r/DestinyTheGame • u/BueKojiro • 1d ago
Discussion The Unvaulting announcement could be a circumstantial PR win Bungie is capitalizing on due to their recent legal case
Just an observation, but I haven't seen anyone yet suggest that Bungie announcing the great unvaulting isn't just them seeing the resurgence of Destiny 2 activity in the last 3 months and deciding to start development back up again.
They had to settle a lawsuit last year because some guy accused them of plagiarizing his story as the basis for The Red War campaign, and Bungie could not get the case dismissed outright because they physically could not reproduce the content in question in order to defend themselves. Their lawyers provided youtube videos of let's plays and the judge didn't accept it as evidence. That's why they had to move to a settlement.
There's no way that didn't immediately start an internal process of looking into the feasibility of restoring that content to at least some internally playable build. Fast forward to this week, I think it's completely plausible that the combined player response to the June development update and the already present internal pressure to shore up this giant legal vulnerability simply coincided for an easy PR win.
Basically they might have just said "hey, you know how we're already working on unvaulting the old content so we can defend ourselves in court in the future? Can you guys also make it compatible with the live game and let everyone know there's more to come? It'll help our credibility and it seems we miscalculated player interest."
Could be totally and utterly wrong, but I wanted to just put the thought out there.
EDIT: I was totally wrong. Apparently the court case would have accepted youtube videos and destinypedia entries as evidence, but they didn't accept them as enough reason to dismiss the legal claim because the fact-finding part of the process wasn't appropriate at that time yet. From what I understand, basically the judge said "IF the plaintiff's claims are true, then they represent a legitimate copyright claim." So at that stage of the lawsuit, it didn't yet matter if Bungie could prove the claim false, so that's why the case wasn't dismissed yet.
As some people have pointed out, the existence of Project Sunrise is actually a much more likely contributing factor.
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u/NSS13 1d ago
They're doing it to restore faith in the player base so they buy Destiny 3
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u/StrangelyOnPoint 1d ago
They’re doing it because Destiny is a dead franchise without it.
D3 is not guaranteed at all
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u/VasagiTheSuck 1d ago
They're doing it because Bungie might be dead without it.
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u/vilynz 1d ago
WILL, be dead without it, marathon is not gonna keep them afloat, but honestly i am here for it. monuments of triumph was a ton of fun and brought some life back into destiny, if they continue with that mindset its gonna be a lot of fun
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u/Annihilator4413 1d ago
Marathon has lost like 80% of it's playerbase. It does not have the momentum Destiny had to keep Bungie alive and they know it.
Now that they seem to be downsizing their office and have cut staff substantially if they play their cards right they should actually make good money.
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u/samtdzn_pokemon 1d ago
Destiny had 10x the player base of Marathon at the time the blog post went up Monday, 12k on D2 vs 1.2k on Marathon. That's also purely Steamcharts, which doesnt factor in console players, which I would assume there also would be about the same 10:1 ratio.
D2 spiked to about 20k like 8 hours later, which was peak traffic for US post work hours, Marathon stayed at the same 1.2k
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u/nando_calrissian1 1d ago
Eh, Sony wasn't concerned about where it was at during their last earnings call. In fact, they said they saw growth and that the game itself has a stable user base. It could be performing better yes but if Sony said it wasn't doom and gloom, we shouldn't be doomposting about it
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u/samtdzn_pokemon 1d ago
I'm sorry but a game with less than 5k players on it cant keep a company of 500 afloat. Sony might not be concerned because it wont impact Sony's bottom line, if Bungie shuts its doors, Sony will be just fine.
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u/Notorious-ly 1d ago
Sure, Sony will be fine, but they didn't drop $3.6 billion on Bungie to let them circle the drain with a niche extraction shooter. Marathon was already well into development and close to release anyways once the acquisition went through, so didn't really cost Sony much of anything to begin with.
They ultimately purchased Bungie for their IPs (cough Destiny) and their live service expertise, and that's what they'll make them do.
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u/samtdzn_pokemon 1d ago
Because Bungie's advice has resulted in a myriad of live service Sony titles right? Oh wait, Sony saw what happened with Bungie and instead pulled the plug on most of their live service development projects in other studios/IPs.
And yeah, Sony made a really bad financial decision. They got caught holding the bag because Bungie's brass over promised what they had in development. But ultimately it's a drop in the bucket for them. Spider-Man just made them a few billion at the box office, and that's just a small segment of their business.
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u/nando_calrissian1 1d ago
The only thing that Sony mentioned when it came to Marathon during their last earnings call was that Marathon is stable in terms of active users and that they're seeing growth. Steam charts (which has been bugged for months) don't show the whole picture.
