Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com either and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren foc Obam and we
Speaker 1: are covering the Bungee story. This is part two. And
Speaker 1: when last we left you, it was and I had
Speaker 1: left it on the cliffhanger, or as much of a
Speaker 1: cliffhanger as you can make anything that happened in the past.
Speaker 1: Anyone with an access to the Internet could look up
Speaker 1: and find out the answer, but still thrilling. Yeah. Bungee
Speaker 1: itself was in a little bit of a financial pickle
Speaker 1: that they had taken a break from FPS first person
Speaker 1: shooter games, that is, in order to develop this this
Speaker 1: tactics series called Myth And they had a tiny little bug, yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bug and Myth two that that could have
Speaker 1: deleted people's entire computers. Well, I mean, I guess not
Speaker 1: deleted their entire computers. That's terrible, Yeah, no, big yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean who needs an operating system? And and fixing
Speaker 1: this manually by replacing all of the discs and all
Speaker 1: of the boxes basically cost them what they made on
Speaker 1: the game. So they were in some issues. Uh, they
Speaker 1: began to work on a project that in it internally
Speaker 1: was being called Blam uh and it was another tactical
Speaker 1: game that was like Myth, but it had a science
Speaker 1: fiction setting rather than Myths dark fantasy setting. Uh. As
Speaker 1: they were developing it, they decided that the tactical base
Speaker 1: where you were controlling multiple units was probably less interesting.
Speaker 1: They wanted to go with a third person approach, so
Speaker 1: you're controlling a single character, but from the third person perspective,
Speaker 1: and then it would eventually develop into a first person shooter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that game by then would end up with a
Speaker 1: different name. But that's we're getting ahead of ourselves, just barely,
Speaker 1: not too much ahead of ourselves. Because in at the
Speaker 1: Macworld conference and ex about a Bungee would show off
Speaker 1: a demo of this game for the Mac that they
Speaker 1: had in development called Halo. Yes, so Halo was originally
Speaker 1: a title for the Mac. It was going to be
Speaker 1: a Mac exclusive and perhaps eventually poured over to the
Speaker 1: PC if it were successful enough. If you remember, Marathon
Speaker 1: Too had ported over to the PC eventually. Um so
Speaker 1: this was a really big opportunity for Bungee. In fact,
Speaker 1: a pretty notable persona in the field of technology was
Speaker 1: the one to introduce Jason Jones to come out on
Speaker 1: the mac World stage and talk about Halo. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs. Yeah. So this is a video, by the way,
Speaker 1: that is available online. You can go to YouTube and
Speaker 1: watch this mac World presentation where Steve Jobs introduces Jason
Speaker 1: Jones and he talks about the game Halo for the
Speaker 1: first time. And if you watch the video, you've got
Speaker 1: to see a lot of stuff that was in fact
Speaker 1: included in the games. Oh yeah, yeah, the demo is
Speaker 1: was rich with it. It was you get that that
Speaker 1: trademark Halo soundtrack that uh and and master Chief and
Speaker 1: a few vehicles that we that we all know and
Speaker 1: love or yes, all of us, even those of you
Speaker 1: who have never played the series, Lauren and I, no
Speaker 1: one loved them. Yeah, the the ward Hog. I think
Speaker 1: there's a phantom in their ghosts and guests. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: of the some of the alien elites yep, yep. So
Speaker 1: these were characters or creatures or vehicles or whatever that
Speaker 1: would end up actually being featured in the the final game.
Speaker 1: And as a result of this, Steve Jobs actually he
Speaker 1: comes out and confidently says, you know, there was a
Speaker 1: time when it was hard to find good games for
Speaker 1: the Mac and that time is over because of companies
Speaker 1: like Bungee, which was unfortunate as it turned out eventually.
Speaker 1: But anyway, at that same time, around that same time
Speaker 1: in Bungee would partner with another company called Take two.
Speaker 1: Video gamers have I'm sure recognized that name as well.
Speaker 1: So in exchange for nineteen point nine percent of Bungee,
Speaker 1: so Take two to just under ownership of Bungee, Take
Speaker 1: two would distribute Ony and Halo. Now, the reason for
Speaker 1: that partnership was partly due to this kind of financial
Speaker 1: difficulty Bungee had found itself in in the wake of
Speaker 1: the myth To disaster. Uh So Bungee West was working
Speaker 1: on on, which we mentioned at the end of the
Speaker 1: last podcast. Ony was that third person anime inspired sci
Speaker 1: fi adventure um and then they also had to figure
Speaker 1: out how to recover from this this bug we had
Speaker 1: talked about so so so partnering with Take two made
Speaker 1: perfect sense. Yeah, it was not quite enough. Bungee was
Speaker 1: still sort of in this this bleak well maybe bleak
Speaker 1: is the wrong word, but dangerous situation, and so they
Speaker 1: continued to look for opportunities, actually looking at possibly getting
Speaker 1: acquired by another company. Well, they had supposedly been been
Speaker 1: approached many times over the years by many different companies.
Speaker 1: On I'm becoming absorbed, I think Activision was one that
Speaker 1: they said had pursued them particularly a lot. They would
Speaker 1: really great English guys. They would have to have a
Speaker 1: deep relationship with Activision later on as well. Um. But
Speaker 1: then on on June nineteenth of the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: Microsoft announced that it was going to acquire Bungee. This,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, was a huge shake up in
Speaker 1: the video game world. I mean, you had this, this
Speaker 1: developer known for creating games for the Macintosh platform, a
Speaker 1: platform that really did the lag behind PCs. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at the market share of Max, if
Speaker 1: you had a runaway hit on a Macintosh platform, you
Speaker 1: might be talking two thousand copies of the game, because
Speaker 1: they're just weren't as many Max out there at the
Speaker 1: time as there were PCs. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: by a huge margin. Um. For for a little bit
Speaker 1: of perspective here, that the release of Windows and nine
Speaker 1: eight in those years respectively, had catapulted PC sales from
Speaker 1: PC sales went from being a relatively near eight times
Speaker 1: the number of MAX sales to being about thirty two
Speaker 1: times the number of MAX sales in three years, and
Speaker 1: they were in the midst of a second jump when
Speaker 1: when Bungee was acquired by Microsoft that they had climbed
Speaker 1: up to about fifty six times the number of MAX
Speaker 1: sales by two thousand four. Now these days, Apple has
Speaker 1: had another renaissance, but in the mid in the early
Speaker 1: to mid two thousand's, that was just not the case.
Speaker 1: And so while Steve Jobs was really doing his best
Speaker 1: to turn Apple around, uh PC was really dominating in
Speaker 1: the home market. So as part of this deal of
Speaker 1: Bungee going over to Microsoft, some things had to change
Speaker 1: because not all the development stuff could go the way
Speaker 1: they had originally planned. One of those was that Bungee
Speaker 1: transferred the rights to one and to the Myth franchise
Speaker 1: to Take two Interactive Software. So when I mentioned at
Speaker 1: the end of the last episode that there was a
Speaker 1: Myth three game but not published under Bungee, it was
Speaker 1: published Undertake two. H on E was still pretty much
Speaker 1: considered a Bungee game because it was it was more
Speaker 1: or less complete when it went to Take two to
Speaker 1: be published on under their label, So Bungee would become
Speaker 1: essentially an independent game studio under the Microsoft corporate umbrella.
