Speaking during an interview with GamesTM, Destiny developer Bungie was asked the question that no video game developer really wants to entertain: what happens if its latest baby ended up a colossal failure?
Fortunately, Jonty Barnes, Bungie’s Director of Production, revealed that the former Halo developer has supreme confidence in the abilities of the its team, which includes many members behind Master Chief’s original, genre-defining first-person shooter.
However, he was quick to note that entertainment by its very nature is a risky business—and Destiny is no different in this respect.
“Well! [laughs] Entertainment is a risk – notoriously. There was a saying we’ve said before to keep us from taking our progress for granted: we want to be Avatar, not Waterworld. I think there’s this part which is very early on in the project where you don’t know what the game is that you’re making, but we very much trust in the talent at Bungie. We’ve been very fortunate because of our culture that we’ve been able to retain such talented people – the majority of the original Halo team is there, Jason Jones who was the creative director of Halo and previous hits at Bungie is the creative director of Destiny,” said Barnes.
“As a result of that you look around the room and they’re the reason that you’re still in the office, because you trust in these people and their expertise, and you don’t have to worry about their area. You just worry about your areas. Ultimately that’s what Activision did as well – it’s an idea and they loved the vision, but they backed the talent at Bungie. I continue to talk about ‘the talent at Bungie’. That’s where you go on this journey together. Entertainment is a risk – I’m fortunate enough to have worked on a lot of new IP. A lot of people at Bungie had never worked on a new IP and it was very daunting for them, there was a lot of insecurity at times. But we trusted in each other. I think when you have that talent, you’re going to be successful.”
He concluded: “The beta was a huge tonic for the team because the world of players agree with the players at Bungie – the things we love about the game, they love about the game. Things we thought were important, they thought were important. It certainly gives us confidence going into September and purchasing as well through word of mouth. This is why we do games – we take risks. Entertainment is risky, and we make sure that we’re taking risks. If you don’t, you’re going to just be copying everything else and you’re not going to be doing something exciting.”
Destiny servers are now live and the game hits stores today at midnight. The game is due out on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360.