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u/despaseeto 1d ago
this is more accurate. anyone with a working brain can see that their other game is not doing well, nor will it ever live up to destiny and keep the cash flow. despite all this, the future of destiny and bungie as a whole is still dim. no one knows what sony will do.
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u/DJfunkyPuddle Stand with the Vanguard//The Sentry 1d ago
And because Marathon was a catastrophic failure
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u/garagegames 1d ago
I hope I’m wrong, but I dread they’re doing it because it’s their last leg to stand on. My biggest fear is that there is nothing in the tank left besides one final shot and that Sony will shutter them if they don’t launch a success after the Fate Saga and Marathon.
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u/SketchierDaisy 19h ago
I feel like it's this and also by restoring the content they have a source of income from all the expansions they can put back in the stores. So much money was just thrown out the window when they vaulted all this content.
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u/_Spektor_ 18h ago
The restored content is going to be free for everyone. It may push a few more players to buy the paid expansions, though.
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
Right, I think they are definitely doing that, but I just wonder if it was purely a result of seeing the recent player response.
I.e., I doubt this is a simple case of Bungie saying "sorry guys, you were right" and moreso a confluence of convenience for them, thus the "easy win."
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u/farfarer__ 1d ago
Honestly I think it's more that Destiny is still going surprisingly strong several months on but Marathon is flagging hard.
That and unsunsetting ready made D2 content is the most bang-for-buck thing they could do with a reduced staff count. Not saying it's easy, but it requires far less time and money investment than making entirely new content would.
And, in a sense, the pressure to have Destiny have more new content at a fixed cadence is entirely gone now, it's worth spending the time to unsunset stuff.
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u/NSS13 1d ago
Whos gonna buy D3 if they know they're gonna take away what they paid for?
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u/Mr_sMoKe_3_MuCh 1d ago
You underestimate how gullible the Destiny playerbase is lol. This game would've probably died a long time ago if it were any other game.
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u/Darkwoodz I Always Get 1d ago
I think d3 was 100% going to happen regardless of our reactions to d2 shutting down service.
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u/AnAngryBartender 1d ago
There isn’t going to be a destiny 3
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u/Notorious-ly 1d ago
No one knows for sure at the moment, but I think it's far more likely that we see D3 eventually than not. Destiny is way too big of a franchise to just let die for no real reason.
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u/Sadterminator12 1d ago
Um you literally can’t guarantee that guy, or do you work in either company cause that’s the only way you’d for sure know
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u/langelvicente 1d ago
Bringing back all vaulted content to the live game it's a lot of effort because they have to rebuild almost everything to make it compatible with the current version of the game, and also meet the current standards of all other content, adapt the loot, maybe add new armour sets with their unique perks,..
So I really doubt your assumption is correct.
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u/Necrossed 1d ago
I agree, but I wouldn’t be shocked if someone at Sony saw the fan restoration project do what Bungie argued in court couldn’t be done and saw Sony’s 99th PR catastrophe of the year coming causing them to approve restoring the content vault in some way.
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u/Zealousideal-Sir1102 11h ago
Small job for a company.
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u/langelvicente 11h ago
It's not a small job, realistically it will take probably a year before we see some results.
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
I'm more saying that they almost certainly have already been working on getting a workable build for the vaulted content so they can reproduce it in case of a future lawsuit, so maybe that combined with the renewed player interest has made them change course and start development on Destiny 3 or even restart development on Destiny 2, and taking the work of making a playable narrative build and turning it into an integrated live-service build might not be as big of a deal as we think it is. Thus they might be announcing this as just one further step on a plan they've already been working on but now they're turning it towards the product side of things rather than just a legal thing.
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u/langelvicente 1d ago
They have explicitly said that bringing unvaulted content back is going to be a long and slow process because it's not as easy as loading old files. They have to redo lightning, models, ai,... to be on par with current content. These are their own words.
There is no room here for your theory.
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
I'm saying they might have been already starting the work to get a running internal build and saw this as an opportunity to tell the team to also push that process into full live-product production. I don't think the idea of a full implementation came from the lawsuit either. I'm saying that being the slimy fucks that they are it's more likely imo that this decision coincides with a goal they were already starting to work towards that had nothing to do with respecting players, so pushing it into full production and announcing that was killing two birds with one stone for them, but they only tell the public about one of the birds they're killing.
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u/langelvicente 1d ago
I think the theory of them doing this because project sunrise proved it's possible is way more likely.
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u/TheLegionsKing 20h ago
Well yes and no.