Speaker 1: They had their own culture that was very different from Microsoft.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, even though they did relocate from Chicago
Speaker 1: to Redwood, Washington. Yeah. They they went into the offices
Speaker 1: and this is on that that. Uh. In the last
Speaker 1: episode I mentioned the twentieth anniversary documentary for the Bungee
Speaker 1: twenty anniversary. They they went into the offices, and the
Speaker 1: offices at Microsoft are laid out very much the way
Speaker 1: you would imagine the stereotypical office with cubicles. They took
Speaker 1: one look at and said, uh no, this isn't us.
Speaker 1: They tore out all the cubicles to create a big,
Speaker 1: open floor planned space that that was what they were
Speaker 1: used to. And they said that eventually get to the
Speaker 1: point where the people at Microsoft didn't even have a
Speaker 1: key to get into the Bungee Studios area because it
Speaker 1: was it was like a different world, so very interesting
Speaker 1: that the culture was there. So and uh. And also
Speaker 1: part of the deal, Take two sold their nineteen point
Speaker 1: whatever it was percent shares in in Bungee too Microsoft's
Speaker 1: and also Microsoft would gain exclusive rights to produce and
Speaker 1: distribute Halo, mostly intending it to be part of their
Speaker 1: upcoming Xbox console. That's right. They were getting to a
Speaker 1: point where they were getting ready to release this console,
Speaker 1: but they also needed to have developers to create content
Speaker 1: for the console. They were real knew it this right.
Speaker 1: This was before Microsoft had any entry into the console
Speaker 1: gaming world at all, and they were going to take
Speaker 1: on Sony and the PlayStation and Nintendo as well. But
Speaker 1: Sony was really the big one that they raiming. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The PS two, I believe, was also released in March
Speaker 1: of the year two thou over in Japan. I I
Speaker 1: don't have in front of me the day that I
Speaker 1: released in the US, But you know, the stuff that
Speaker 1: Sony had been doing with the PlayStation, that the PSX,
Speaker 1: the PlayStation one, and also the PS two and and
Speaker 1: Sega with the Dreamcast as well, was just blowing the
Speaker 1: minds of everyone in the gaming industry. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: even I mean, you know, I I understand that a
Speaker 1: lot of Mac users felt very betrayed by this decision
Speaker 1: of Bungee and felt like they had sold out, But honestly, y'all,
Speaker 1: it was so savvy of them to get into the
Speaker 1: console market at that point. You know, exactly. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it was it was a move that preserved Bungee,
Speaker 1: because otherwise it may not have been able to stay
Speaker 1: a unit. It would have would have broken apart from
Speaker 1: all the problems that they had faced in the wake
Speaker 1: of of Myth two and the other issues, and and
Speaker 1: beyond that, it allowed them to get in on the
Speaker 1: ground floor of this round of amazing consoles, right, and
Speaker 1: so it was a beneficial relationship for both parties, both
Speaker 1: for Microsoft really for Microsoft considering the phenomenal eventually certainly, um,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's I'm not sure if it was
Speaker 1: such an assured success for them at that point. They
Speaker 1: said specifically, it was interesting in that documentary they said,
Speaker 1: you know, there was nothing preordained about Halo becoming a big,
Speaker 1: big success. In fact, originally when the Microsoft Xbox console
Speaker 1: was coming out, it wasn't going to be uh heralded
Speaker 1: as the main attraction. It was only there wasn't the
Speaker 1: flagship at first. Yeah, it was that people began to
Speaker 1: react to it, and particularly once they got to play
Speaker 1: the multiplayer part, which we'll talk about in a second,
Speaker 1: they reacted to it so enthusiastically that they quickly said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is this is our our console killer. This is
Speaker 1: what is going to sell units. But they didn't know
Speaker 1: that at the beginning. So two thousand one would take
Speaker 1: two releases only, right. Meanwhile, that would come out for
Speaker 1: for Windows, Mac and the PlayStation two. And it was
Speaker 1: originally supposed to come out, but there were so many
Speaker 1: development problems that slowed things. Oh and the complication of
Speaker 1: the Microsoft acquisition. Yeah. Absolutely, So here's the unfortunate thing
Speaker 1: about this one. Take two had banked on only being
Speaker 1: a huge hits. This is kind of like the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the whole Halo thing where Microsoft was hedging
Speaker 1: its beds. Take two said no, only because Bungee has
Speaker 1: got this name and game, it's going to explode. And
Speaker 1: then it didn't really at all. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: there was certainly a hardcore group of of Bungee fans
Speaker 1: that picked up on it very much, and and some
Speaker 1: and some new converts as well. I remember a few
Speaker 1: of my friends were very fond of the game. I
Speaker 1: had never really looked into it until we started researching
Speaker 1: this podcast, and when I watched the gameplay, I saw
Speaker 1: that this game was ahead of its time, ahead of
Speaker 1: its time, and and in terms of the gameplay, you
Speaker 1: could you could do these combo moves that that were
Speaker 1: very beautiful. Yeah, there was something like a thousand different
Speaker 1: animations for hand to hand combat, which is crazy. Also,
Speaker 1: you saw some Bungee favorites showing up things like learning
Speaker 1: more about the world through terminals. So yeah, there's certain
Speaker 1: certain tropes, like like you were saying Lauren at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the last episode, that Bungee had established that
Speaker 1: they continued to really rely upon. Another big change happened
Speaker 1: for Bungee in two thousand and one. They had already
Speaker 1: moved over to Microsoft, Only had come out, and then
Speaker 1: they experienced a pretty significant change in their structure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: after only had published, their founder or co founder depending
Speaker 1: on who you ask, Alex Syropian would leave the company
Speaker 1: to found a new Chicago based game developing company called
Speaker 1: Wideload Games. Yeah, so Seropian, of course, it was his
Speaker 1: brain child. He and Jones together had really created Bungee.
Speaker 1: Seropian was ready to leave by the time and had
Speaker 1: moved over to Microsoft. He felt that I suppose that
Speaker 1: it was really you know, this Bungee had transformed, had
Speaker 1: evolved into something new, and he was interested in moving
Speaker 1: on Whitelad Games would eventually get acquired by a little
Speaker 1: company called Disney and become part of Disney Interactive. Seropian
Speaker 1: would actually become a pretty important executive at Disney Interactive,
Speaker 1: but then would leave in to found another company called
Speaker 1: Industrial Toys. Yep, they're creating games for mobile devices like iOS.
