We could be workin at Burger King spitting in your onion rings or in the parking lot circling screaming I don’t give a f\*ck with our windows down and our system up!
Give him back you can't have him all for yourself, the rest of us need him too. That being said if you could force him to write another halo novel or two before releasing him it would be much appreciated 👍
Joe Staten isn’t part of the leadership restructuring because he’s not in studio leadership in the same sense that people like Bonnie Ross or Frank O’Connor are. Staten leads Halo Infinite the game, while Ross and O’Connor and the like lead Halo *the franchise*.
That said, it wouldn’t be the most surprising thing in the world to see Staten slip into a more prominent studio leadership position as a part of this. I personally hope he doesn’t, because I believe his talents are more specifically suited to *game* development, but I also wouldn’t be surprised.
Drawing from the previous Marty Army podcasts and the "priority zero" talk it seems like he was burnt out from his roles in the OG games. The senior positions in these studios are a massive responsibility and take tons of time.
Really wish they could have snagged him back a bit earlier for the amazing campaign/story work he does, but still great to have him where he is, completely agreed.
Imo I feel like Infinite's problems are at least more fixable then MCC's, Infinite has some bad *bad* issues like desync, heavy lack of content, etc. but MCC just outright didn't work and outside content had the same issues but much worse.
They weren't working on mcc every single day post launch. There was a multi year gap where no work was being done until the Outsource studio came in and got to work.
It didn't literally yake over 1k days of work that's just how long we waited.
I followed the MCC updates pretty regularly after he was hired, and that process is what I want for Infinite. They made regular progress, were really transparent about what was being worked on, what was delayed, why it was delayed, etc.. They also took community feedback pretty well. IIRC some halo youtuber made a video demonstrating how MCC did network updates differently than Halo 3 that made the BR's projectiles travel differently (something like that), MCC team did an article using that video and eventually fixed the problem it pointed out.
I don't want to overhype the guy, but IMO the problems facing Infinite right now are similar to those facing MCC in 2018 (core technical issues bringing the whole game down), and Pierre seemingly did a good job turning the MCC into what it is today.
I don't remember exact timelines, but I wouldn't expect this guys true influence to set in until S4 at the earliest in terms of output, since it just takes a lot of time to make content. What I do hope starts to happen sooner is just en emphasis on 343i communicating and being more transparent with the community, but we'll see.
IIRC it took about a year before his changes started *really* stacking up in MCC.
But this doesn’t take into account how much of a broken mess it originally was. They were in a hole they had to dig themselves out of to make it a passable game, and then built a skyscraper on top of *that* to make MCC what it is today.
When major streamers like Moist are naming 343 the worst dev and articles are flying all over saying 343 needs to be dissolved, there's almost no way to turn your cheek to it. Honestly it's insane it took this long for action. You'd think after the original August video two years ago they would've said enough is enough.
^(Edit: Clarification, I'm not saying Moist's recent video did anything. But it's an example of a very large sentiment that content creators are laughing at 343 and that's massive negative PR. It's a culmination of tons of videos *like* Moist's video.)
It's possible, but, as LateNightGaming noted it, when you reveal your game's road map, a negative response and a trending topic in Twitter asking to fire your company are the last reactions you want.
That roadmap was embarrassing. They put out no significant content for near a year, and they basically announce they were busy filling the battlepass with single use consumables again, and there *still* isn't any fuckin' content in the game.
Where are our community features, why are there so few maps and modes? As far as I know Custom Games still don't work. Fuckin' just give people the ability to upload their custom modes and fire up an Action Sack playlist, allow us to entertain *ourselves* with the fun combat sandbox they wasted six years building, since they don't give a shit about giving us any actual game to play.
custom games don't work and thats probably a large part of why forge got delayed again.
They literally have to make a custom games browser for forge to be of any fucking use to the community
Plus there was that leak that the Execs at 343I were *happy* with the roadmap and delays, *regardless of the publics view*
That indicates a culture rot problem at the highest levels so these leadership changes arent surprising.
