Matt Soell describes himself as a “Writer, Raconteur, Man About Town” but for context, he’s an ex-‘Bungie Community Guy’ so probably knows a thing or three about how Bungie works, its mindset and how it likes to slowly build things up until their endeavours are available for the world to consume.
In an article titled “Transparency is overrated’ Matt eloquently responds to some criticisms that Bungie did not reveal enough detail when they first officially announced Destiny.
Here’s his opening:
“When I see articles in the video game press complaining that Bungie’s reveal of their upcoming title Destiny was frustratingly light on details, I wonder why they care. If I had a quarter for every time the game press mangled quotes, described nonexistent product features, and confused internet speculation with fact-checked confirmation, I could melt all those quarters down and put in a new driveway made of solid copper. People who write about games (not all of them, but more than enough) are light on details quite regularly. And that’s for the games they care about, the ones they write about themselves instead of just cutting-and-pasting from a press release. Now Bungie throws a party and the game press can’t fill in all the blanks in their Mad Libs Game Journalism booklet right away, and you’d think some of them had been slapped.”
I tend to agree (and probably that’s why I’m posting this for a bit of self confirmation bias ;) and in terms of wild speculation and rumour one only has to look at the announcement of the new Star Wars trilogy. Zack Synder is directing! No he’s not. It’s going to be about the Skywalkers. Han Solo’s in it. The old guy from the television show Fringe is in it. It will feature Optimus Prime as a part of a Transformers cross over.
The reality is all we know is that Lucas sold the golden goose to the guys that made Bambi and they’ve engaged JJ Abrams to direct.
And that’s all Bungie have done, they've basically said “JJ Abrams” albeit in the form of Jason Jones saying, here’s a vidoc featuring some cool things (filled with lots of little details actually….) and you’ll just have to wait and see what falls out of the tree.
Soell draws a nice comparison to Hollywood (back to film again? Ed) and a certain classic movie:
“It’s showbiz. It’s part of the experience. This is the entertainment software industry and we are, whether or not we look the part, entertainers. The men and women of Bungie follow in the footsteps of Alfred Hitchcock, who had the unmitigated audacity to introduce Psycho with a trailer that featured nothing but empty environments and lots of him talking. No clips from the actual film, no major plot revelations…and that lady in the shower wasn’t even Janet Leigh! (It was Vera Miles, who plays Leigh’s sister in the film.) What a rip-off! What a waste of his fans’ time!
What a surprise that it’s remembered fondly, decades later, as one of the greatest movie trailers ever. It’s as if Hitchcock knew what he was doing.”
It was as if Hitchcock knew what he was doing.
Well history shows Hitchcock took a huge gamble making Pyscho and that he used his own money to finance it’s production. But he knew he had a great story to tell and tell it he did and that story is now so well remembered they are making a modern day television show about the Bates family.
Bungie has a story to tell too, they have just at this time given us their trailer. Their true Box Office is just around the corner….
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