Speaker 1: So also in two thousand one, if that's not enough,
Speaker 1: we've got Seropean leaving. Something else happened. Uh. Yeah, around
Speaker 1: the same time, after Tony had published Bungee West, being
Speaker 1: the subset of Bungee which had which had really developed
Speaker 1: the game, would fold. Yeah. They just didn't make sense
Speaker 1: to have two different office presences, especially now that they
Speaker 1: had been folded into Microsoft officially. Soh so Bungee West
Speaker 1: goes away. Uh. And in November two thousand one, this
Speaker 1: is a big year for Bungee, they actually would release
Speaker 1: Halo Combat Evault for the Xbox So it was a
Speaker 1: launch title for the console system, huge deal for Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and it was an enormous hit. Uh. It didn't feature
Speaker 1: online multiplayer because Xbox five wasn't yet ready, so right,
Speaker 1: this was one of those instances where Microsoft had been
Speaker 1: trumpeting the fact, you know that they included an Ethernet
Speaker 1: port in the Xbox at launch, but the live component
Speaker 1: of it that the software was not prepared, so there
Speaker 1: was no platform to support it. However, what you could do,
Speaker 1: right was it was land your xboxes together and the
Speaker 1: it was a lot less complicated than the process of
Speaker 1: landing computer systems together. It's a plug in play type thing,
Speaker 1: right right, And that was I remember the first time
Speaker 1: that I saw this and it was so revolutionary to
Speaker 1: the idea that you wouldn't have to go into all
Speaker 1: of your settings and mess around with everything and go
Speaker 1: through that frustration level. Uh that that yeah, that you
Speaker 1: you really would just tuck them up together and they
Speaker 1: would basically do it for you. Yeah. So uh, for
Speaker 1: those of you who have never participated in the joy
Speaker 1: of a land party, land is local area network, if
Speaker 1: we have not mentioned that yet in this particular episode, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um. So. The way Halo multiplayer would work is
Speaker 1: that you would get multiple people on a single console
Speaker 1: and that would create a split screen environment and that
Speaker 1: would depend upon how many people were playing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: cooperatively you could play a two player game and in
Speaker 1: a versus kind of universe, he could you could play
Speaker 1: for four on a single console, but you could you
Speaker 1: could network multiple consoles together for a maximum of sixteen players.
Speaker 1: So imagine that you've got these multiple television side by side,
Speaker 1: all of them in split screen view, all of you
Speaker 1: are playing a specific one. Uh there was This was
Speaker 1: a time where multiplayer meant that you could engage in
Speaker 1: some underhanded tactics. I'm talking screen lookers. I know you're
Speaker 1: out there. Okay, it's part of the game. It is
Speaker 1: not part of the game. It's not a legitimate strategy.
Speaker 1: You should be looking at your own screen. Don't look
Speaker 1: at my screen. It's like checking your rear view mirror.
Speaker 1: There's nothing at all if you can't avoid it. Look,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's a common thing on in in
Speaker 1: games of war for you to be able to look
Speaker 1: through the eyes of your enemy and see exactly where
Speaker 1: they are. Look. This is why we always wound up
Speaker 1: having having two rooms of of xboxes with Red team
Speaker 1: on one side and Blue team on which the fantastic
Speaker 1: because you only saw your fellow players screens, and you
Speaker 1: could cooperate and you wouldn't get people shouting at you
Speaker 1: about screen looking only about everything else. Camping. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: that's a legitimate strategy that is not a legitimate strategy. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry Red versus Blue taught it to me. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was interesting because the whole first person shooter.
Speaker 1: If you've never played Halo, if you don't know anything
Speaker 1: about Halo, we can tell you everything about Halo. Well
Speaker 1: we'll give you We'll give you the high level look. Um.
Speaker 1: It was revisiting a lot of the ideas that Bungee
Speaker 1: had explored in the Marathon series, but the two games
Speaker 1: are not set in the same universe. The general plot
Speaker 1: is that it's in the future where humanity has expanded
Speaker 1: and colonized far distant worlds, and through this colonization process,
Speaker 1: several things have happened. Some of this gets explored in
Speaker 1: expanded universe material like novels or mini series, but the games,
Speaker 1: as they unfold, you learned things like there were periods
Speaker 1: of civil unrest where people on far reaching planets were
Speaker 1: upset at Earth's kind of totalitarian approach to colonization other humans,
Speaker 1: not alien exactly. Yeah, so this is there were there
Speaker 1: were the civil wars, and at any rate, also during colonization,
Speaker 1: we happen to come into contact, we humans with some
Speaker 1: aliens um called the Covenant. Yeah, called the Covenant specifically
Speaker 1: because it's a confederacy of different alien species who all
Speaker 1: share the same religion, and part of that religion involves
Speaker 1: this idea of a great journey where the entire alien
Speaker 1: confederation will move on to an enlightened level of existence.
Speaker 1: But they're also heretics, and humans are heretics because we
Speaker 1: take advantage of ancient technologies that we come across that
Speaker 1: we're not supposed to touch because they're very important to
Speaker 1: the alien religion. All of that is the backstory, like
Speaker 1: the background of what's going on in the game. The game,
Speaker 1: you have a very very much more immediate problem than
Speaker 1: this complex religious and political kind of turmoil is going on.
Speaker 1: Although yeah, like like I don't think that the game
Speaker 1: would have taken off the way that it did if
Speaker 1: it hadn't had this background. Yeah. So, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's important, but not critical to the right. Again,
Speaker 1: just like just like the earlier games, you could play
Speaker 1: this just running guns straight through, or just play the
Speaker 1: multiplayer and never even touched the single player and still
Speaker 1: find it a very satisfying experience. But it was the
Speaker 1: story that got a lot of people interested in saying, wow,
Speaker 1: this is this is really complex. Yeah, there's there's like
Speaker 1: a whole mythology. There's there's stuff going on besides what
Speaker 1: your character is doing. A lot of computer games and
Speaker 1: video games, I think give you the impression that whatever
Speaker 1: you are doing is the only thing that's really of
Speaker 1: consequence that's happening within that game world, and that's not
Speaker 1: the case with the Halo games necessarily. So the game
Speaker 1: opens where you are playing a character called the Master Chief.
Speaker 1: Master Chief is is his rank uh in A. He's
Speaker 1: a space marine essentially wearing superpowered armor. He's genetically enhanced. Um,
Speaker 1: he's kind of the elite of the elite. And there's
Speaker 1: a whole backstory to them that we're not going to
Speaker 1: go into because that could be like a series of
Speaker 1: podcasts at any rate. You're on a ship that gets
Speaker 1: attacked by Covenant horses, and in the process you're trying
Speaker 1: to kind of escape the Covenant. You're you're really your
Speaker 1: goal is to make sure the Covenant don't figure out
Speaker 1: where Earth is because they want to kill us. That
Speaker 1: would be bad. So you try your your ship tries
Speaker 1: to escape and slip space, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: hyperspace sort of thing, and you just happened to come
Speaker 1: out right at a gigantic ring shaped planet size space station.