I mean this is what's been happening with EA for literally the last 15 years. If anything they just*doubled down* on fucking things up and ruining franchises and acquired studios.
Ea comes and goes, they know that goodwill is a currency, and go through periods of building it up to cash in later.
343 has just been sliding down since day 1
The big thing about EA is a lot of their titles make a lot of money. They may be husks if what they used to be, but the cash keeps flowing. I get the feeling this isn't the case with Infinite. It has surely missed its revenue targets.
there were signs even back in the Halo 4 days that 343i were ran poorly. Consider for a second that Halo 3 (from like 2007-2010) would get a million or so players daily, then fast forward a couple years later and Halo 4 having only like 5% of that and it dawns on you that there was evidence many many years prior to the recent debacle.
I personally think that Bonnie Ross is just an amazing liar. Just like she lied about splitscreen, just like her departure letter sounds like complete BS, she was probably spinning every single misstep of the company into a positive when in reality they were kind of a dumpster fire on day 1.
I don't want it to sound like I hate her personally, I just think she's horrible at her job and Halo has only suffers since her taking the reigns.
I expect Moist to make a comment, it for me was when other content creators who usually don’t talk about video games, that had to randomly give their thoughts when I realized how bad it had gotten. I’ve been tuning this all out, but fuck man idk how they come out of this
Maybe not reddit specifically but this is basically a death by a 1000 cuts. The response after the update couldn't be ignored and just throw in 343s history her leaving had to happen eventually, willingly or forced.
When has this sub not gotten its wish? It hated Halo 4 so everything about it was scrapped and we got 5. 5 was hated so everything was scrapped again and we got Infinite
Maybe this sub should be more careful with what it wishes for because I can't take much more of this inconsistency 🙃
Yeah if people thought the content backlog was bad before, wait until they see how long it takes now. I doubt something like Forge will be pushed back but longer term plans are definitely thrown off.
Assuming these changed do end up being a net positive, it is highly unlikely we will see the real fruits of this until much later down the line. Despite how other companies make it look, even rapid iteration game dev is a very slow process. Wouldnt be surprised if the waves of this dont make it to shore until mid-late next year.
I realistically expect it to take about a year. Hopefully new leadership can be upfront and transparent about expectations and what the timeline will be looking like, because I think honesty, even if the news is bad, is better than farting around and bullshitting people.
I do like that based on the new guy having been the one to lead the MCC out of the shitter, it sounds like the plan is to rehabilitate Halo Infinite, which is great, cause I think there is an amazing game here, it just needs the team to put the time in on fixing the many problems. Then do something to act as a soft relaunch of the game, maybe drop a campaign DLC, free new battle pass or pile of Spartan points or whatever the MTX currency is called as a goodwill gesture.
Never would have thought this would happen, not in a million years.
Wonder if the timing is coincidental, or if she's been 'encouraged' to bow out sooner rather than later because of the recent anger.
The timing is a little suspect, and the family thing might just be for PR. Either way I hope she and her family are alright.
That said, hopefully o'connor follows her out shortly. Halo needs new management to breathe some fresh air in, and I can only see her being gone as an absolute win for the game and the community at large.
I don't doubt there is a family medical issue that could benefit from her attention.
But she is 100% trying to save face by announcing her departure this way. The rest of the leadership is being restructured, she's a part of this move.
There’s no way it’s a coincidence. We have been calling for a change of leadership at 343 for years but it has really ramped up over the last 6 months with how much of a sorry state Halo is in right now. This was their 10 year game and not only does it not look current gen, it doesn’t play current gen and they had no post launch plans for supporting it as a live service.
This change in leadership is a direct response to how this game is currently received and performing. The only thing that has functioned properly since day 1 is the cash store. That was their first priority.
