I meant when considering the whole kit and kaboodle. Even if it includes marketing it's still confusing to see $500 million next to this game.

Destiny Might Be the Most Expensive Game Ever Made

So is everyone saying that the $500 million number is coming from the included costs of Destiny 2, 3, 4, DLC, etc? The 10 year plan isn't just for a single game. It's for the franchise.

I'd like to make sure I'm not wrong when I say that Destiny 1 cost $500 million in total.

Yeah, I can see this happening. Also, It's a slow burning game, I'm level 22 and I think it getting better.

Just curious if what percentage of that was actually dedicated to the marketing and not necessarily just the development. Sure, there were probably some co-marketing money that was being given by Sony but maaaaaaaaaan I see A LOT of Destiny ads on TV and on the web, plus there were ads for Destiny in the nationally televised NFL games as well.

i honestly think it was given a fair chance.its very clear to me that all of the reviewers or people who played the story and didnt like it enough to do end game,wouldnt have liked the end game anyway.most of the people who dont like this game that ive seen dont like grinding or farming,they just like going through the story.those type of people wont like destiny,because its not for them.jeff didnt love destiny so playing the raid wouldnt have changed his mind.the same people who dont like destiny also dont like farming in borderlands,they beat the story and DLC and called it a day.the people who love this game will already know it by the time they beat the story because they will already have the urge to farm for better gear.the thing is not everyone likes that.i feel these types of games kinda have the same problem as jrpgs.there are people who like the grinding and the way jrpgs do things and there are people who dont.it all just comes down to prefrence in the end.

I had played a few hours prior to last night. I put it in after procrastinating playing it all weekend and got through 30-40 minutes and decided I'm done. I don't like playing it anymore and it's not fun to me.

@spraynardtatum:

"But the budget for Destiny, including associated marketing costs and pizza Wednesdays, is nowhere near 500 million dollars.”

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-06-23-bungie-coo

The original 500 million quote was taken entirely out of context and the internet just ran with it, as the internet always does.

@eternalshades: Okay, than what is the context?

I dunno, I think people mostly say it's just okay rather than bad. I think people tend to expect more than just okay when it's hyped to be the next big thing though. Kinda like with Titanfall or Watch Dogs. They aren't bad, they're just not as outstanding as they were made out to be.

Also, trust me man, it's okay to disagree with the majority. Me and my friends love Borderlands, but whenever someone on here mentions it, it's so they can poop all over it. Amusingly, me and my friends ditched our Destiny preorders after the beta to preorder Borderlands the Pre-Sequel instead.

I do not think bungie knows what the game is/ its like different departments all contributed and then stuck it all together. Now i had a good time with it i got to level 22 but for a game that its main selling point is its mmo style story mode it is very average with no variety for example one of the strikes has a better mission structure than any of the story has where it gets you to use the cruiser at certain points . its all a great shame as i think its world and the music and sound and the online aspect the main story ark are excellent . but even though i had a good time getting to that level and played with some cool people in the game.now i feel a good bit disappointed with the hole package and its leveling systems .

The context is that Activision has set aside what amounts to $500 million for the entire long-term Destiny endeavor.

Which, as someone who is enjoying it (with major problems here and there), is still ridiculous considering the game we were delivered.

As for a fair chance, it has had an abundantly fair chance - a slate-clean launch month, ample financing, copious marketing, significant catering on the part of Sony - it is just that Bungie has done its best to squander that chance every time they've been allowed to speak. They've overhyped what is at its core a very solid mechanical foundation for a loot-based MMOFPS layered in their usual bullshit and mysticism (which I totally buy into), into something larger than that. If they had been upfront from the beginning I don't think there would have been such an intense backlash among consumers, a lot of whom, let's be honest, just wanted the next HaloCoD. Hell, I even wanted the next HaloCoD -- I've barely put the game down at all this whole week.

Titanfall got 4 stars out of 5.

Good story? hahaha.

Good voice acting? hahahaahah.

Not repetitive? hahaahahahahahahahah.

Big game? haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Man.

