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Oni: Difference between revisions
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much regret about this mistake, finally realized that Bungie went to an MS office in Seattle not Redmond
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The second half of 1999 saw the replacement of the AI programmer and the departure of one of the level designers, followed by Brent Pease himself at the very end of the year (with his Project Lead title being passed to Michael Evans). LeBel and the team began honing the gameplay, shaping the final story, and figuring out what features or content would have to be dropped in order to ship the game before it was too late; Bungie was secretly suffering from serious money problems (see "Buyout" section below). In May of 2000, it was announced that multiplayer was being removed from the game due to latency issues and lack of time to create suitable arena levels for netplay. In June of 2000, it was announced that Bungie had been acquired by Microsoft. | The second half of 1999 saw the replacement of the AI programmer and the departure of one of the level designers, followed by Brent Pease himself at the very end of the year (with his Project Lead title being passed to Michael Evans). LeBel and the team began honing the gameplay, shaping the final story, and figuring out what features or content would have to be dropped in order to ship the game before it was too late; Bungie was secretly suffering from serious money problems (see "Buyout" section below). In May of 2000, it was announced that multiplayer was being removed from the game due to latency issues and lack of time to create suitable arena levels for netplay. In June of 2000, it was announced that Bungie had been acquired by Microsoft. | ||
This caused an upset among Bungie's fan base, which mostly consisted of Mac users. They considered Microsoft to be Apple's nemesis, and now the publisher of Windows had taken the most popular game developer from the Mac world and would be incorporating them into their | This caused an upset among Bungie's fan base, which mostly consisted of Mac users. They considered Microsoft to be Apple's nemesis, and now the publisher of Windows had taken the most popular game developer from the Mac world and would be incorporating them into their offices in Seattle, Washington. The effect this had on Oni's development was dire; it meant that Bungie West needed to finish their work as soon as possible in order to join the rest of Bungie in Seattle. In order to ship the game by year end, the Bungie West staff worked massive overtime for several months straight. During this "crunch" period, the unexpected departure of the graphics programmer led to his replacement and a minor overhaul of the graphics code.<!-- Congratulations, you found a secret reference! For a citation on the graphics programmer leaving, see this auction of a copy of Oni by Stefan Sinclair: https://archive.is/njEe3. His story is in the Description section. This replacement happened by August because that's when Stefan started posting questions online about OpenGL ^_^ Anyway, it's a bit awkward to link to a page like this as an official citation so I am hiding it here for now. -Iritscen --> According to Hardy LeBel, "It was as bad a crunch as there has ever been in the video games industry."<ref>See CryMor Gaming's documentary [https://youtu.be/jbrPu15jjPs?t=960 Demon: The Untold Story of Bungie’s Forgotten Franchise], 16 minute mark.</ref> It was only due to this final push that a playable and enjoyable game was forged out of over two years of prior work. | ||
==Completion== | ==Completion== | ||
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This deal didn't seem to change business much for Bungie, especially since Take-Two was having the PS2 port performed by another studio. But considerably more shocking news was revealed on June 19, 2000, when Bungie announced its acquisition by Microsoft.<ref>[https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-buys-bungie-take-two-buys-oni-ps2-situation-unchanged IGN, "Microsoft Buys Bungie, Take Two Buys Oni, PS2 Situation Unchanged"].</ref> It turned out that Bungie's monetary woes had not been solved by Take-Two's influx of cash, and so MacSoft founder Peter Tamte had been hired by Bungie to find a buyer for the company. Take-Two acquired (among other things) all rights to the Oni and Myth IPs in exchange for its stake in Bungie and its publishing rights for Halo. Take-Two valued the Oni IP at $2.8 million, and the Myth IP at $1.5 million.<ref>[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946581/000112528202003845/b320556.htm SEC 10-K filing for Take-Two Interactive, 10/31/02].</ref><ref>The sale of Bungie to Microsoft has an interesting historical footnote: according to Ed Fries, who was VP of game publishing at Microsoft, Steve Jobs angrily called MS CEO Steve Ballmer immediately after the Bungie acquisition was announced; sources within Bungie have stated that Apple themselves had been close to offering to buy Bungie at the time. In order to appease Apple (a business partner of Microsoft) over the loss of a major Mac game developer, a new company was formed to port Windows games to the Mac, named Destineer, and headed up by none other than Peter Tamte of Bungie. Destineer would go on to publish a port of Halo for the Mac in 2003. ([https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/publishing/steve-jobs-raged-at-microsoft-over-game-studio-sale/], [https://www.mcvuk.com/development-news/ex-bungie-dev-apple-got-close-to-buying-us/], [https://web.archive.org/web/20181019075755/http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=173])</ref> | This deal didn't seem to change business much for Bungie, especially since Take-Two was having the PS2 port performed by another studio. But considerably more shocking news was revealed on June 19, 2000, when Bungie announced its acquisition by Microsoft.<ref>[https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-buys-bungie-take-two-buys-oni-ps2-situation-unchanged IGN, "Microsoft Buys Bungie, Take Two Buys Oni, PS2 Situation Unchanged"].</ref> It turned out that Bungie's monetary woes had not been solved by Take-Two's influx of cash, and so MacSoft founder Peter Tamte had been hired by Bungie to find a buyer for the company. Take-Two acquired (among other things) all rights to the Oni and Myth IPs in exchange for its stake in Bungie and its publishing rights for Halo. Take-Two valued the Oni IP at $2.8 million, and the Myth IP at $1.5 million.<ref>[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946581/000112528202003845/b320556.htm SEC 10-K filing for Take-Two Interactive, 10/31/02].</ref><ref>The sale of Bungie to Microsoft has an interesting historical footnote: according to Ed Fries, who was VP of game publishing at Microsoft, Steve Jobs angrily called MS CEO Steve Ballmer immediately after the Bungie acquisition was announced; sources within Bungie have stated that Apple themselves had been close to offering to buy Bungie at the time. In order to appease Apple (a business partner of Microsoft) over the loss of a major Mac game developer, a new company was formed to port Windows games to the Mac, named Destineer, and headed up by none other than Peter Tamte of Bungie. Destineer would go on to publish a port of Halo for the Mac in 2003. ([https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/publishing/steve-jobs-raged-at-microsoft-over-game-studio-sale/], [https://www.mcvuk.com/development-news/ex-bungie-dev-apple-got-close-to-buying-us/], [https://web.archive.org/web/20181019075755/http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=173])</ref> | ||
The acquisition of Bungie by Microsoft also meant the dissolution of Bungie West as Bungie moved their employees to | The acquisition of Bungie by Microsoft also meant the dissolution of Bungie West as Bungie moved their employees to Seattle, Washington. Some Oni developers stayed with Bungie and went on to contribute to the Halo series, such as LeBel, while others moved on to different game studios. | ||
''Further reading:'' [[Rights]]. | ''Further reading:'' [[Rights]]. | ||