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Sacred Symbols, Episode 29: Bungie Jumps (Patreon)

Published:
2019-01-15 17:00:05
Edited:
2019-01-16 00:05:51
Imported:
2022-01

Downloads

Content

This past week, something seemingly unthinkable happened: Developer Bungie and publisher Activision parted ways when it comes to the mega-popular Destiny IP, and weirder yet, the measure seems completely amicable. So let's spend some time dissecting this significant business move from all the angles. Also: PlayStation 4 continues to set the world on fire with both hardware and software sales, as it eyes 100 million sold. But does that milestone truly matter? Plus: GearBox Software's co-founder and CEO is being sued, Sony makes a covert corporate purchase, Catherine abandons Vita, and Ninja Gaiden might be making a comeback, and we answer listener questions concerning speedrunning, game narrative versus design, future retail and digital pricing, and the perfect DualShock 5 controller, in addition to much, much more. (Oh, and we render a final verdict on sour cream and onion potato chips, too.)

Timestamps:

0:00:17 - Intro.
0:03:13 - Keep your feedback coming (good or bad) when it comes to ads that run on the show.
0:04:16 - A debate on if there are too many people named Chris.
0:05:04 - One listener requests Chris' verdict on sour cream and onion potato chips.
0:06:05 - One listener corrects Colin's grammar.
0:06:32 - One listener finds a fundamental flaw in our game pricing argument.
0:08:28 - What games are we playing?
0:14:48 - PlayStation 4 reaches new sales milestone; software selling huge (plus Q).
0:18:07 - Activision and Bungie terminate their publishing agreement with one another (plus Q's).
0:32:12 - GearBox Software's co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford caught up in serious legal allegations.
0:38:16 - Sony reveals PSN sales data for both December of 2018 and all of 2018.
0:40:16 - Sony quietly purchases Audiokinetic and its Wwise audio middleware.
0:42:08 - THQ Nordic acquires yet another new IP (plus Q).
0:43:46 - Catherine: Full Body is no longer coming to Vita in the west (plus Q).
0:45:55 - Square Enix reveals its patch and content rollout plan for Kingdom Hearts III (plus Q).
0:47:52 - Tecmo Koei files new trademark for Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z.
0:48:42 - Minor game announcements and release date information.
0:49:22 - This week's new releases for PS4, PS Vita, and PSVR.
0:56:03 - Are there any studios we're hoping to hear a new announcement from this year?
0:57:56 - Are physical games doomed to a patchless, DLC-less, as-is future?
1:01:38 - What would make for the perfect DualShock 5?
1:05:02 - How do we feel about speedrunning games?
1:08:27 - Should Sony somehow monetize or otherwise incentivize earning Trophies?
1:12:34 - If you're looking for a Vita, is there any reason not to just buy a Japanese one?
1:13:41 - Is Sony teasing Death Stranding (and confirming TLoU2) for 2019?
1:16:12 - Can Chris expand on how and why game narrative can detract from an experience?
1:18:15 - Outro.

Files

Comments

Martha Silla

Colin, with this title, you just used up your one allotted Dad joke for the year

Russell Garrett

That episode title is legit better than any headline I've seen about this story.

Anonymous

Just started listening, but there seems to be some odd sounds mixing around 50-54 seconds. Just a heads up! Super pumped to listen to this week's episode.

Philip Andersen

Could someone tell the Castbox devs that a iPad version of their app would be highly appreciated :)

Kenneth Oms

I'm three for three! Those hockey lessons by Colin are coming soon! hahaha. I think Trophies and Achievements should be looked into because it is a cool feature. For some reason, ever since i got my PS4, i enjoy playing it more because I love getting trophies on it, and I love the community hub on it as well. I think microsoft did it best on xbox 360, one guy played a lot of games to get the maximum achievement points for it and Microsoft gifted him a lifetime membership of xbox gold. Not saying it should be that extreme but still cool, that guy is going to be a fan for life.