I ended up liking the game, and as much as I did not want to its grabbed that grinding itch. My brain tells me to hate the game, but for some god damn reason I keep playing it. I only played half a MP match, dont know that its for me. This game deserves every bit of negative press it gets. It NEEDS it. IMO it is one of the worst stories Ive come across. Its painfully bad. The lack of story, world size, content, variety in missions, in game characters, towns, just fucking anything that makes it more then the shell of a game it is, are all problems. The hammer needs to come down hard on Bungie to light a fire under their ass to fix these issues.

Destiny is an enigma to me. I completely see that reviewers like Jeff and the negative voices in this thread make valid points. There are clearly problems with the game and it can get grindy and repetitive. There are not enough differences between classes and not enough variety in the guns and the loot... so why the hell am I loving it so much? Why did I not go to bed until 2:30 am this morning even though I had work today? I DON'T KNOW! Please send help.

I don't quite see how anyone can think that Destiny didn't get a fair shot, at least on this site. It's had four videos since launch, dominated quite a bit of the Bombcast the last two weeks, has been mentioned in a few staff tweets... it's almost like one couldn't escape Destiny coverage if one tried. As for Jeff's review, I wholeheartedly agree with it, and I've been playing the game almost religiously.

Titanfall never sold itself on its story, just the multiplayer. Also trying to compare scores is not a good way to really argue against anything since two 4 star games could mean incredibly different things.

Fact is that whats presented to you is a game that can be finished in a single sitting. Most people weren't expecting that. Weak story and presentation. Its not a shocker that people are upset. Everyone was expecting this deep epic space adventure and instead given a crap story and a ton of grinding to do. I'm a bit surprised jeff gave it 3 stars I thought he would have given 2.

Yeah, it got 4 stars, but that's just Jeff's (i think) opinion. He had more fun with Titanfall than Destiny, and that fits Jeff's track record. He likes competitive shooters more than cooperative ones, and he seemed more impressed with Titanfall's PvP. That being said, I'm pretty sure he mentions all of those same complaints in his review.

People with MMO backgrounds are going to be far more forgiving, because we know "It's going to get better." I've been telling my friends to hold off on it since it will hopefully be far more fleshed out once a couple of the expansions are out and there will be more content to satisfy people looking for a more traditional game. Not to mention I'm fairly sure the price of the game will most likely take a pretty steep drop in a month or two in order to push the DLC.

So far I liked the game. From the bits I gathered before release and playing the Alpha and Beta I thought it would be a lot maps and a lot of content. I kept picturing a cross between Halo and Borderlands. While it's not 100% of what I expected I'm still enjoying it. I'd like to see a livelier world at some point. Maybe pockets of wild life that actually survived. Bungie can still add some great stuff, but I hope not all of it has to be purchased. If the DLC's we have coming are not very good it can definitely make me think twice before I decide if I want the sequel. Lately I've been back to playing my 8-bit games so I'll be easily distracted for a long while.

I think Destiny is being compared to it's hype and not to other games. The review is just what the reviewer likes or not? Not a buying guide anymore?

I can play Fifa and say: I don't want to play anymore as I don't like soccer games, however if you are a soccer fan this game is f-good.

Yes.

I keep seeing this thread title and it's pissing me off.

Between marketing, coverage, developer recognition from halo and the fact this game has zero competition, also one of the first original IP to hit new consoles, one of the first to be bundled with a sexy white console that everyone is itching to buy.

This game will go down in history as having the most fairest of all chances of all time. It's the army of two of this generation for right place right time.

Let's be real this game has sold a fucking bundle no doubt, i'd say the results of critical/middling reviews probably account for a 0.010 percent loss of sales.

Don't make defenses for the shortcomings of this game, it doesn't need your sympathy. The reviews are what they are, some people think it's great, some people think it's not, no one is right, no one is wrong.

@crcruz3: Well, let me put it this way. 3 out of 5 is average, not bad, but not outstanding. Jeff thought Destiny was average. He gave Titanfall a 4, which would signify that the game is above average, outstanding in some way. Clearly he thought Titanfall was outstanding in some way. That's pretty much it. Why not a write a review yourself, and tell us about what you thought was outstanding in Destiny? I'd be happy to read it.