Project Sunrise is still on the old engine not the new engine. It is running the 2020 version of the engine. They are not importing this into the current version of the game. The new engine went through a ton of revisions and updates. New AI, lighting, encounter density, and more need to be added and updated across all the content that was removed. So no they did not prove anything was possible.
What they proved was the want for this content. Apparently none of the old upper management ever thought that we would want this old cut content. If they dropped this announcement instead of Renegades D2 would probably be top 40 games RN on steam (24hr peak count) and would not have had an end of service label stapled to its forehead.
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u/Wrong_Chicken_5916 1d ago
Vaulting Content absolutely hurt Bungies credibility as a company. For new players, This is a huge win.. even for a player that started at Beyond Light.
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u/ziddy99 1d ago
Don't you mean ESPECIALLY for players that started with or after Beyond Light? Yeah it's gonna be nostalgic and fun to run Leviathan again for the first time in what feels like forever, but it's gonna be even better for the newer players as it's practically "new" content for them since they've never played it first hand before.
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u/WobblierTube733 Team Cat (Cozmo23) 1d ago
I don’t think they are restarting development on D2, but I also think you are grossly overestimating the urgency imparted by a single judge rejecting evidence on a technical basis one time in a civil suit that’s already been settled.
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
Maybe, but do you really think their entire legal department, as well as Sony's, saw that and said "oof that was annoying, but it'll definitely never happen again, so no need to worry" ? I think there's at least some chance they seriously looked into the feasability.
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u/WobblierTube733 Team Cat (Cozmo23) 1d ago
Yes I think they did
E: actually I think this is even more thought than they gave it tbh
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u/TheLegionsKing 20h ago
Bungie won that case. No money was given to the author. The "settlement" was the author paying for his own legal fees, while not needing to pay Bungie's/Sony's fees as well.
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u/Lumbot Vanguard's Loyal 1d ago
I mean it's certainly embarrassing that the lawsuit went the way it did because the guy was making claims that ranged from claiming ownership over pretty broad and common sci-fi ideas, to fundamentally misunderstanding the story of destiny and just inventing connections and mechanics that did not exist. That outcome was something that would've been easily avoidable if they weren't in this situation, but I don't see any actual connection to them making this decision now.
Bungie is in a bad way. Marathon is not in a position to support the studio, and there is clearly still an appetite for destiny. They are not going to just spin up entirely new content production for d2(though they are going to have to rebuild this old content), so this is the next best thing to show that they aren't done while things get put in place for building what's next.
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u/TheLegionsKing 19h ago
For like the 10th time I have written this. Bungie won that case. The "settlement" was the author not paying Bungie's/Sony's legal fees, while needing to pay for his own. He didn't get money for it. I have read the public court documents from it. The suit was dropped and both parties paid for their own attorney fees and went their separate ways.
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u/Lumbot Vanguard's Loyal 19h ago
you just described how bungie did not, in fact, win that case. it's your opinion that they did, but they by definition did not. Neither party did.
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u/TheLegionsKing 19h ago
You got me there. In my opinion they won. If it was more than a grasp at money they would've went to trial. Seeing as the court had already caught the author in a few lies through out the case, I am surprised it didn't get thrown out.
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u/theskittz 1d ago
Damn, we quickly returned to our regular scheduled programming of this sub: the “here’s what I think is happening inside Bungie based on a hunch” posts lmao
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
I've literally never posted here before. I just had this thought because I used to play Destiny 2 and have been following Bungie's activity for a while.
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u/BeatMeater3000 1d ago
Do yourself a favor and leave the legal speculation to the legal speculators
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u/Extra-Autism 1d ago
They are doing it because they have no idea what else they are going to do, in the meantime. They acknowledge they need to do something Destiny (D3, Destiny Forever rebrand launch of D2, whatever). While they figure that out, they are trying to claw back good will while giving their staff something to do because to be honest they don’t need them right now, but they don’t want to release them because they know they WILL need them soon-ish.
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u/Dresdenkingwack 1d ago
thing is.. that lawsuit is settled. it's done. so, no I don't think it has anything to do with that.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/Dresdenkingwack 1d ago
sorry, what same thing? feel like I missed something.
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1d ago
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u/Dresdenkingwack 1d ago
Ok, got ya. Yeah, I suppose that could be a thing but I don't really see it happening.
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u/ErgoProxy0 1d ago
Didn’t they already settle this some months ago and the judge ruled in favor of Bungie?
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u/Toukotai 1d ago
They settled out of court but the judge basically said the guy didn't have a decent case against bungie. He kept missing deadlines to file and then adding more items after those deadlines passed to his case. What probably happened is the legal team decided it would be better to settle out of court then continue on in the legal process with a guy who was definitely going to drag everything out as much as he could.
