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| Frankie's old school drawing of Parson's office from way back in the day. |
GameBeat was lucky enough to use their old
school connections and land an interview with Bungie Big Wig, Dave Parsons (no,
he’s not the bass player from Bush).
He’s the Chief Operations Officer which
basically means he’s in changing of running the company – and when you’re the
boss of around 350 people with an expectation your company will produce another
brilliant game a-la Halo, then you must be pretty good at your job.
Here’s a few Destiny related excerpts from the
interview with Dave.
GamesBeat: Did somebody in particular sell
you on the idea of Destiny? I think you came in after it started, right?
Parsons: No, we’ve all been working from
the very beginning. Well, it depends on how you look at it. Destiny has been an
idea bouncing around since even before the technology to make it existed.
Destiny is very much a product of everybody
at Bungie, but its inception comes from Jason [Jones, co-founder of Bungie].
This is very much a vision that Jason has. Then, he gathers a small group of
really talented people who have been here a long time, and they begin hammering
on it. It’s had multiple incarnations until it finally landed into what it is
today. That’s fun to watch. Not just on technology, but art and story.
GamesBeat: It sounds like you did have
options, though. Was there a point where you bought into Destiny and said, “I
want to do this too?” For 10 years or whatever it will be.
Parsons: As naïve as this may sound, if
Jason believes in something and he’s ready to go for it, I’m in. No joke, I
still walk in the door every day and think, “Who gets to do this? This is
awesome, to be a part of this thing.” Even when I’m having a shitty day, I feel
that way.
There are so many other things I could do
that, for me, wouldn’t be as satisfying or as interesting. They might be
enriching. They might satisfy some level of my curiosity. They might be
exciting. But there’s something about these people and this place.
GamesBeat: Did you feel any tug when Halo
went off in another direction, with Microsoft’s 343 Industries, and then Bungie
went its separate way with Destiny?
Parsons: Personally, I did not. I love the
Halo universe. I think it’s great. It inspires me. It inspires my children.
They’ve never played, but they know the universe. One, though, I’ve spent a lot
of time with Halo. Two, the mythic science fiction of Destiny immediately
attracted me. It was that first image … It’s a simple image, but it took weeks
of back-and-forth to put together. There were a few images already, maybe three
or four, but they didn’t speak to what it was. The moment that image was done,
it was like, “That’s it.” That’s the game. That’s the idea. That’s a place that
I want to be.
GamesBeat: You
had a leak. You had some interesting reactions. What was it like, looking
at the reaction from the inside?
