17 studios, running 12 GaaS games won't have an impact on their single player output? I find that pretty hard to believe. We've seen what happens with companies that have a successful GaaS, the resources required to keep up simply don't allow for multiple simultaneous projects. Respawn is a prime example. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm setting expectations that I won't be.

 

[Smitch]

Doesn't it seem pretty naive to think that with their 17 studios, running 12 GaaS games won't have an impact on their single player output? I find that pretty hard to believe.

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But a lot of their GAAS game are from external studio

 

[ghostcrew]

 

[Carn]

So is it safe to assume Bungie's budget will get a huge increase as well? I wonder how it'll effect the upcoming major expansions and seasons.

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they've been on a hiring spree for a while and I believe they're in the proces of moving to a bigger place; so it seems like there is some budget available.

 

[quail_lad]

Doesn't it seem pretty naive to think that with their 17 studios, running 12 GaaS games won't have an impact on their single player output? I find that pretty hard to believe.

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Idk they're still, as far as we know, making as many single player games as they ever have if not more. If it does start affecting things it won't start being a problem for at least 10 years or so. It seems pretty pointless to pull our hair out about something that A. might not be a problem and B. is that far away.

 

[LightKiosk]

Doesn't it seem pretty naive to think that with their 17 studios, running 12 GaaS games won't have an impact on their single player output? I find that pretty hard to believe.

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A lot of their recent acquisitions alongside partnerships have been either support studios or live service studio focused, as well as expanding their current studios to support multiple titles.

Until we get solid proof that this is slowing down their SP initiative, it's a non-issue as they seem to be building this initiative on top of what they currently have established instead of tossing out what's there and replacing it.

So is it safe to assume Bungie's budget will get a huge increase as well? I wonder how it'll effect the upcoming major expansions and seasons.

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Yeah I think so, Bungie's post on the acquisition mentioned that it begins the journey of Bungie becoming a global multi-media entertainment company. They clearly have big ambitions and were looking for someone to give them budget and independence to go and pursue that, which Sony did.

 

[ThatMeanScene]

Off-topic post:
Based on the slide above it looks like Bungie's legal, finance, accounting, and HR departments are gonna get axed or adsorbed into SIE (which is more or less the same thing because many if not nearly all positions are made redundant).

I hope no other teams lose their jobs.

 

[SimplyComplex]

Even if 10 of them gets a narrow life support, 2 live games moving billions of dollars is quite successful for Sony.

Again, Warzone, COD Mobile, Fortnite, Apex, Free Fire.... they are all moving billions per year in continuous life support (Warzone barely surviving due to terrible game management and game performance).

Sony just wants its own share.... they certainly have the knowledge and IP for that...

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Warzone barely surviving LOL

 

[anexanhume]

The gaming landscape is absolutely littered with failures of titles with live components since WoW launched. Given revenue share increasing towards live service and microtransactions, I'd want to do everything I could to minimize the risk of failure if I were them.

 

[quail_lad]

Off-topic post:
Based on the slide above it looks like Bungie's legal, finance, accounting, and HR departments are gonna get axed or adsorbed into SIE (which is more or less the same thing because many if not nearly all positions are made redundant).

I hope no other teams lose their jobs.

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Yeah unfortunately the other side of "we can focus on game development" is usually "we don't have to pay for these other departments anymore." Hopefully it works out okay for everyone.