My native languages are Spanish and Portuguese, otherwise I would love to put my thoughts about Destiny in written form. But I can write pretty well in those languages and I would hate to write in poor style in english. However, I think that Titanfall is a very small game, with no story whatsoever, just a tutorial and very few maps. It gets old pretty fast. And the shooting is ok, where in Destiny is superb. Destiny has better graphics and art and very good music. And as it is a bigger game with more variety wins on all fronts.

The story is Destiny is a very naif and not well developed sci-fi story. That's bad and I think almost everybody agrees on this point. It is repetitive and that's kind of ok, it a grindy game. The loot is fine, it just takes a long time to get better. Rare and Uncommon weapons are all the same, Legendaries are very cool and Exotic are, well, Exotic. Hard to find and very unique.

The Vault of Glass is a masterpiece. It's better than most shooters, best part of the game.

Off topic:

How to get into the Vault:

1) If you meet somebody in matchmaking that plays well and is a team player that cares about downed teammates send him/her a friend request.

2) Repeat 1 often.

3) When in need of help at playing a Strike or Story mission invite people from this list.

4) Be nice.

5) You will be invited to Raid in no time.

I have been raiding with 4 different groups, there are a lot of very cool dudes playing the game.

@crcruz3: This is a pretty good blog about why the story bogs it down.

http://jonnegroni.com/2014/09/16/why-we-hate-the-story-in-destiny-and-how-it-could-have-been-way-better/

I thought until now that ''everyone is entitled to their opinion'' regarding Destiny, like everything else. Then you reminded me that Titanfall got an average metacritic score of 86. I mean, seriously? No one was talking about Titanfall a week after it came out. A bunch of people are still hooked and drowning in Destiny 3 weeks after the release. It's the reason Brad stopped playing dota for weeks on end.

It's like the people at all those publications I see on twitter raving on about Destiny weren't the ones who reviewed the game and they gave it to people it wasn't meant to appeal to.

By and large, I agree with you, but to this one point - I am far less than .01% of the market, but I am someone who literally was ready to buy a new console and Destiny when it came out, then backed out when the reviews were poor. Considering how few good reasons there have been to get new consoles thus far, I doubt I am the only one by far.

Just like everyone said the game was really really hyped up, and bungie didn't do a thing to set expectations. Also the difference with games like minecraft, cod ect is that they didn't include some of the elements destiny had because they knew they couldn't do them well.

I keep coming back to Jeff justifying why ocarina of Time should be the first 10 game on gamespot, and someone said , " Well the games doesn't have any voice overs. " Jeff replied, " Well the N64 cartridge couldn't do a lot of quality VO so if it was included it would sound like crap."

That's where I come out on Destiny, they tried a lot of stuff but non of it was that amazing, no element complimented another, or stood out on its own.They each dragged the whole thing down.

That's because Minecraft doesn't attempt to create a narrative. The story is your own. CoD creates a very simple narrative often, and yeah that's fine. Destiny tries desperately to create a narrative around its universe. The Traveler, The Speaker, The Darkness etc. all terms they introduce to the player to portray the story behind the game. Every bit of story that is in there is hazy and poorly delivered at best. If Destiny didn't try so hard, nobody would say the story sucked.

The game doesn't explain it's systems? Weird, the Souls games never did that very well but everyone still raves about them. Hell some people even LIKE the fact that those games don't hold your hand. But when Destiny doesn't hold your hand it's a problem.

That's because in Dark Souls discovering is part of the game. The game is build for you to slowly discover how it works. In Destiny there is a sudden smack to the face where you suddenly have no idea how to do anything post-endgame. It's not even close to the same thing.

The loot system is different than Diablo and Borderlands? Again, what makes that flat out a problem? It's different. But people are expecting loot drops all the time, aren't getting it, and 5 hours in are going "meh" with the system.

That is because Destiny prohibits your progression with loot drops. You need loot to progress. Because the game limits loot drops making them rare and even if they occur have extremely little chance to get something you need, the loot system actively works against the player. In Borderlands or Diablo, if you constantly get crap, it's not a big deal. You are still moving forward and you can farm for gear if need be. In Destiny there is no purposeful farming and if you don't get want you need, you're locked out of seeing the post-game content.

The quests are boring is a great argument. They are. Doesn't seem to bother countless millions who play MMO games and have for years. Again though, because Destiny did it, it's a fault. Even the exploration style of Destiny is kind of akin to an open world game like Skyrim.