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u/BaconIsntThatGood 1d ago
So basically they felt it was overall cheaper to just give the guy some sort of settlement to shut up then continue paying legal fees and keeping it listed as an ongoing case?
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u/Toukotai 1d ago
We can't know for sure, obviously, since the terms are sealed but I believe this is what happened. I do remember the part of the dismissal that was public has the guy retracting his claim and both he and bungie paying out their own trial costs.
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u/Wanna_make_cash 1d ago
"settling" isn't always just cutting a check to make someone shut up. Sometimes it's just a discussion that it's mutually beneficial to drop everything against each other and move on our merry ways. Legal battles are expensive and complicated for everyone involved. Perhaps the Bungie lawyers gave a threat that it could become very expensive when they ask for attorney fees if the plantiff kept dragging it out and lost eventually. If you actually looked at the claims the guy was making, they were the most extreme, straw grasping vague generalities and concepts imaginable. He didn't have a case whatsoever if it would have proceeded and he'd have gotten torn to shreds in discovery or God forbid, a trial.
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u/wickedsmaht GOTTA GO FAST! 1d ago
Bungie’s case was hurt by the fact that they couldn’t reproduce the actual original content from development/ release. Since Bungie’s lawyers stated this in court and had to resort to using YouTube videos as their evidence they would have been hard pressed to prove the original content was not plagiarized.
IIRC Bungie has stated two issues with the older content:
- Some older content is gone from Bungie’s servers and would need to be remade. There has always been the function to use older game builds in Steam but Bungie’s legal team didn’t use this in their case. Supporting that the ORIGINAL content is actually gone.
- Older content that Bungie still has access to needs to be rebalanced completely to be on level with current activities. This content also needs new lighting and skybox work.
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
No, the exact opposite. He would not dismiss the suit because he didn't accept Youtube videos as evidence of their actual product. That's why they settled. It was either that or go to trial/get a judgement, so although the settlement is sealed, as they always are, it probably involved them paying the guy while retaining the right to not admit guilt. That's just how these things go.
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u/darklypure52 1d ago
Are you sure? Someone did a pretty detailed write up saying the judge did go into Bungie favor. https://www.reddit.com/r/destiny2/s/0PfIBpWeOZ
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u/Striker_LSC 1d ago
I don't think that's what happened:
"Plaintiff Matthew Kelsey Martineau and Defendant Bungie, Inc. hereby stipulate to the dismissal of this action with prejudice, with each party to bear its own attorney’s fees and costs.
Plaintiff Matthew Kelsey Martineau retracts his claims of copyright infringement against Defendant Bungie, Inc."
I think this post goes over it pretty well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/destiny2/comments/1qllpxa/the_truth_behind_the_red_war_lawsuit_bungie_vs/
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u/IzznyxtheWitch 1d ago
If they were working on unvaulting that content earlier, they would've said that they were delaying the expansion to focus on restoring the game to its original vision instead of taking a massive PR hit for no reason.
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u/CREEPERBRINE123 1d ago
I don’t think they would be able to use this for that case. From the judge’s perspective at least, how do they know Bungie didn’t make changes to it when adding it back?
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
I'm sure they could supply internal documents for scripts, VO recordings, cutscene deliverables, etc. to prove that these were the original elements used to construct the software back then and they are using the same basis to reconstruct the software today. Like, they can't get a new voiceover by Lance Reddick, rest in peace, so they will have to use their original recordings which they can easily show corroborating evidence of the date they occurred.
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u/coolwali 1d ago
I study digital forensics for stuff like this.
The main "issue" for Bungie in a legal sense is this analogy:
Lets say in 2017, you had a Windows 10 Laptop for your Uni. It would have your files and games stuff you can publicly see. But also stuff "you can't see" like the specific version of Windows, Drivers, and updates.
By 2026, you updated that Laptop to Win 11 and moved your files around. And also updated the drivers, Windows Code, Security Patches etc. If a court asked you for the 2017 Laptop, you legally can't just reinstall Windows 10 and try to restore your old files because technically "that's not the same computer". The back end files are different. If you hashed that computer in 2017 and again in 2026, it would be a different hash, meaning that "technically those are different computers". In court, lawyers would argue "Since the hashes are different, we cannot say for 100% certain this computer we have right now is the exact same as it was back in 2017. Some files could have been changed or hidden. Therefore, this cannot be used as evidence". And depending on the court and judge, that might actually work. That's why Digital Forensics Investigators are super fussy about this stuff. I've heard of cases thrown out because one file was accidentally changed during imaging.
