14 DAY TRIAL // Destiny is one of the biggest video game releases of the coming fall and many gamers were surprised to hear that the franchise already had a 10-year life plan at publisher Activision, but the development team says that it was actually their idea to plan for such a long period.
Pete Parsons, the chief operating officer at the studio, tells GamesIndustry.biz in an interview that, “We came to Activision with the 10-year plan. That was completely us. It's a part of being an independent company. If you have to leave a universe that you love behind, it couldn't be really a better thing to do it with. A newly independent company starting on a new, bold adventure, which is why the game is called Destiny - it was originally a code name for the game and we ended up liking it a lot and then changed the code name to Tiger.”
Bungie is probably planning for the long term because of its experience with previous hit series Halo, which was owned entirely by Microsoft.
The studio was not able to control its evolution and rumors suggest that creative differences between the two companies led to a split.
At the moment, the Halo series is being developed by 343 Industries, which includes some veterans from Bungie, and a new title in the series will be offered exclusively on the Xbox One at some point in 2015.
Parsons also claims that the amount of money involved in the creation of Destiny is nowhere near the half a billion dollars that some sources have talked about.
He explains that, “For marketing you'd have to ask Activision people, but for development costs, not anything close to $500 million (380 million Euro). I think that speaks a lot more to the long-term investment that we're making in the future of the product.”
He has also made it clear that Activision does not own any piece of the Destiny intellectual property and that only Bungie can make decisions about it, both in terms of story and gameplay.
A recent alpha test of the game has offered the team valuable info about the core gameplay and the network infrastructure, and a beta is also planned to further test certain elements and familiarize players with the main features.
Destiny will be offered on the PlayStation 4, the PS3, the Xbox One and the 360 on September 9, with some exclusive content associated with the Sony platforms.