Bungie/Activision
I debated writing about Destiny because the press event was more a showoff event, how publishers can easily control the press. Disappointingly, no gameplay. But one odd nugget stuck out: no PC edition was announced. Just consoles. That’s a wrongheaded move.
The greatest news of yesterday, carried by every single site in existence, from gaming heavyweights to tech underdogs, was the beginning of Activision’s drawn-out PR campaign to pimp the product of their decade-long relationship with Bungie: Destiny. A game (or series of games; unconfirmed at this point) in the works for apparently a lengthy amount of time.
Journalists were flown to Seattle on Activision’s pretty penny for a tailor-made press event. Plenty of sites put out speculation posts to get readers engaged, Bungie hosted an “Are you ready?” type banner on its main page, and a boring Sunday was made lively by what should have been a jolt. Instead, no solid gameplay was shown–merely a Q&A session and one video–and Activision wasted everyone’s time when a press released would have worked just fine. (Of course, I’m not press. But my twitter feed was besieged by disgruntled tweets. It was a bloodbath.)
The event, however, gave Activision just the energy it needed, on a boring day of a boring week, to unveil perhaps one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted. Or that’s what every feature hinted at, but at least the concept art was pretty. Strangely, on a day no gameplay was shown, major retailers relayed the “pre-order now” message to capitalize on a rush of attention.
Understandably, any title from the masters of Bungie with Activision’s funding would grab excitement. Two powerhouse names combining for a next generation project is what us consumers live for, and to see just one game push the boundaries of this medium is desperately needed and irritatingly avoided.
Bungie drew from its Halo roots to make an online sci-fi shooter with social elements, though they retreated from shouting the acronym “MMOFPS”. That genre itself is hardly feasible and rarely achievable, marked by only a handful of successes. However, a game as grandstanding as Destiny needs an audience, and that’s the biggest flaw–no PC version, not yet at least.
Jason Jones, Bungie co-founder and Halo mastermind, said to IGN: “We made the game run without a mouse and keyboard, and now nobody plays [first-person shooters] the old way anymore because they don’t want to.” That quote riled Destructoid up enough to post this article, lambasting the studio for not recognizing PC players as a massive contingent of the video game industry.
Counteracting those claims was Bungie COO Pete Parsons, who told Eurogamer: “We would absolutely love to be on the PC. If you talk to the people upstairs, we play it on all platforms. So, stay tuned.”
With two clearly different perspectives, it’s hard to say where the masterminds at Bungie stand on the issue. And considering both Activision and Bungie’s remarkable strides on console in the past, the pair may feel PC is a risk, even for a game this ambitious. Though, the sci-fi genre is bursting on the platform regardless, the likes of EVE Online and PlanetSide 2. Destiny would be in fine company in that sci-fi triplet delight.
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tkk