Speaker 1: Planet size in the sense that if you look at
Speaker 1: the square footage of the surface area, it's like a planet,
Speaker 1: although it is a it is an artificial construct built
Speaker 1: by a mysterious race of aliens called the Forerunners, who
Speaker 1: are no longer around. Huh. And but this thing is
Speaker 1: called a halo. Yeah, Halo installation. I think it's installation. Oh,
Speaker 1: for in the lore of the game. Um so in
Speaker 1: the game, you the Covenant show up to they follow
Speaker 1: right behind you, and they they see this thing and
Speaker 1: they think, oh wow, this is interesting. We want to
Speaker 1: check this out too, So it becomes of a race
Speaker 1: to try and find out what's the purpose of this installation? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But along the way you run into these aliens called
Speaker 1: the Flood, which are these parasitic things that turn both
Speaker 1: humans and aliens alike into sort of zombie things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you find out eventually that the purpose of the
Speaker 1: installation was twofold one, to contain the Flood for study
Speaker 1: and to to act as defense mechanism if the Flood
Speaker 1: were ever released into the galaxy. Because the flood can
Speaker 1: essentially infect any sentient life form. So eventually what you
Speaker 1: learn is that this installation, if turned on, will wipe
Speaker 1: out all sentient life within a huge radius, like a
Speaker 1: significant portion of the galaxy and um. And so you
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion that that would be a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Whereas the Covenant think this is the key to the
Speaker 1: great journey, this is worthwhile. Yeah, if we push this button,
Speaker 1: then we will totally move on to an enlightened form
Speaker 1: of existence. So that's where the whole whole um conflict
Speaker 1: comes in. By the end of it, you spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: successfully destroy the installation and then, uh, you know, Cortana,
Speaker 1: this AI, which again very important in the in the
Speaker 1: lore of Bungee, is the artificial intelligence. Cortana, the AI
Speaker 1: who's been looking after you and helping you along the way, says, uh,
Speaker 1: it's over, and of course it's just getting started. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a good master Chief repression. It wasn't. I
Speaker 1: was being kind. I don't have a deep I don't
Speaker 1: have a basso profundo type voice. Uh so. Also, I've
Speaker 1: been coughing a lot, so this is this is as
Speaker 1: gruff as I can get. But yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was pretty It was it was for for a console
Speaker 1: based first person shooter. It was really complex and rich
Speaker 1: and had satisfying gameplay for a lot of players, so
Speaker 1: sure well. And and also the combat evolved part of
Speaker 1: the title meant that the the AI in the game,
Speaker 1: and I'm not talking about the articial intelligence characters. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about in the game itself. The the enemies and
Speaker 1: friendlies would we're really very smart and could react to
Speaker 1: you in very interesting ways and and and form their
Speaker 1: own kind of strategies as you moved through the gameplay,
Speaker 1: and so and so it was. It was a very
Speaker 1: fun experience, especially for anyone who you know, had had
Speaker 1: dealt with very dumb AI in in previous right, right,
Speaker 1: I And I hear that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who um like like PC players first person shooter
Speaker 1: players who who kind of look down on the Halo
Speaker 1: series because the control scheme is it had to be
Speaker 1: made specifically for the controller, not for a mouse and keyboard,
Speaker 1: which means you have to give up a lot of
Speaker 1: precision that you But I think that dismissing one type
Speaker 1: of first person shooter based upon the platform is short
Speaker 1: sighted as a as a person who likes both computer
Speaker 1: games and console games. I love the game play in Halo.
Speaker 1: It's very satisfying to me. It's it probably feels very
Speaker 1: different for someone who's more attuned to first person shooters
Speaker 1: on computers, and I understand that. I think. I do
Speaker 1: think it's also a little bit easier on the entry
Speaker 1: level to need to get into it, and I think
Speaker 1: that once once you are into it, there's a pretty
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good depth of of range of of
Speaker 1: uh skill level, skill level that you can achieve. Certainly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, based upon my online experiences with the most
Speaker 1: of the Halo series, it's an easy game to pick
Speaker 1: up and a difficult one for for me at any
Speaker 1: rate to master. Moving on, though, so Halo huge success
Speaker 1: both for Bungee and Microsoft, which are one and the
Speaker 1: same thing right now. Yeah, and as of two thousand two,
Speaker 1: they would announce that they were developing a sequel Halo too. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: this development process was not a smooth one. Uh. It
Speaker 1: actually ended up causing a lot of issues. The there's
Speaker 1: a large section of that documentary I mentioned that's dedicated
Speaker 1: specifically to the development of Halo two, where they came
Speaker 1: up with these big ideas for different level designs, plot elements, weapons, vehicles, enemies,
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff. But as they were developing
Speaker 1: the game, they realized that they couldn't really achieve the
Speaker 1: things they had originally planned. It just wasn't going to
Speaker 1: work out. Specifically, it wasn' going to work out as
Speaker 1: the first person shooter type of game. Uh and so
Speaker 1: they started to really uh worry about the integrity of
Speaker 1: the single player campaign. Meanwhile, there was a new focus
Speaker 1: on multiplayer because now Xbox Live was going to be
Speaker 1: ready by the time Halo two came out, so they
Speaker 1: wanted to really nail multiplayer. Ah yeah, Yeah. It was
Speaker 1: a huge Microsoft imperative to to get this flagship game
Speaker 1: of theirs on their new shiny multiplayer network. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you still couldn't play the first Halo on Xbox Live.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't going to work. So because it hadn't
Speaker 1: been built into that first Halo. So Halo two was
Speaker 1: going to be the first one where you had that
Speaker 1: opportunity they really wanted to get right. They had to
Speaker 1: pull a lot of resources onto multiplayer, which meant that
Speaker 1: the single player campaign began to lag behind. Uh and
Speaker 1: so yeah, it was really getting kind of grim for
Speaker 1: Halo two. In fact, if you listen to the documentary,
Speaker 1: they start talking like in really depressing language about it,
Speaker 1: saying that it was just a grueling process. Um, including
Speaker 1: a lack of leadership. You know, we had talked about
Speaker 1: Serapian having left the company. Jason Jones, meanwhile, wasn't working
Speaker 1: on Halo two. He was working on a project that
Speaker 1: was code named the Phoenix Project, also called Breach or
Speaker 1: T T F K A M two, also known as
Speaker 1: the team formerly known as Myth two. Yeah, so its
Speaker 1: the Myth two development team working on a new game,
Speaker 1: which was never like, there's never been any public announcement
Speaker 1: about what that game would have been. It never came out.
Speaker 1: It never came out. They yeah, they scrapped it. But
Speaker 1: the leading theory is that it was a fantasy based
Speaker 1: strategy game, kind of some alert to Myth two. That
Speaker 1: would be why fans called it T T F K
Speaker 1: M two. Um, we will will never know. They ended
Speaker 1: up saying, look, Halo two is the most important project
Speaker 1: right now, and it's it's kind of floundering. So Jones
Speaker 1: would end up moving over to Halo two, uh and
Speaker 1: trying to to add some more leadership to this development team. Um.
Speaker 1: Moving on to two thousand three. Yeah, in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: they would release a port of Halo one, Halo Combat
Speaker 1: Evolved for the PC and Mac platforms. Uh it. It
Speaker 1: did allow for online multiplayer play, but it did not
Speaker 1: allow for cooperative gameplay through the storyline. Yeah, the single
Speaker 1: player campaign. Yeah, so yeah, that was that was a downside,
Speaker 1: although they did have other maps that the console players
Speaker 1: didn't have access to, so that was one of those
Speaker 1: things that got console players a little jealous. Um at
Speaker 1: any rate. At E three two three, Bunche would show
Speaker 1: off some footage from Halo two and fan boys lose
Speaker 1: their ever love and minds. That is an accurate trail
Speaker 1: of the events. And if you can again, you can
Speaker 1: find videos of the Halo to reveal at E three,
Speaker 1: two thousand three. And it's it's insane to hear the reaction.