Anonymous

Has this episode appeared to people who uses the Pocket Casts app? Don’t know if I did something wrong. Thanks

TheBufferPiece

From around 42 till about 55 seconds there are two colin's talking, as much as I like listening to you it's hard to understand what you're saying when there's two of you lol. Looking forward to finishing the episode after classes are over!

Brett Carlson

I take issue with the fact that the notion is Destiny was not making money and that's why Activision was quick to let them go. Destiny as a franchise all told to date has made over 1 Billion dollars. How is that not profitable? The answer is, it's not profitable for Activisions narrow minded, unrealistic, money hungry goals. Activision wants every game to be Call of Duty. That's asinine. How come Sony pours 100 million into a first party game and it sells 5-8 million copies and you dont see Sony coming out publicly like Activison did saying, "We arent happy with Forsakens performance." Meanwhile it was the most well received and community loved peice of content Destiny has ever produced. This happened because Bungie wants to make a creative, passion driven project that's actually deep and good and Activision wants content every 3 months no matter what shape it's in. This was a terrible partnership to since the start. Who knows why Bungie even chose Activision. They couldn't get along with Microsoft and had to leave Halo behind to become independent and then they go and sign a publishing deal with Activision. Makes no sense. This means they will need to find another publisher to continue Destiny. No way they can self publish a game of this size by themselves. So now it's a question of who do they sign with?

John Lynch

You guys mentioned Microsoft owning sunset overdrive the game but not the IP and I gotta say I really don’t understand why Sony doesn’t fund that. I know spider-man was a hit but to be honest had sunset overdrive been on PS4 and not Xbox one I believe it would have been a huge sell

LastStandMedia
>>18933440

I just think it's imperative that smart people at these companies figure out a way to enhance the metagame. Because there's a lot of potential.

LastStandMedia
>>18936907

I just wrote this really detailed message as to why a billion dollars gross probably barely covers the cost of development and marketing since the game entered development in 2010, but I accidentally deleted it. I'll return to it one day. LOL.

Anonymous

Just subbed cant wait to listen.

Andrew Collins

10/10 title. And 15/10 for your thoughts on sour cream. Ruins everything it touches, also a terrible word

four24twenty

Yo Colin, for the past year I've been turning PSN trophies into money through the Sony Rewards program. I received about $40 worth of PS Store gift codes just playing games as I normally would. <a href="https://kotaku.com/playstation-trophies-can-now-earn-you-a-very-small-amou-1820163899" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://kotaku.com/playstation-trophies-can-now-earn-you-a-very-small-amou-1820163899</a>

LastStandMedia
>>18939525

Yeah, I remember seeing this, though this isn't exactly what I'm talking about for multiple reasons (among them having to sign up with a separate account, only being available to certain people, only being available in one territory, etc.). What I'm more getting at is officially bringing the metagame to a new level for everyone, automatically.

LastStandMedia
>>18938368

Microsoft got into bed with Insomniac before the PS4 and Xbox One came out. I think Insomniac made the decision that it thought would benefit it the most. As I understand it, Sunset Overdrive (the original game) can't come out on non-Microsoft-sanctioned consoles, but the franchise's sequels (and presumably remakes or special editions) can. To wit, Sunset Overdrive just came to PC.

George

I legitimately despise how everyone in the games industry is trying to shame Randy Pitchford for (God forbid) watching porn. Virtually every man who has access to porn, watches porn. Probably a similar nuiber of women do too. Everyone needs to get off their fucking high horse. Also, he actually paid for that porn apparently! So he's a more ethical porn consumer than the rest of us who essentially steal from pornstars by watching clips on Pornhub, which is like watching a bootlegged film on Youtube.

Anonymous
>>18940225

I think it's the idea that it's potentially underaged porn that us raising red flags for people.

Marcus Brown

Sour cream and onion chips are the Brown Sugar of Pop-Tarts. Just bad. Loved the episode. Can't wait for the next one.

Anonymous

I want to get a vita but cant find any decent priced systems. Any ideas?