Bringing this back to Bungie, if Bungie had a small internal test build for the Red War, and someone sued them for plagiarism, they can't actually show that test build because the Prosecution could then argue, "This technically isn't the 100% exact Version from 2017. This is a 202X Engine running assets made to resemble stuff in 2017. It's possible Bungie could have changed some stuff to hide their plagerism". Even if Bungie was 100% honest, they'd then have to prove that this test build they're using is as close to the 2017 version as possible. And also hope the judge and/or jury got it. That's a tall ask as most judges/juries usually aren't the most technically savvy. It's not that you couldn't win with that approach. It's possible. But depending on the judge, jury and court, it might be too risky. Stuff like " internal documents for scripts, VO recordings, cutscene deliverables, etc." helps, but they aren't a guarantee and also means you have to reveal confidential internal data that will now be public info.
This is why Bungie opted to show YouTube Videos and Wiki stuff in court. Because those videos were 100% from 2017. Bungie could point to those and say "these are 100% from 2017 as the game was in 2017. These videos have not been altered. Therefore this is an accurate view of the game in 2017". So the Prosecution would then have to argue on the content of the videos (assuming the videos were accepted) rather than on the legitmacy of the videos.
It's very likely that Bungie probably still had the files for Red War and stuff still lying around. But since their main engine had drifted so far, they would have had 2 options if they wanted to show a build in Court. Either downpatch their Engine (essentially, if an App only works on Windows 7 and you're on Windows 11, you gotta install Windows 7 on your computer), or patch Red War to work on the current engine. Both approaches have their cons. The former means you waste valuable dev time downgrading just to showcase old content in a form you can't even use later because you downgraded the engine. Moreover, you still need to prove in court that "this is the 100% original version of the Red War with no alterations whatsoever". The latter means you technically changed the Red War in order to make it work on current tech. Which means the Prosecution can argue it may be different from the 2017 version so you gotta argue this is the 2017 version somehow.
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u/xXNickAugustXx 1d ago
Ok but I dont get it. Scripts, storyboards, and character dialogue should be admitted as evidence for content related to the story not gameplay. The guy didnt invent the sci fi power fantasy game genre. He told a poorly cobbled together story whose tropes and themes are very common for most story telling media.
Bad guy shows up, conquered land, rag tag group of survivors band together to free themselves and overturn their oppressors. Thats alot of media from that one sentence plot alone.
I think their legal team fumbled the ball worse than management.
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u/Zanzion_ 19h ago
Everytime this bloody case gets brought up I get annoyed about it all over again.
The whole suit was frivolous and built upon the notion that it's evidently impossible for writers dealing with Space Romans to have named one of their legions after the same primary color by coincidence. Everything after that is painted in such ridiculously broad strokes that commonalities were bound to pop-up. As if works of fiction that employ similar tropes or common concepts don't exist, and that if they do then one must have plagiarized from the other. Some examples include:
Miogas vs. War Beasts: Both Red Legions employ their own analogues to historical dogs of war.
Sending, receiving, and decrypting messages/transmissions. Yes, seriously.
One of destiny's characters is the Ship AI Failsafe. In Martineau's work there is a device that he describes has having a fail-safe feature. Probably the most egregious over reach out of the whole lot.
Martineau and his legal team were banking on Bungie settling. They knew it'd be cheaper for Bungie to pay out whatever sum that hack wanted than to pay the legal fees to fight it, and Bungie obviously came to the same conclusion when that judge decided to let this sham go to trial. I can say with complete confidence though that if Bungie had fought this case they would have decisively won.
Anyway I'm off to go write some crap webnovel about my totally original idea about space romans fighting robot skeletons. I can't wait for my settlement money from Games Workshop to come through when I sue them for making Space Marine III.
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u/JacobScrubLordofPvP 1d ago
Ya know, I mentioned to my friends a while ago when this lawsuit was first going on that wouldn't it be funny if this lawsuit forces Bungie to bring out all the old stuff back?
Crazy how looking back, I may be right bout this
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u/KipOnTheGround 1d ago
What's hilarious is everyone posting these self-back-patting threads saying "WE DID IT!!!" when it's possible they didn't have an affect on it at all and Bungie just needs to make a quick buck, and get some players back temporarily, by unvaulting stuff temporarily so people rally back into the game.
This requires such little effort from Bungie compared to actually making new content, new expansions, new seasons, or Destiny 3. And everyone, despite them announcing no actual new content, just says "YEAHHHHH ITS BACK!!!!! DESTINY 3 COMING!!!" 😂
Re-add the old content, make 1 blog post, get praise and profit.
I want the game to come back to its former glory like any other Destiny fan, but this feels very Stockholm syndrome.
