Bungie on Halo 2: "We screwed up."

[unixronin]

Bungie engineer Chris Butcher was blunter in his assessment.  "We had about four to five weeks to polish Halo at the end...[but] we had none of that for Halo 2," he told the magazine.  "We miscalculated, we screwed up, we came down to the wire and we just lost all of that.  So Halo 2 is far less than it could and should be in many ways because of that.  It kills me to think of it."

I'm inclined to wonder, why is it that Halo 2 had to be finished up in such a rush?  Is it because Microsoft, not Bungie, was driving the schedule?

Butcher was even critical of Halo 2's multiplayer element.  "Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right," he said.  "I ****ing cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer.  I cannot do it."

Quite the admission.  Kudos to Bungie.  It takes a good company to voluntarily stand up and tell the world, "We screwed up this one."

Comments

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

Most games, like all software, are given impossible deadlines. Think of how many patches and version upgrades come out with new software - this doesn't even take live beta into account. To the best of my knowledge, games go live and that's it.

I've read horror stories about how game programmers, designers, and testers are brutally worked to death at crunch time. Like you said, rarely, however, do you find companies admitting that they rushed the release.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell yes. EA is particularly bad on this; I'm told it's complete hell. (Which is why I won't buy any EA products.) They intentionally work their development teams half to death and burn them out on developing a single game, because they know that the day after the game ships, they'll lay off the entire team. They figure they can always hire another team.

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

I'm getting really dissolutioned about the gaming industry. It was never in my reality until I got my ps2 this past year. I read the blog of a woman who was an "EA widow" and was appalled and how her husband was treated. IIRC, she was in labor during crunch time and they threatened to let him go if he went the hospital for the birth of his child.

And then there are games like Champions of Norrath and Baldur's Gate. Awesome games, imo, and co-op, which is RARE. They went out of business. Everyone who is into RPGs love them, but no other company picked them up and continued the series. Huge bummer. One could say they saw it coming as the 2nd one of each was not as good... reused maps and scenery, poopy new chars, etc. On the other side of the coin is Final Fantasy - which I can't stand - and yet it goes on and on.

When I rule the world...

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

The problem here, of course, is that they can hire a new team. The supply of gaming nerds that wants to work in the computer games industry is nigh inexhaustable. And with EA setting the pace, I'm not sure that a game company that even wanted to be nice could keep up and stay in business.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

I hear some stories... (my BiL is a Game Guy, and I think he's got a name inside that industry).

There's a lot of moving and shaking - a good Project Manager could do wonders for the game stuff. Targets move, depending on what the Jones are doing, too.

My BiL got hired to save a game with Mega$$$ attached, that was floundering badly. As they got close to Gold, they worked up their next project for when they were finished.

The week their project went Gold, another team for the same company had a go/nogo with what they had, the management shredded it, and shelved the project.

Then gave the failing team my BiL's team's next project - and laid (most of) them off as soon as the game went Gold.

(the ones who weren't given their papers were old timers - and the least productive and most troublesome, from what I understand).

So, they moved him to the HQ, paid for my sister and him to stay rent-free while they found a place, assisted with the realtor fees and all sorts of other goodies, and then laid him off 11 months after that. (He *did* get an incredible severance, too)..... Even after he saved a $$,$$$,$$$ project.

[bfly.livejournal.com]

I'd lay money on pointy-haired management somewhere up the chain. And watch for Chris Butcher to be job-hunting soon. Doing the right thing in corporate America is seldom rewarded.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Chris is good enough that he'd be snapped up in a matter of minutes. Would be very sad if it came to that, though.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I remember Chris Butcher as a lad of 21, just about to finish his PhD before he got the call from Bungie to go and work for them.

Nice kid. Haven't heard from him in years. Glad to see he's turned out well.