Nate McKinney

Great show as always! I was really glad to hear Chris enjoyed the RE2 demo, I loved it as well. (Is it the 25th yet??) Any chance we get an RE2 specific episode, given that it's the first big game of the year? Would love to hear you guys do a deep dive on it. Thanks for the great content, this and Knockback have quickly become my favorite podcasts.

LastStandMedia
>>18942854

I doubt we'll do a specific episode, no. But we'll cover it on the podcast, and assuming I get it early enough, I'll do a video review, too.

LastStandMedia
>>18942384

Not really, no. The newest one I bought was $230. The prices are just gonna go up as it truly exits production and goes by the wayside. I'd jump now at a reasonable price (which ~$250 is, in my estimation) before it gets any worse. My two cents!

LastStandMedia

Hey Guys and Gals, Some of you noticed (and kindly pointed out) that there was an audio error for about 10-15 seconds near the beginning of this episode. It should now be fixed. Sorry about that! Lemme know, as always, if you find anything else worth addressing. Be good! -Colin

Jimmy Champane

Loved the Bungie discussion. I'm cautiously optimistic about the whole situation but knowing that they're losing the support they've had on expansions from Vicarious Visions and High Moon makes me nervous. I also think people aren't realizing that Destiny 2 won't get much bigger since it's still Activision published and there's literally no incentive for Bungie to make anything new past what's already announced and they'll probably start working on Destiny 3.

Zack E

I like Bungie. But didn’t we go through this like less than a decade ago with their separation from Microsoft. So you wanted some independence, probably saw it’s kinda tough to be truly independent, got in bed with one of the biggest publishers in world. And now it seems as if something similar may happen. Whomever’s fault it was, Destiny 2014 launch was a hollow game. It took months for the game to truly become something significant. And Destiny 2 had an even more strange launch. I did enjoy Destiny 1, and played many hours from 2014-2017. But the launch of D2, the little weird changes even in the weapons system level, etc etc made me disinterested in the game. I’m frankly done with Destiny from here on out. Maybe Bungie has some weird project management issues...? Everybody mocks Watch Dogs, Killzone, Rainbow Six, etc for showing E3 trailers that have much better graphics and technology than what was in the final retail product. Let’s not forget Bungie had such an issue with their Halo 2 E3 gameplay demo. Obviously we don’t really know what’s going on behind the scenes. Maybe Activision was a total pain to work with. Maybe Bungie was difficult to work with. It’s probably a bit of both. But I’d slow down before giving Bungie a free pass. Like I said I like Bungie, but maybe I just like Halo 3. Maybe they were just the right developers behind the right IP for the right console that had the right online gaming platform at the right time.

LastStandMedia
>>18946235

Did Activision and/or Bungie confirm that the publishing rights to Destiny 2 and all it touches is perpetually staying with Activision? I didn't see that.

LastStandMedia
>>18946821

What I can't get over is that the people/entities that own Bungie have had the opportunity to essentially sell out two times already, with maybe a third time on the horizon. It's super interesting. They took Microsoft's money in 2000, then bought the company back -- probably at a large profit -- in 2007. Then they sign a massive exclusivity deal with Activision which probably netted leadership tens of millions in on-top profit. Then they get out of the deal, after getting $100 million from NetEase (though NetEase threw a curve by demanding minority shares), and now have the chance to sell their services again. I'm not judging at all. That's fucking baller.

Hugo's Desk

Love the secret ending Colin!

Anonymous

Colin, have you (or Chris if you think to ask him next week) have any thoughts on the Canadian delicacies that are ketchup and all-dressed flavoured chips? I'm scared to ask, but I've got to know.

Daniel Schiffer

I would love to see you take on pitchford or the lawsuit in a CLS. He's a fascinating character in the industry and as someone who went from very much liking him to disliking after Aliens, Jim S, etc. Great episode guys!