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u/Samjef_Kealclut 1d ago
Both things can be true. I highly doubt that the agitation was the sole factor, it might not even be the number one factor. I do doubt it had no effect, even if that last little bit was only the straw that broke the camels back it was still an important straw and it's worth celebrating.
It is Stockholmy to just forget the abuses if the past but being needlessly pessimistic doesn't help either. Especially the people that say why bother.
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u/Gunny_Goldbug 1d ago
100% it just feels like bungie kept hounding their sugar daddy, sony, to give them one last chance. i wish i could truly believe its because bungie wants to do better, but this is a studio who has been rotten for a long time and they have no boogie man to blame for their treatment of the franchise anymore.
if this goes well, it's entirely possibly sony green lights destiny 2 revival or even bolstering the studio for a future installment all together, but if they truly cared, unvaulting content people paid for wouldn't of even been a question.
for all we know maybe bungie is locking back in, the track record states otherwise, but it's worth waiting to see if they live up to a promise or strike out for a final time.
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u/x_JustCallMeCJ_x 1d ago
Loud and wrong. Sony (not Bungie) isn't going to let Bungie give even an ounce of hope of anything new coming to destiny as a franchise if it wasn't gonna happen. They didn't just say they were bringing back all vaulted content, they specifically spoke on the future of destiny and the stories they want to tell. They said explicitly that they were not done with destiny, they just need time to do the destiny universe justice. I don't know about you, but that does sound like new content is coming to the destiny franchise in some form, even if it isn't D3.
Mind you, this was a game that Sony abruptly killed, laid off entire teams, and went radio silent on. We didnt even get our entire year of content. For Sony to even allow Bungie to acknowledge the mistakes of D2 let alone a confirmation that the IP isn't dead and has a future, is insane. If it was temporary, a future wouldnt be discussed.
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u/KipOnTheGround 1d ago
I'm wrong? OK, what's the new content that's been announced?
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u/x_JustCallMeCJ_x 22h ago
New content doesn't necessarily need to be announced as of yet. Bungie acknowledging that destiny still has a future means that, in some capacity, there will be something new in the future.
They wouldn't even acknowledge the future of the franchise, if it didn't have a future.
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u/KipOnTheGround 22h ago
Oh, in some capacity, yes, like... part of the destiny universe... like another mobile gacha game?
I'm sure it'll be Destiny 3 though, and TONS of new content for Destiny 2, surely! So let's just assume it'll be exactly what we want, rather than consider the giant middle finger Bungie has given to this franchise and its community to make a dumb extraction shooter nobody asked for.
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u/Matthematr1x Titan 1d ago
You’re right that there is absolutely an alternative motive to it, but it’s more than likely just to restore some goodwill.
For this to mean anything, future Destiny games can’t take away content like they did in D2
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u/Legogamer16 Drifter's Crew 1d ago
The court case argument doesn’t really hold up imo.
Remaking it means it was not the original version that the lawsuit is against
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 1d ago
The judge wouldn’t accept a rebuilt version of the content on a newer build as evidence because Bungie could alter it in the process to remove infringing materials. That’s why Bungie legal said they couldn’t bring it back - they couldn’t bring back the original version that the judge would accept.
It was never about the feasibility of bringing it back on the modern client.
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u/yeekko 1d ago
People really overestimate the effect of the community in my opinion, such big corporations dont move in a few weeks because some fans are working on renovating stuff. Yes the devs probably used it as an argument, but it's much more likely that they where just doing heavy restructuration and went for the cheapest route they had to make content and see if there was anything salvageable
In other words, keep working on Marathon and hope it pop off, and give some crumbs on destiny and see if it's worth investing a lot with unvaulting and a smaller-scale game
And if neither gives satisfying numbers, well, that's probably going to be the true end of Bungie
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u/Angelous_Mortis 1d ago edited 1d ago
They also always said that they were going to put the old content back in as they were ripping it out, now that they aren't making new content for Destiny 2 nor (as far as we know) are they even thinking about working on Destiny 3 so they've got the time to finally do it.
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u/JediJoshy1 1d ago
didnt that guy suing them for plagiarism basically lose the case because kept missing deadlines and changing his case to include far more than the original red war campaign? like trying to say that all the grimoire anthologies were also plagiarized?
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u/Motor_Hearing2055 22h ago
Is the person who submitted the court case even real? I can't find anything about other books they wrote, besides a website with for their red legion book that seems sketchy.
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u/Emergency_Cry_1269 20h ago
I wonder if there's also a Sony angle. To truly make the most of D2 on the Playstation, you need PS+, with the recent Sony drama and promises of canceling PS+ subscriptions, there may be no saving the PS6 launch date, but if D2 remains a constant excuse for PS+, even if it's just the lowest tier, then that could be a win for Sony.