Speaker 1: It's funny too, because I think out of all the
Speaker 1: Halo reveals that I've either been present for or watched online,
Speaker 1: I think this was the biggest reaction out of all
Speaker 1: of them, partly because you started seeing things in the
Speaker 1: in the reveal, including the ability to wield two weapons
Speaker 1: at once, which drove everyone bunkers. Yeah, you mean, I
Speaker 1: can use my left hand to to needle Aera. So
Speaker 1: apparently that was a real eye opening experience. Also in
Speaker 1: two thousand three, this doesn't have to do with Bungee
Speaker 1: directly at this point, but a group of Bungee fans,
Speaker 1: or Halo fans specifically, would put out a small series
Speaker 1: known as Red Versus Blue. That's right. First episode goes
Speaker 1: live April first, two thousand which, if you've ever listened
Speaker 1: to any podcasts that the company has done, are gone
Speaker 1: to any panels. They talk about how they regret that
Speaker 1: simply because whenever they make an announcement on an anniversary,
Speaker 1: people expected to be an April fool's joke. Um, it
Speaker 1: end up being a huge success. If you go back
Speaker 1: and search the Tech Stuff archives. We actually did an
Speaker 1: interview with Bernie Burns, the the founder of Rooster Teeth,
Speaker 1: the company that makes Red Versus Blue, and it starts
Speaker 1: off with some playful references to stuff that's within the
Speaker 1: Halo universe, like Master Chief and the Covenant Armada, and
Speaker 1: then very very quickly forges its own path into madness
Speaker 1: and comedy drama too. Oh sure, sure, but this this
Speaker 1: was all footage taken our footage in in game footage
Speaker 1: taken from the Halo series. Yeah, essentially using the characters
Speaker 1: like digital puppets, right, And it was they were able
Speaker 1: to to make these little digital puppets kind of talk
Speaker 1: by by utilizing a glitch in the game that that
Speaker 1: would be erased from Halo two. There there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a concern right around now about whether or
Speaker 1: not they would even be able to continue making this
Speaker 1: series once Halo two would come out and they possibly
Speaker 1: fixed the bug. Yeah, it was. It was one of
Speaker 1: those things where Bungee was saying, oh, we should really
Speaker 1: fix this, and wait, that's what loves us make their movies.
Speaker 1: Eventually Bungee would code in. They did fix the bug,
Speaker 1: but they allowed for they allowed for you to do
Speaker 1: it basically on purpose. It was essentially head bobbing, so
Speaker 1: that that way it would because you know, the Master
Speaker 1: Chief outfit includes a full faced helmet that hides the
Speaker 1: person's head. You can't see the person, so you can't
Speaker 1: tell who's talking unless you have some sort of movetion. Right.
Speaker 1: So two thousand and four, in July, theatrical preview for
Speaker 1: Halo two ends with a quick flash of the u
Speaker 1: r L I Love Bees dot Com, an alternate reality
Speaker 1: game or a r G with with ties to really
Speaker 1: far reaching concept in the Halo universe that had never
Speaker 1: really been explicitly stated before. Yeah, it's mostly AI and rampancy.
Speaker 1: That was the big one, which of course had been
Speaker 1: introduced in the Marathon series. The rampancy wasn't really addressed
Speaker 1: in the first Halo well three for three Guilty Spark, Well,
Speaker 1: that's true, that's true. I was specifically thinking of human
Speaker 1: design AI, but three four three Guilty Spark uh definitely
Speaker 1: falls into that realm of if AI is left alone
Speaker 1: long enough, it goes crazy. Yeah yeah, oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and so so this this I Love Bees game
Speaker 1: would was was a huge Internet sensation. I had so
Speaker 1: many friends who were playing it. I didn't catch up
Speaker 1: with it until much later, but I was playing to
Speaker 1: the point where I was strongly UH leaning towards going
Speaker 1: to one of the public telephones that you could go
Speaker 1: to and wait and there would be a call that
Speaker 1: would come in at certain telephone UH telephones during certain
Speaker 1: times of the day in certain cities, and if you
Speaker 1: responded with the right code phrase, you could actually participate
Speaker 1: in this game. They actually recorded those phone conversations and
Speaker 1: UH ended up packaging them together for people who had
Speaker 1: been playing the game the whole time, so that you
Speaker 1: could go to a physical event with a real live
Speaker 1: people there. That was all about celebrating this alternate reality
Speaker 1: game that was at that point tangentially related to Halo two,
Speaker 1: and you could get a copy of all them. And
Speaker 1: it was great because it would have things like the
Speaker 1: AI on the other phone would ask you questions like
Speaker 1: what's your favorite song, and you would answer and just
Speaker 1: sing it for me. So you had all these people
Speaker 1: singing into a phone, including and it brought tears to
Speaker 1: my eyes. I'll never forget. There was one female player
Speaker 1: of the r G who said that her favorite song
Speaker 1: was Stormy Weather, so she started singing it, and the
Speaker 1: AI ended up singing harmony. So it's fantastic. It's all online.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah no. And and alternate reality games, if you
Speaker 1: guys haven't heard of them very much before, are this
Speaker 1: kind of interactive experience where it fyers players to to
Speaker 1: to go out into the world and answer phone calls
Speaker 1: at phone booths, you know, back when those things still existed,
Speaker 1: or find clues and and enter them up into the
Speaker 1: game world and and collectively figure out what's going on
Speaker 1: in order to proceed in the game as a community,
Speaker 1: and it can be a very powerful marketing tool. I
Speaker 1: think that this is probably the most successful one that
Speaker 1: I have seen the Beast right AI. Although I should
Speaker 1: also add in both cases you had people who were
Speaker 1: obsessed with the alternate reality game who never really cared
Speaker 1: about the Halo party or or AI for that matter,
Speaker 1: the same sort of thing. But anyway, right, right, So,
Speaker 1: so in November Halo two would actually release. Uh it
Speaker 1: did some some fair business, right. Yeah, It's sold more
Speaker 1: than two point four million copies in the first twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, hundred thousand copies an hour. That's not bad
Speaker 1: considering that again, back in their Macintosh day, they would
Speaker 1: consider a blowout success to be two d copies. That's
Speaker 1: pretty phenomenal. And uh and in the plot of these games,
Speaker 1: along with some of the backstory that was revealed through
Speaker 1: I Love Bees, what would make this entire universe even
Speaker 1: more complicated. So uh, the important thing to remember here
Speaker 1: from a kind of a meta perspective, is that the
Speaker 1: third act of Halo two had been truncated. They essentially
Speaker 1: in order to get the game out before it was
Speaker 1: no longer relevant. They had to make some serious cutbacks
Speaker 1: on the development side, and that involved removing an entire
Speaker 1: plot point that would happen uh after what ends up
Speaker 1: being the end of Halo two. So it was essentially
Speaker 1: a third shorter than what it was planned to be.