Kendrick Luckenbach

Thanks for reading my Bungie question and for pronouncing my long name perfectly. Surreal moment on my morning commute 😂

LastStandMedia
>>18950289

Was thinking about covering it, but now veering more towards the Star Wars thing, in light of the recent cancellation. We shall see.

Michal Dudic

Feels like Destiny would be a good fit for Epic Games Store on PC. Most likely the most profitable distribution option, which I imagine would be pretty compelling for an indie studio. I think Epic would also be happy to welcome such a big IP.

Anthony Longo

Chris your new video was funny as hell !!! Great episode guys. As always.

Petre Cismigiu

Hey Colin. You said you need to reach 5500 subs on patreon for the show to have a video format. I would love that, and I wanted to ask you, what if around 500 current subs would just up their patreon subscription? I would gladly do it if it meant the video format goal would be met, and I'm sure other members of this community would do the same

Anonymous

About that "Coming Attractions" video. Nowhere in the video, or the description does it say these games are coming out in 2019. TLoU2 and Death Stranding could very well be released in 2020.

Tyson Williams

I would like to recommend Crayola Scoot for the SS let’s plays

tejotl

Just a shoutout to the community questions this week - really awesome mix that complimented (is that the word?) the episode.

Tony Colton

Not finished the full episode yet but just wanted to chime in with a recommendation to take a look at the trailer for "Vane" that was mentioned on the drop. Has a very ICO/Shadow of the Colossus vibe so we'll worth a look. Definitely picking this up once payday arrives 🤑

LastStandMedia
>>18958801

I appreciate the sentiment, but it's more about getting bodies through the door. Here's the thing: I want people to sign up at a level that makes sense for them, where they're getting maximum bang for their buck, and exactly what they want. Tethering stretch goals to overall volume of Patrons therefore makes the most sense from an equitable stand point, because you're not asking for more from those who already give; rather, you're asking for anything from a few people that don't. Hope that makes sense!

NeO JD

Disrespecting sour cream and onion 😄

Anonymous

I've got nothing myself, but can you guys take just one more sandwich question from the audience? As sad as it is to say, those make my day.

John Lynch

Great episode as always. Colin you mentioned you wanted to see what Tengo is up to but said you only did a preliminary play through of the original. I highly suggest the evil within 2. It was criminally underplayed. It is one of my favorite games of the generation and is pretty much everything you’d want from a sequel

LastStandMedia
>>18996816

Well, I wanna play both all the way through! They're on my list. Whether or not I get to them, well. We'll see.

Anonymous

Yo Colin, thank you for being the number 1 PlayStation podcast in the universe. In reference to the question about buying a Vita in Japan, I have imported a white model 1000 recently and whilst everything you said was true, you forgot to mention that the O and X buttons are mapped in reverse to all non-Japanese players. Just something to keep in mind, to avoid any potential confusion :)

Monterey Jack

Hey Colin and Chris, Amazing show! I may not be quite as obsessed with trophies as you, but they are definitely important to me. If I really enjoy a particular game I will do everything possible to get the platinum trophy. I recently earned the plat for celeste (it was satisfying as fuck to finally earn it). However, I came to learn later on that a lot of people have this trophy because they can use assist mode (grants players invincibility, unlimited jumps, slows time, etc) and still get all of the trophies. If I knew this going in, I may have potentially not purchased the game or not put in so much effort to get the plat. Dont get me wrong, I'm absolutely proud of myself for earning it the legitimate way, but I have nothing to show and people will think that I cheesed my way through as many others have. You have discussed trophy remorse In past episodes, but have you ever come to the realization, after all of your hard work, that a majority of people practically cheated their way through? Thank you both for existing and keeping it real.

Dino D'Adamo

Thanks for answering my question, much appreciated! Probably not worth submitting for SS, but being as a fellow Hockey fan I was curios to know how you felt about my Flyers mascot, Gritty.

Tony Colton

PUBG probably topping the charts as there currently a promotion for PS+ 12mth &amp; PUBG in bundle

Sean P.

