Bungie to be Free
Posted 10-09-2007 at 03:17 AM by Ari
Not a photography post but some may have heard Bungie, the makers of the famous Halo series will be "spun off" by Microsoft into their own company (as if they were a microsoft creation to begin with).
My one and only serious online gaming addiction came from playing Bungie's Myth the fallen lords and Myth II. RTS games that were tactics based instead of resourced based (Warcraft II being a big hit at the time). Addicted enough that I ended up being a Bungie.net Admin patrolling the online servers.
After a few problems and failures such as Bungie West's Oni which had to be practically re-writen, shipped with partial features and wasn't a major success, as well as a potentially company ending bug in Myth II (use the installer wrong and it wipes the harddrive... Oops) they pretty much needed the next game to be a hit or close down. That's when they started showing Halo, ironically one of the first showings was at Macworld with Steve Jobs playing the trailer in his keynote, highlighting the new games they were courting for the Mac. As usual (one of apple's big failures) apple refused to give Bungie the serious support they needed and Microsoft swooped in, offering them not only money but the ability to shape the then still in concept Xbox (so if Halo plays well on the XBox it's because that's what the thing was designed for). In true Microsoft fashion they promised things like almost simultanious releases on computers, which of course didn't happen. I believe a number of original people left the company after that.
So three hit games later and I'm pretty sure they are getting tired of MS and the spin off was their idea. Hopefully this means the company that started making Mac-only games will finally be programing for the Mac again (with a nice PC fan base to boot). Apparently the company now has over 100 employees. When I admined for them you could meet practically the entire team at their small Macworld booth.
(Term note: "admin" is comparable to a slightly more powerful moderator in modern speak).
My one and only serious online gaming addiction came from playing Bungie's Myth the fallen lords and Myth II. RTS games that were tactics based instead of resourced based (Warcraft II being a big hit at the time). Addicted enough that I ended up being a Bungie.net Admin patrolling the online servers.
After a few problems and failures such as Bungie West's Oni which had to be practically re-writen, shipped with partial features and wasn't a major success, as well as a potentially company ending bug in Myth II (use the installer wrong and it wipes the harddrive... Oops) they pretty much needed the next game to be a hit or close down. That's when they started showing Halo, ironically one of the first showings was at Macworld with Steve Jobs playing the trailer in his keynote, highlighting the new games they were courting for the Mac. As usual (one of apple's big failures) apple refused to give Bungie the serious support they needed and Microsoft swooped in, offering them not only money but the ability to shape the then still in concept Xbox (so if Halo plays well on the XBox it's because that's what the thing was designed for). In true Microsoft fashion they promised things like almost simultanious releases on computers, which of course didn't happen. I believe a number of original people left the company after that.
So three hit games later and I'm pretty sure they are getting tired of MS and the spin off was their idea. Hopefully this means the company that started making Mac-only games will finally be programing for the Mac again (with a nice PC fan base to boot). Apparently the company now has over 100 employees. When I admined for them you could meet practically the entire team at their small Macworld booth.
(Term note: "admin" is comparable to a slightly more powerful moderator in modern speak).
Total Comments 2
Comments
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Cool. The roomie and I played Halo I and II, and if he decides to get an X-Box when he gets back from Europe we'll be playing Halo III.Posted 10-09-2007 at 04:16 AM by viscousmemories 
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Whew! I thought I was going to have to jump off a bridge or something.Posted 10-13-2007 at 07:48 PM by Dingfod