Speaker 1: Um again, it was such an arduous process. Team morale
Speaker 1: it Bungee was really low. It was just one of
Speaker 1: those things where people felt kind of like they had
Speaker 1: failed in their attempt. And part of that was just
Speaker 1: them saying, you know, if you don't if you don't
Speaker 1: aim for something that's scar Harry, it's not really worth doing.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you might fail in that, but that's what
Speaker 1: makes it worth doing. But they but they did achieve
Speaker 1: a really rich online multiplayer gaming. Oh yeah, no. Halo
Speaker 1: two online multiplayer is one of those things that that
Speaker 1: the lovers of the consoles still cite as being a favorite,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I know a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are eagerly anticipating the Xbox One release of the Master
Speaker 1: Chief Collection, which collects Halo's one through four and allows
Speaker 1: you to have that online multiplayer with all of them
Speaker 1: over Xbox Live on Xbox One and uh, and people
Speaker 1: are really eager to play Halo to multiplayer again because
Speaker 1: otherwise you can't really do it. So yeah, no, no, no, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm still very nostalgic personally for some of those maps.
Speaker 1: I I get a little bit misty eyed. I love Ascension,
Speaker 1: and I do I do still really tear up about Bees.
Speaker 1: It's so two thousand and six, Bungee would show off
Speaker 1: a trailer for Hay three at E three, This once
Speaker 1: for the Xbox three sixties. So moving on to the
Speaker 1: next generation of game consoles, all right. Halo three would
Speaker 1: come out the next year, in September of two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, immediately go gold and sell more
Speaker 1: than three hundred million dollars worth of this game within
Speaker 1: the first week. Yeah, phenomenally successful. And at that point
Speaker 1: Bungee actually shortly before the actual release of the game,
Speaker 1: had announced that it would separate from Microsoft later on
Speaker 1: the year, So by October two thou seven, Bungee would
Speaker 1: leave Microsoft and become its own independent game studio once again.
Speaker 1: Although it's part of the deal, they agreed to make
Speaker 1: two more Halo games and then hand over the Halo
Speaker 1: franchise to Microsoft to do with it what they would. Yep.
Speaker 1: So they said that, you know, if it came down
Speaker 1: to going out and and forming their own identity once more,
Speaker 1: giving up their baby was a tough thing to do,
Speaker 1: but it was the right thing to do, according to
Speaker 1: the folks who stayed with Bungee. Everybody did. Now, it's
Speaker 1: I think that overall, the the feel of Bungee was
Speaker 1: pretty positive. They they set on Bungee deton dot Net
Speaker 1: on its own once again, with a horizon full of
Speaker 1: opportunities for the studio. What's next for Bungee? Hush, if
Speaker 1: you're quiet enough, you can hear it on the lips
Speaker 1: of unborn babes. Yeah. So, as it turns out, the
Speaker 1: folks that Bungee have a bit of a sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Halo three picks up, We're Halo. Yeah, really
Speaker 1: I think they I think they do have anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty well known for it. Halo three picked
Speaker 1: up We're Halo two left off, So no big surprise there. Essentially,
Speaker 1: by the end of the Halo three I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: go through the whole plot again. It's very complicated, but
Speaker 1: Master Chief and Quartan at the end of Halo three
Speaker 1: are kind of set adrift light years from Earth in
Speaker 1: half of a starship. Uh. Master Chief goes into stasis.
Speaker 1: Cortana is kind of on standby, and that's the end
Speaker 1: of the Halo trilogy is kind of they talked about
Speaker 1: as being a three act tragedy, and so this is
Speaker 1: sort of the tragic end. Master Chief is alive, but
Speaker 1: he has completely separated from humanity, and no one on
Speaker 1: Earth is aware of whether or not he's they they
Speaker 1: assume he's dead, and so that that was kind of
Speaker 1: their way of saying, this is a fitting end. Master
Speaker 1: Chief saves the day, but he himself has cut off
Speaker 1: off from everybody else. Um. The game did, though, also
Speaker 1: feature a Forge mode um in which you could go
Speaker 1: in and create your own maps and game types with
Speaker 1: all kinds of physics and weapons that you wanted to
Speaker 1: put in there. If you remember from U from Marathon
Speaker 1: three Infinity way back in six, this is a very
Speaker 1: familiar feature. Ye. And what was also cool is you
Speaker 1: could record footage as you're playing, so you could actually
Speaker 1: make your own little machinima if you wanted to. That's
Speaker 1: that's what the kind of animation that read versus Bleu is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think said that. Yeah, I totally forgot to
Speaker 1: mention it. But you could do your own if you
Speaker 1: wanted to, and a lot of people did. Or you
Speaker 1: could be one of those people who you know, you're
Speaker 1: playing the game and you suddenly get sniped out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and you after the after the matches over, you were
Speaker 1: view it to say, where the heck was that person? How,
Speaker 1: how did where did they get to? What was their
Speaker 1: vantage point? How do I get there? So I can
Speaker 1: try can do things? So it actually made people better
Speaker 1: players too, because they could really examine and scrutinize what
Speaker 1: was going on at any given time, and they could
Speaker 1: change camera angles. It's not like you were limited to
Speaker 1: you know, a camera angle in a virtual world is
Speaker 1: able to go anywhere, so you could completely take a
Speaker 1: scene and do a three sixty degree sweep around. It's
Speaker 1: really awesome. So UH Moving on. In two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: Harold Ryan, who had served as the test manager and
Speaker 1: producer for Halo two, becomes the president of Bungee UH
Speaker 1: and in two thousand nine, Bungee would release the first
Speaker 1: of those two games they had promised Microsoft in the
Speaker 1: Halo series, Halo three O, D S T. Which stood
Speaker 1: for Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, which was a class of
Speaker 1: of marines some somewhat below the Spartans. The Spartans a
Speaker 1: k a. That the Master Chief character is a Spark
Speaker 1: in terms of technological and physical ability. Yep. It was
Speaker 1: kind of set in the film noir type genre, like
Speaker 1: they wanted to have a very dark, kind of gritty, uh,
Speaker 1: desperate feel for the game. It was. It was pretty spooky,
Speaker 1: it was. It was very desolate and also featured one
Speaker 1: of the spookiest actors in the world, Nathan Nathan. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wasn't that one too, Yeah? Um, and involved it involved
Speaker 1: a lot again of of back story told through these
Speaker 1: found recordings. Yeah. And it was kind of set between
Speaker 1: Halo two and Halo three, like the events that that
Speaker 1: lead from Halo two to Halo three. And it didn't
Speaker 1: feature Master Chief at all. You played as these other characters. Uh.
Speaker 1: Bungee also would announce in two thousand nine Halo Reach,
Speaker 1: which would be the final Bungee backed game in the
Speaker 1: Halo universe. Uh. And meanwhile, Microsoft, not resting on its laurels,
Speaker 1: formed three four three industries, So Guilty Spark three forty three.
Speaker 1: That's where that name comes from Um I have I
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a thing to say about that. Okay,
Speaker 1: I find it very strange that they chose three four
Speaker 1: three as as the name of this in house company,
Speaker 1: because I mean, we we we mentioned it earlier. But
Speaker 1: but three four three Guilty Spark was this floating AI
Speaker 1: who was really integral to the events of the series.