Destiny's exploration isn't even close to Skyrim's. In Skyrim you find interesting quests and locations while you explore. In Destiny you have literally seen everything after 2 missions and yet the game wants you to grind in those area's the same missions over and over again to earn Reputation. Again, if Destiny had a lot of interesting quests, nobody would mind the fetch quests it has in Patrol. But Destiny has nothing but fetch quests. Even the entire story is one gigantic fetch quest. The game rarely offers something better than that.

All in all, Destiny has an outstanding core. But every single design choice regarding progression is for the worse. I'm left really enjoying Destiny and wanting to play more of it, but I am also left feeling I didn't get my money's worth and the DLC should be free to make up for the low amount of content. Whenever I am playing Destiny, I am having a good time, but I'm also hyper aware that I'm replaying the exact same thing over and over and can clearly tell that Destiny is not a big game. It masks its size with frequent loading screens and forces you to run through the same area 10 times over in a regular playthrough for all area's.

@crcruz3: To be fair, I think you express yourself in English very well. I'll also grant that I personally would not have given Titanfall a 4, but that I was merely saying it makes sense that Jeff did knowing what I know about the man.

In other games where the quests are boring, at least you're doing them in different places. You compared it to Skyrim, but that was a massive environment with way more in it than Destiny.

The complaint about Destiny's story isn't how little there is, but how much it talks about the universe without explaining it, expecting you to go onto their website and do research on the game you bought's story.

I forced myself to beat it last night, but I didn't enjoy it. I really wanted to, but I couldn't. The others who didn't either aren't doing it wrong, believe me, they paid $60 they're going to try to get the best experience out of it. They gave it a fair chance, and for them, it squandered it.

I do think high expectations have resulted in "harsher than usual criticism", but I feel this is what plagues all AAA and even "upper mid tier" (ugh) game reviews/reactions. Mordor is a fantastic counter example where low and middling expectations have results in GOTY talk.

I don't love Destiny and I wish there was more to it (mostly I wish it fit into my play/lifestyle better), but it's still a good game to me.

As usual, never confuse popular consensus with facts.

Glad some of you guys are enjoying it. I played not enough to render a reasonable opinion, only like 6 hours, but I really don't want to go play more. The combat was fine but no raid matchmaking and it being a co-op centric game with no friends makes me not want to keep going.

@zevvion: Have you ever heard of Warhammer?

I'm sure some of you have read this but for those of you haven't...( not saying its true, but it all makes sense)

http://www.bungie.net/sr/Forum/Post/70895980/0/0

I wish there was more to this game. I hit level 29 today and I think Im done. The raid wasnt as fun as I thought it would be and the lack of story and loot in this game really sucks. The patch made some nice changes but you are still left running the same 4 strikes over and over again. People leave quite often as well which just makes them take longer. The PVP is ok but there are not enough maps and it can lag pretty bad at times. Also the rewards are sorely lacking for high level players. Also the lack of private matches in a bungie shooter in 2014 is just a testement to how unfinished and rushed this game is. Raid drops are merely weapons with more damage to oracles which are easy to kill anyways. Destiny does some things right but I dont think it is a good game.

Yes, why?

Brad played the endgame and commented on it extensively. It got tons of fair coverage.

To be fair, they kind of had it coming to them.

Half of their marketing campaign was about "remember these guys, they were revolutionary before...", and "this is from the guys that created FPS on consoles". And that not even counting how Sony made a huge marketing push selling Destiny as the ultimate justification of the PS4 (despite being in other platforms). The other half was about vague descriptions of the game.

It was inevitable that the game would meet higher-than-normal expectations. The fact it seems to be outclassed by many other games in many fields seems to make the "revolutionary" hype unearned.

You are very kind. Yeah, you are right, it's not the first time I disagree with Jeff and I'm sure it's not going to be the last. I like the game and some people don't. I'm cool with that.

I'm loving the game but i think too much of the actual engaging content was held behind the endgame, with not good enough incentive to get there.

I think destiny wasn't exactly what was described at the beginning but what is has become is alright with me of course just an opinion but I'm totally sucked in!