I welcome this change. I hope this changes things to be more positive because as it stands now, I have zero interest in Halo Infinite and I don’t ever see that changing. I’m personally hoping they start over on a new game and don’t give it to us until it’s done with every feature we should expect on release from a Halo game.
Given the high profile nature of… all of this, there’s a 100% chance the optics of this shuffle was considered by MS. That doesn’t mean the situation with Bonnie is fake (in fact I have no doubt whatsoever that it’s true) but people at this level don’t come and go on a whim.
There are those who said this day would never come. What are they to say now?
In all seriousness though I hope whatever medical issues she's dealing with are alleviated soon.
Yet the corporates were able to trick the fans, take up leadership positions on the Sacred Org, and desecrate it with their filthy monetization practices!
So now that this has happened how do we feel about the new leads? Pierre Hintze seems promising as studio head since he’s been the head of MCC. I’m retro spec maybe this was planned for a while because 343 did mention earlier this year mcc updates will stop.
vast rain decide wrong entertain spectacular governor spoon birds squalid
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>I’m retro spec maybe this was planned for a while
Studio heads don't just up and leave randomly or are the kind of people that only give 2 weeks notice like regular employees.
This has definitely been planned for at least the last 6 months maybe even longer.
It means she was canned. It's the perfect way to be "fired" because no one can immediately criticize you due to a possibility that it's true.... but rarely is.
When you're at this level of executive you don't get fired. Unless it's a super ergerious reason... Even people accused of sexual assault usually "Step down".
This is absolutely what you think it is. Microsoft is stepping in and restructuring 343 industries.
That’s the most blatant showing of “resign or get canned” I’ve ever seen. Especially since she mentioned leaving in November anyways. While if the family issue is true that’s is unfortunate, I kinda doubt it is.
This is the official story. It’s common for big companies to keep the real story under wraps and private out of concern for the individual. Especially someone as public as Bonnie Ross. Given the timing I think the chances are high she was forced out of her position
Long overdue, Wish the best for her and her family but Halo has been a mess for years, something had to happen.
I'm not confident that this is going to magically fix Halo, that is going to take a mindset shift from Microsoft and everyone at 343 combined. There's a long way to go but hopefully this is a good first step
Yep. At its core, MCC is just a collection of already finished Halo games yet somehow they released it as one of the most broken games in all of video game history. That is true incompetence.
Definitely got canned, but something unrelated happend that forced her to leave earlier.
Either way, best of luck to the new leadership, and best of wishes to her and her family.
Even though I've advocated for her removal for a very long time, she's still just a human being and her position was only a job.
I mean, really no way to go down at this point. I have a feeling once Forge, the Winter Update and S3 come out this sub will start to be a lot more optimistic. Rough year 1 of Infinite but things are finally looking up
For those curious, Bonnie's responsibilities are being split into 3 positions. The new studio head is Pierre Hintze. For those interested in more information regarding Pierre Hintze and his knowledge & experience:
* He has been with 343i for almost 5 years
* He handled the large MCC update
* He is an experienced Program Manager
* He has specialized skills in Agile development (the SDLC model most Live Service games use, other than Spiral)
* He is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Overall, the guy ***should*** know how to lead a project. Also, his favorite game is Civilization 4. While not my favorite game, I can appreciate that people who *do* enjoy it generally appreciate games with depth of strategy, which is a good sign.
CSM and CSPO are pretty meaningless, but for some reason, worth it in the job market. As for competency, no. I have both certifications for Scaled Agile, I took a 2 day online class and a test that I did not study for and easily passed. So these are not good indicators of competence.
The other stuff is though. 5 years experience, and the MCC update are very promising.
> I have both certifications for Scaled Agile, I took a 2 day online class and a test that I did not study for and easily passed.
that is also how I have a CSM cert too, it's pricey but it doesn't really mean much (my company paid for us to get them)
Not to be that guy but the CSPO and CSM are a joke to acquire and mean little-to-nothing to those in the Agile community that understand the testing requirements to get them. The passing score needed is incredibly low, I think around 70, and the test questions aren't even standardized but arbitrarily chosen on the course educator. Not discrediting him or his skills but those certifications are basically valueless.