Speaker 1: He showed up first in Halo one. He I mean it,
Speaker 1: I suppose probably had a dude voice. Yeah. Um, while
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily evil, is definitely at odds with you
Speaker 1: through most of the series and is more than a
Speaker 1: little bit completely bonkers in that very charmingly murderous way
Speaker 1: that the video game AI characters tend to get. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I just think that it's really interesting that they were like,
Speaker 1: that's our name, right, There's not like Cortana or something, right, right,
Speaker 1: I would say that I would say that three four
Speaker 1: three is at least a moral if not. He has
Speaker 1: very specific parameters that he follows very very literally and
Speaker 1: sort of the less Kersey el swhere engine of the
Speaker 1: Halo series. You go, uh and the the lead over
Speaker 1: at three four three is Frank O'Connor, who was formerly
Speaker 1: Bungee's content managers. So some of the Bungee employees moved
Speaker 1: on over to three four three stayed with that and Microsoft.
Speaker 1: Others went with the rest of the company to become
Speaker 1: their own independent h entity. Uh The next year in
Speaker 1: Bungee would release Halo Reach. It's a prequel to the
Speaker 1: first Halo game, so Halo Combat Evolved prequel. It takes
Speaker 1: place on the planet that you know I talked about
Speaker 1: in in Halo. You're on a ship that's being attacked
Speaker 1: by the Covenant. The ship is in orbit around this
Speaker 1: planet Reach, and uh so this is the story of
Speaker 1: the Fall of Reach, when Reach was invaded by the
Speaker 1: Covenant and this group of uh Spartans who are charged
Speaker 1: with getting very important package to the Pillar of Autumn,
Speaker 1: which is the ship you're on in the beginning of
Speaker 1: Halo right right, And this the storyline is. I mean,
Speaker 1: anyone who is very familiar with the Halo series would
Speaker 1: know that it ends in terrible magity. Um So, going
Speaker 1: into this game, I was a little bit upset. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, the the story of the Fall of Reach
Speaker 1: is why I cried so much during I Love Bees.
Speaker 1: So I was, but I had a lot of friends
Speaker 1: who had never played the games that deeply had never
Speaker 1: paid that much attention to the backstory, so so they
Speaker 1: were all very surprised and end upset in real time,
Speaker 1: which I kind of shot and freudly enjoyed. Spoiler alert
Speaker 1: for those who who may have not played this game
Speaker 1: but planned to U So, yeah, it doesn't end well,
Speaker 1: but you know that from the beginning of Halo. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's clear what's happening. Um, but uh, at least
Speaker 1: one member of Noble six does live. Well, there you go.
Speaker 1: So there, It's probably not you, but one of them does.
Speaker 1: Everybody dies. It was also the year two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: of Bungee's twentieth anniversary. That's where the documentary came out.
Speaker 1: They also hinted at Bungee's next project, which at the
Speaker 1: time was codenamed Project Tiger, that would end up becoming
Speaker 1: the game that we now know as Destiny, which as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this podcast still has to come out,
Speaker 1: but they have done an alpha a beta on it.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and twelve, a lawsuit between Activision and
Speaker 1: some former Infinity Ward employees included a publishing contract between
Speaker 1: Activision and Bungee as evidence. The judge of the case
Speaker 1: unsealed this contract, and that revealed that the agreement covered
Speaker 1: four games under the Destiny franchise developed by Bungee distributed
Speaker 1: by Activision, so kind of laying the cattle of the
Speaker 1: bag through a completely unrelated lawsuit, the company Bungee began
Speaker 1: to release information about the game in the wake of
Speaker 1: various leaks that plagued the project. The budget for the
Speaker 1: game was reported to be five hundred million dollars half
Speaker 1: a billion bucks, although that might be for the entire
Speaker 1: series and include stuff like like server costs and all
Speaker 1: of that, so we don't know what that budget entails.
Speaker 1: I would imagine it has to be the entire series.
Speaker 1: I can't five million dollars for a single game would
Speaker 1: be such a huge investment that I don't know how
Speaker 1: you would earn your money back. Um So moving on.
Speaker 1: In two thousand thirteen, Joseph Staton, who had worked for
Speaker 1: Bungee since n and co created Destiny, leaves the company
Speaker 1: and joins Microsoft and in two thousand and fourteen, the
Speaker 1: release of Destiny is scheduled for September two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: and they we are recording this. By the way, on August,
Speaker 1: so it's still not out yet, so we haven't had
Speaker 1: a chance to to really play with it, but the
Speaker 1: alpha and beta programs both allowed prospective players to give
Speaker 1: it a world and was widely shown as to be
Speaker 1: a success, at least as far as beta programs are going.
Speaker 1: It's a fully online first person shooter game with some
Speaker 1: role playing game elements, persistent world that's supposed to change
Speaker 1: over time as as players join and complete different missions.
Speaker 1: So in theory, you'll be able to start playing this
Speaker 1: game and then eventually get brand new missions that unwrapped
Speaker 1: as the world itself evaults, So some missions may come online,
Speaker 1: some old missions may no longer be relevant. Um, I've
Speaker 1: heard rumors of an app that would alert you when
Speaker 1: new stuff pops up, so you would be able to
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's supposed to be an alert that
Speaker 1: would come to your character in the game, which your
Speaker 1: character is called a guardian. The storyline of this is
Speaker 1: just basically that you are one of humanity's last protectors.
Speaker 1: It's a sci fi world. We don't have a whole
Speaker 1: lot about the story right now. Uh So we're not
Speaker 1: going to go into that too much because it's first
Speaker 1: of all, it's a brand new game, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people want to have the chance to
Speaker 1: explore it themselves. Sure, but yeah, a few details here
Speaker 1: and there. Um there's there's another robotic ai yep, voiced
Speaker 1: by nonetheless than Peter Danklige. Who who doesn't need a
Speaker 1: little more dink Ledge in their lives? That's we all,
Speaker 1: we all, we all need. Yeah, so dink Ledge which
Speaker 1: I hear a lot of people referring to the Ghost,
Speaker 1: which is the little robotic cube that floats around and
Speaker 1: has Peter Dankledge's voice. A lot of people are just
Speaker 1: referring to as the Dinklage. I have no idea how
Speaker 1: Mr Dinkledge feels about this. Um. I I hope he
Speaker 1: finds it amusing and charming, because I'm sure that's the
Speaker 1: way most people intended. Uh. There was actually an Easter
Speaker 1: egg about Destiny hidden in Halo O dst. There was
Speaker 1: a poster, or or rather there was some writing on
Speaker 1: a wall. It was it was a Destiny and it
Speaker 1: showed Earth with a little glowing orb next to it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's funny that all the way back then
Speaker 1: they had the little little easter egg there, which meant
Speaker 1: nothing unless until you know, like kindsight, it means something.
Speaker 1: Just some other breaking news as we are finishing up
Speaker 1: this episode. Uh, there was a story about Marty O'Donnell,
Speaker 1: who's the composer who created all that really uh iconic
Speaker 1: Halo music, who was fired by the board of directors
Speaker 1: of Bungee back in April of two thousand fourteen Oddonal
Speaker 1: would end up suing the company, and an arbiter decided
Speaker 1: that O'Donnell should be granted his share in the company,
Speaker 1: which was a mounting to three hundred thirty six thousand
Speaker 1: three shares a Bungee and forty thousand shares of common stock.