Hi Colin and Chris, I saw an article from gamesindustry.biz where a Netflix exec said that they are competing (and losing) to Fortnite. This made me think of a recent statement from Reggie Fils-Amie where he said Nintendo isn't competing with Sony and Microsoft, they are competing for your time. For me, it was interesting hearing Netflix say they are losing viewership because of video games. It was also interesting to hear Reggie saying Nintendo wants to go with you everywhere by being portable. I see this as putting a Switch in your hands and playing something while having the TV on in the background, where as with other consoles it will take up all of your attention and therefore, time (ie Fortnite on a TV). I bring this up because I'm curious as to what your guys' thoughts are on these comments. Is this just a new PR speak I'm not aware of? What do you think of Netflix losing viewer time to Fortnite? Keep up the great work, Sean

LastStandMedia
>>19005477

This is true, though as I understand it, the games themselves have the controls baked-in properly, and if you don't interface with the OS using the face buttons (which I don't), you'll never notice. But good point.

LastStandMedia
>>19025151

Yeah, around the time Celeste came out, when I scoped its Trophies, I saw that you could literally cheat through it, and it kinda ruined it for me. Especially so considering Matt Makes Games' previous title -- TowerFall -- has some of the most impossible Trophies ever.

LastStandMedia
>>19033861

I saw someone once describe him perfectly: 99 out of 100 times, Gritty would have been a PR disaster and would be a footnote in Flyers history. But we hit that 1 in 100 situation.

Kaz Redclaw

At 1:01:00 roughly you talked about how in the future there'd be cloud systems where you just load up Bloodborne, and thought it would be unlikely that we would load it into a physical system and play it. You did manage to pick one of the small number of games where this might be true, but just this month I plugged in my physical PS2, and pulled out my Physical copy of One Piece Mansion and finished it (not related to the anime) and this is a game that almost certainly would not get a re-release on any cloud services. Out of ~100ish physical PS4 games I have, about 70-75 of them would share a similar fate, and very few of them would ever have a re-release on a cloud service. Not to mention that there's games like Scott Pilgrim vs The World or Alan Wake which have already been taken down for sale and wouldn't be able to get a cloud re-release because of licensing issues. I certainly hope that they continue supporting their stores long term, like they have with the PSP store for the last ~14 years, so we can continue to get those old updates. (or at least that someone finds a way to backup all those files and provides an unofficial server we can update from on our old systems.)

Kaz Redclaw

PS4 does let you mute trophies, but things that view your account can see that you have muted trophies. (Trophies, then Options, then Privacy Settings, then Hidden Games.) I've hidden a few games that I didn't really spend a lot of time on but that gave me some introductory bronze trophy. At the same time, if you're using Sony Rewards, a platinum trophy used to be worth $1 in PSN Credit, a gold trophy is worth about $0.10, and a silver is worth $0.01. They're redoing the Sony Rewards system though, so who knows what they'll be worth once they're done. Personally, I don't pay attention to trophies until I finish a game. Then I use them as a way to play more of a game that I already enjoy.

Phil’s Sphincter

Finally caught up (only on Sacred Symbols) next to start Fireside chats. Enjoying the content keep up the great work. I found your little trophy rant amusing, I don't think trophies mean anything to anyone except the person that earns them. I don't place any stock in how "difficult" a games list is, they simply provide a great way for me to see what I have played and the experiences enjoyed. Of course I imagine you would find my list quite amusing but everything has merit to someone lol.

LastStandMedia
>>19049027

Right, but you are the anecdotal exception. I guarantee you that &lt; 1% of people who owned a PS2 will ever plug it in again and play it (and that's probably a generous number).

LastStandMedia
>>19060291

PS3 and Vita let you mute games too; it doesn't matter, because if you're not looking at Trophies on PSN itself, you can still see them (like on PSNProfiles, for instance). The Sony Rewards program was not universal, and no longer exists.

Kaz Redclaw
>>19060291

Actually, I've specifically hidden trophies and had them disappear on PSN Profiles as well. PSNProfiles does say that X games are hidden however