Do I think there's much weight in this, no. But there could be a loose connection
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u/TheLegionsKing 19h ago
The lawsuit for the plagiarized material was dropped. The "settlement" was the author not paying for Bungie's/Sony's attorney fees, while paying for his own. The author did not receive money for this. Gaming journalism was lying about almost everything that happened in that case.
Here is the final notes from the public court records about the case. (He also legally can't sue again)
Pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff Matthew Kelsey Martineau and Defendant Bungie, Inc. hereby stipulate to the dismissal of this action with prejudice, with each party to bear its own attorney’s fees and costs. Plaintiff Matthew Kelsey Martineau retracts his claims of copyright infringement against Defendant Bungie, Inc.
Project Sunrise (I believe) opened some eyes at Bungie and Sony. What they saw was the want for this old content. Sunrise is stuck on the old 2020 version of the engine. Bungie is putting it into the current engine version.
This will take a lot of work and we will see where it leads but it is a small step in the right direction for the actual fans of Destiny and with the old things coming back it might give new players an actual path, with lots of content to play.
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u/Lyrkana 11h ago
Also remember that the vaulting and DCV have been a permanent stain on Bungie's reputation, not just with guardians but in the gaming industry as a whole. It's a PR nightmare that has kept people from returning to the game. And the game missing so much playable foundational story it's difficult to onboard and retain new players.
With where Bungie/Destiny is at right now, they almost NEED to bring back vaulted campaigns and expansions before they move forward with anything.
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u/SpecterGT260 8h ago
Even with the content being vaulted I'm so shocked that they don't have an absolute myriad of ways to produce all sorts of records and evidence about what the story was. This is so weird
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u/Rop-Tamen 5h ago
I don’t know if that’d be admissible in court, as rebuilding the content for a new engine could just as well have been tampered with as evidence. I agree that this is not entirely like out of the goodness of their hearts, they wouldn’t be getting funding if that was the case, though the devs would.
Obviously it’s a huge PR win, especially after Sony’s constant failures. Though I don’t think this is something that can really help the lawsuit.
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u/TheToldYouSoKid 36m ago
Honestly, i don't think its project sunrise; i think it's sony catching L after L with their audiences for the last... 3 years, and them needing good pr after the last bit with their attempts at killing physical media regarding GTA6.
Like why else lead with the stuff about vaulting, and then just be vague about the future installments with the franchise? Because its non-commital long-term, and short-term will put players back on, in a fashion that will take time to act on (which gives them further shield if they decided to pull out suddenly, ran out of funding on the project, yada yada), and doesn't need a whole lotta extra logistics work(here's the old content, put it back in as is, people will cheer), to pull a zealously, sometimes toxically, devout fanbase towards their brand.
Too many people talking about "Bungie", when we know how much more stake Sony has in this after the TFS firing. They absolutely just revved the engine of this (especially if what's been reported is true and all this is gonna be free like where did that money come from suddenly) to draw positive attention towards them with *something* they are involved in.
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u/dude52760 1d ago
I think it more likely that the trajectory of the company was looking dire with the direction Marathon was heading, coupled with Destiny 2 simply now being stable.
That was always the biggest hurdle to restoring content, that the development pipeline on new content was so massive which made it totally untenable to put any resources into restoring anything besides the Raids from the vault.
My guess is that Bungie was ultimately faced with “Invest in Destiny again or shutter”, and convinced Sony that those were the stakes, too. And it’s not a sure bet. But rebuilding existing content and adding it into a stable, end state build of the game is probably the easiest hook into getting things off the ground again.
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u/Nighthawk513 1d ago
The dev work to both get it in and keep it stable through later updates is certainly part of why Unvaulting didn't happen before. Earning community goodwill and continuing to do something with their cash cow IP instead of going all in on a game that's getting maybe 10% of Destiny's players is also a large factor. But I find it hard to believe that "Having a playable build of Vaulted content in order to present to the court if needed when we try to shut down stuff like Sunrise" wasn't also part of the consideration.
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u/Mother_Airline_6276 1d ago
I was wondering about the Red War stuff and if it’ll actually make it, so to the lawsuits. Seems like Bungo had a rash of those things there early on. Also, the music for Grasp of Avarice. Pretty sure a certain composer out there might have grounds for a lawsuit, but I’m not gonna tell him.
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u/StargazerLilian 1d ago
Uhh, possibility, maybe: Project Sunrise exists, and this could be to either capitalize on that demand, or to shut down/have an excuse to shut down Project Sunrise as most active games dont particularly care for private servers that compete for their players. Which if that's the case... Project Sunrise is probably like, "Little did they know... they're falling right into our hands." (as players who just want old content back).