Speaker 1: But Bungee has the option to appeal this decision, which
Speaker 1: has not yet happened as of the recording. Then, also,
Speaker 1: Destiny writer Joshua Rubin has quit his job at Bungee
Speaker 1: to go and join tell Tale Games to be a
Speaker 1: writer on their Game of Thrones episodic video game series
Speaker 1: that's coming out soon. So, uh, considering the Destiny is
Speaker 1: a persistent world that's going to continue evolving, I imagine
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big deal over at Bungee right now
Speaker 1: that they're going to have to make sure that they
Speaker 1: can continue and make it feel like it's a continuous
Speaker 1: of evolution of the story and not feel jagged or
Speaker 1: stop and starts. That's that's a tough blow for them,
Speaker 1: but that brings us up to speed. Bungee pretty amazing company,
Speaker 1: huge history in video games, oh yeah, and and so
Speaker 1: important to I mean the first person shooter genre definitely,
Speaker 1: but but also also a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff and in their history, very interesting and great,
Speaker 1: great themes, great human people. It's funny because, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there were certain games like the Marathon series that I
Speaker 1: had heard about but never really looked into until we
Speaker 1: did this episode. It's just interesting to see what elements
Speaker 1: Bungee considers really really important because you can tell which
Speaker 1: ones they are. They're the ones that keep coming back
Speaker 1: all the right, the super deep, complex stories that reward
Speaker 1: the players who go through the trouble of exploration and
Speaker 1: experiencing these things. Um and then you don't want to
Speaker 1: that's okay, yeah, yeah, you know, it is very easy
Speaker 1: in any of these games to to just run a
Speaker 1: gun if that's what you if you have a short
Speaker 1: attention span and that's what you want to do. But
Speaker 1: they can be very much deeper than that, and I
Speaker 1: have a feeling as I was doing the research, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go back and replace some of these games. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that I'll have to invest and get an
Speaker 1: Xbox One and the Master Chief collection because I want
Speaker 1: to play through them all again. And I did, in fact,
Speaker 1: because I had not yet played it. I played Halo
Speaker 1: Reach but never played O DST so I BT today,
Speaker 1: so it'll be waiting on my Xbox when I get home.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed O d s T. I want I find
Speaker 1: Nathan Philly and to be dreamy, so I'll absolutely love
Speaker 1: playing uh that game and listening to his melodious voice
Speaker 1: and and and the character also is modeled very much
Speaker 1: like him, so if you enjoy his rugged jawline as well,
Speaker 1: then you will get to enjoy that in the game. Well,
Speaker 1: that wraps up our story about Bungee. Lauren, do you
Speaker 1: wanna Do you want to talk about what's coming next
Speaker 1: for you? Uh? Yeah? So, So, as I mentioned at
Speaker 1: the top of our first episode about Bungee, this this
Speaker 1: is my last episode of tech Stuff, and and I
Speaker 1: have so very many emotions about it because I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about moving on to other projects. That how stuff works,
Speaker 1: and and getting to really pursue some of my my
Speaker 1: interests because because honestly, y'all, tech has never really been
Speaker 1: my my strong suit. So so I'm excited about getting
Speaker 1: into more of the science and the gross stuff that
Speaker 1: our bodies do, hopefully very soon. But you know, I
Speaker 1: I just wanted to to take a moment to thank
Speaker 1: all of you guys for I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: had never done podcasting before when I started on Tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: and I had never really been a performer before, and
Speaker 1: so the opportunity to do this, like you guys put
Speaker 1: up with my learning curve, and I have so much
Speaker 1: gratitude for you for that, because I would not be
Speaker 1: the person that I am. It's only been a year
Speaker 1: and a half, but I would not be the person
Speaker 1: who I am right now if it were not for
Speaker 1: this show. And I'm totally choking up. I feel like
Speaker 1: such a nerd um and and so you know, just
Speaker 1: just thank you so much to all of you guys
Speaker 1: for for tuning in and sticking with me and and
Speaker 1: being so supportive, and and a special thanks to well well,
Speaker 1: first of all, to h to our wonderful editor Knoll
Speaker 1: for making me sound so good on this show all
Speaker 1: the time. And also to our original editor for the show, Tyler,
Speaker 1: who uh extra put up with my learning curve. That
Speaker 1: guy was a saint. And and also also just too Jonathan,
Speaker 1: so much for for showing me all of the ropes here. Well,
Speaker 1: now you're going to end up flourishing on other other
Speaker 1: shows and we will see, but we I am. I
Speaker 1: encourage my listeners to go and subscribe to Forward Thinking
Speaker 1: because Lauren will still be an active co host on
Speaker 1: that show, and of course we will keep you posted
Speaker 1: when Lauren has other projects. Make sure you tune into
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, the video series that both of us occasionally
Speaker 1: appear on. Yeah, yeah you can. You can find a
Speaker 1: bunch of goofy videos with the two of us over
Speaker 1: at brain Stuff show dot com or on the YouTube's
Speaker 1: um and uh and same thing with Forward Thinking that's
Speaker 1: fw thinking dot com or the YouTube's and uh and
Speaker 1: and so so, Jonathan, where where are you taking tech stuff?
Speaker 1: It's exciting, uh and scary and terrifying and fun and
Speaker 1: all these things all the same time. So here's the thing, guys, Uh,
Speaker 1: the emotions I'm having, we don't I don't have a
Speaker 1: replacement co host um planned right now, but we're going
Speaker 1: to be doing a series of guest co hosts, including
Speaker 1: a lot of people from How Stuff Works, the Stuff
Speaker 1: You Should Know, guys stuff, Mom never told you stuff,
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, car stuff. All these
Speaker 1: folks are at some time or another going to be
Speaker 1: sitting in with me and doing special episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: and also people from outside of How Stuff Works. I've
Speaker 1: got some plans to chat with some notable personalities in
Speaker 1: the field of technology podcasting, including people like Tom Merritt
Speaker 1: and Veronica Belmont and Scott Johnson and Shannon Morse, So
Speaker 1: we'll be doing some special episodes with them and also
Speaker 1: maybe some experiments with format. We might try some stuff
Speaker 1: that Tech Stuff has never done before. But one thing
Speaker 1: I can assure you, Tech Stuff will continue and we
Speaker 1: will continue to publish twice a week, so don't worry
Speaker 1: about that. It's going to keep going and it won't
Speaker 1: just be the Jonathan Show. So if you're worried about that,
Speaker 1: I want to set your mind at ease. I don't
Speaker 1: want that either. So if you really want the job,
Speaker 1: and show right in, because my ego could really take
Speaker 1: the boost. But otherwise, don't worry about it. So if
Speaker 1: you want to suggest a topic for future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, or you just send a comment. Maybe you
Speaker 1: have a lovely farewell message for Lauren that you would
Speaker 1: like to share. To do so, send us an email.
Speaker 1: Our address is tex Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop us a line on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: or Tumbler, or handle is tech stuff hs W and
Speaker 1: we I mean I We'll talk to you again really
Speaker 1: soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Because it has stuff works dot com