With the cost of production spiralling ever higher video games have moved towards one of two extremes: low budget ‘indie’ games and blockbusters with production values, and production costs, to rival Hollywood movies.
And just like Hollywood, this has caused a paralysis over making anything that is new or untested. But there are exceptions and a new game by developer Bungie, the creators of Halo, is in many ways a surer bet than even the most established sequel.
According to publisher Activision, its new game Destiny will cost $500 million to make, market, and maintain over its intended ten-year lifespan. Bungie themselves deny that it’s cost anything like that so far, but whatever the true price tag it’s inarguably one of the biggest projects the industry has ever seen.
Although it is at heart a first person shooter, using the same gameplay DNA as Halo, Bungie describe Destiny as a ‘shared world shooter’, an invented term to avoid referring to it as a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.
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