Bungie and Activision partnered to create Destiny after the creator of Halo left Microsoft behind. However, it has become evident that working with Activision wasn’t the right call.
The shady business practices that were inforced by Activision as it pushed Bungie to create non-user friendly monetization schemes, chocked the franchise to the point where it is no longer relevant. Destiny is a dying franchise and a recent statement by Bungie indicates that Activision is to blame.
In a recent statement provided to The Wall Street Journal, Bungie CEO made it clear that from now on they will decide how the worlds they create go into the market. CEO Pete Parsons stated:
A big part of our focus now is to self-publish in the future. We will decide the business model for our games and how the worlds we create go into the market.
The statement implies Activision had control over Destiny’s business model but now, self-published games will give devs control over how the content goes into the market. Bungie is throwing Activision under the bus here but knowing Activision, it wouldn’t be surprising if everything wrong with the game’s business model was indeed Activision’s doing.
The developer has apologized countless times for everything wrong with Destiny 2. However, words mean nothing when your actions are doing the opposite.
NetEase invested $100 million in Bungie for its future projects and when we say future projects we don’t necessarily mean Destiny 3. Bungie is working on “new ambitions” that may not be Destiny 3.