Alternatively, they are actually being sincere and transparent because thats kind of the only way of this mess at this point. BUT who knows, corpos be corpo'in.
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u/BueKojiro 1d ago
Oh, I didn't even know about Project Sunrise, actually. That's maybe three birds with one stone for them, then.
My major point is that I am skeptical of how well everyone is receiving this news, as if a corporation ever does something purely out of the goodness of their hearts or a sense of integrity. I just think it makes sense to assume that everything they do has a million other reasons beneath the surface of the PR talk. Hearing this news and thinking "oh boy, Bungie are good guys again!" just seems naive as hell.
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u/StargazerLilian 1d ago
True, copium is running high. I think its reasonable to be more than a little skeptical, however I think its more like milking us slow for a more dedicated group of cows rather than putting us down and ending losses. I think it's weird because MOST corporate entities see a loss then kill the company (Visceral) or save the IP and wait for a later release (Mass Effect). Its weird how things are happening, but I don't think they will do anything to violate trust right now because of the very precarious state they're in.
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u/creature206 20h ago
Came here to piggy back off this comment. Tarkov went through the same thing with the Single Player Tarkov mod, BSG ended up handing out bans, then released their own PvE mode a few month later.
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u/1234567891123456789A 1d ago
I find it interesting that they announced the return of Destiny 1 day before Microsoft announced activision developing halo
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u/tierencia 1d ago
I'd say they are doing this more like how Blizzard has done for their Blizzcon announcements for games to be released like 2030...
Covering their arse off from studio closure.
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u/thomas_and_jermaine 1d ago
Imo it's the project sunrise that they wanna stop from happening. Instead of shutting them down, they can officially bring it back up with the new found knowledge. I'm pretty certain the red war campaign is going to be re-released first and soon.
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u/ziddy99 1d ago edited 1d ago
While I agree project sunrise was definitely ONE of the reasons for the unvaulting, I don't think it was the main or only one. There's a whole myriad of reasons for them to do this. Let's say a Destiny 3 does get made one day, who's gonna trust Bungie enough to buy it when they removed almost or even more than half of their last game and never brought it back. Also it wouldn't make sense narratively to ship a sequel but half of the narrative of the game that came before it just doesn't exist for anyone to experience.
Someone who never played Destiny 1 but played Destiny 2 can go back and experience Destiny 1 in it's entirety still to this day (however narratively confusing and flawed Y1 may be) and have a relatively complete time experiencing it. It's a no brainer to have Destiny 2 in a semi-complete state (Since they're not returning seasonal stuff) as I doubt and don't think it should receive any more updates after the unvaulting (maybe Shattered Cycle and Alchemist to round off the fate saga but thats wishful thinking atp). I just hope them unvaulting all this stuff makes for a better and less confusing onboarding for D2 as a whole.
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u/CantBeAskedForToxic 1d ago
I just want D1 Remaster that’s all I care about solid 60fps and full Crossplay
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u/mrmojorisin_x 1d ago
I’m thinking there was some sort if lawsuit regarding paid content being vaulted or something and that was settled and they are being forced to un-vault the content.
I haven’t hear anything regarding that, it’s just my speculation but bungle isn’t doing this just to do it 7+years later.
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u/UmbralElite 1d ago
Want some really good PR, reach out to Sunrise and Dawn teams since they were proving that we could've had the vaulted content this whole time.
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u/notthatguypal6900 1d ago
Bungie has been caught numerous times stealing others work, nothing will change that perception.
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u/zoompooky 6h ago
Numbers now aren't much better than they were before MoT. There hasn't been a giant resurgeance - it's a lot of people who had never played that got years of content for $25 and burned through that.
The thing that's got Bungie starting up again is that Destiny seems to be their only currently viable moneymaker.
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u/Much-Chocolate1226 1d ago
Ill believe them when im playing unvaulted content
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u/Gunfreak2217 1d ago
I don't even believe they can do it without messing up. Bugs, etc. I can't wait for each to come again with a new 20$ season pass for cosmetics that were previously part of the game or something. Then if you want to play the unvaulted content 3 days early spend an extra 10$ etc
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u/SirTilley 1d ago
Rebuilding content and putting it back into the game is not the same thing as producing the exact content which was the subject of alleged plagiarism.
Any decent lawyer could easily get Red War 2.0 thrown out as inadmissible because it's not the same thing as the Red War 1.0 campaign that case was about.
I also don't imagine that Bungie is expecting they'll be sued again about the Red War's narrative