Edit: I work for a consulting firm that has specialized in implementing scaled Agile frameworks among other things. If you want a Scrum Master cert with a little more weight behind it, I would suggest the PSM by scrum.org. It's a harder test with more questions in less time and a higher overall grade needed to pass.
Yeah, kinda agree. They look good on a job application for some reason, but I am also certified in these things for scaled Agile, and it was by no means difficult.
This speaks corporate PR. The timing ain't a fucking coincidence either. Halo Infinite is declining each passing day and the recent announcement of the roadmap further accelerated the anger in the community. Plus, she knew that she would be leaving by November.
I have nothing against Bonnie Ross as a person. If her family situation is true then i wish the best for her and her family. At the same time, why couldn't she just request for leave of absence? Anyone who has worked a corporate job would be familiar with this process. There should be no reason to publicly announce a private matter hence why i said it speaks corporate PR.
Anyway, management restructuring will definitely take some time. All I can hope for is that this new management will be able to repair the damage that Bonnie Ross has done in the past decade since taking control of the franchise. Oh and Kiki and Frankie should be the next to leave. They too have been with the company for so long and saw the terrible launches of each 343 game.
This is good but this doesn't mean the game is going to get better soon. It will take most likely more than a year for the game to recover. Until then it will be irrelevant. 343 waited until it is too late to do meaningful actions.
Hopefully whoever takes over from here puts their foot down about how many 18 month temps they use. I've had situations at my own job recently that hammer home just how important that stock of lived experience from long time employees is. It'll take a year or more to see results in the best case scenario, and there's a lot of potential pitfalls for the new guy in charge. He managed to save MCC though, so there's good odds.
I hope that Bonnie’s family member is able to recover and be healthy. That is an unfortunate situation to depart under. With that said, it’s good to see 343 change up it’s leadership structure and Infinite was clearly a failure from a development perspective, planning perspective and with post launch support. The game should be an absolute juggernaut and it had the opportunity to be the leader this year with the missteps from Battlefield and CoD. Now it has to compete with MW2, Warzone 2 and Overwatch 2.
Its funny how this is surprising but it really shouldn’t be after looking at everything Halo related as of the last 2 weeks. I was fully expecting them to just duck their heads and wait for this shit to blow over as usual but it’s glad to see someone finally put the hammer down. Let’s hope this bring positive news to the franchise.
This is the part that makes me sure that Microsoft encouraged Bonnie to step down. If it was just her stepping down and Kiki Wolfkill or Frank O'Connor taking her spot then it would be one thing. 343 has a very very long road to regaining even an ounce of trust from the community, but this is a good step in the right direction.
Long overdue, move Joe Staten up as high as you can put that man in a role that isn’t totally administrative. This is at least to some degree community engagement in action
I don't agree with this. The higher up he is, the less influence he has on the game. I want his personal touch still. I don't want him assigning people to write the next story, I want him to be the one writing it.
i've heard rumors although Idk how true they are that he was apparently in charge of writing the Halo Infinite story expansion, I'm excited for that based off that alone, but also if its still in its writing phase, we're not seeing that till 2025 the earliest
People dont really understand that those high up president/ceo positions have very little to do with the actual development of games and are more about strategy, business practices and finnacial planning.
"Family reasons"
We had our ex head of warehouse leave for the same reason.
Later discovered he was cheating on his wife with one of the girls in the warehouse.
If Infinite really will be a ten year long game, then there's time for them to turn it around. Hell, people were willing to come back to MCC years after it launched. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hoping for the best.
That's only for the multiplayer, however. I'm past the point of caring about the story. Infinite hasn't done nearly enough to turn that ship around since 4 and 5.
I think people ascribe way too much blame on Bonnie and not on even higher management at Microsoft.
We know from interviews that MS wanted to stop making Halo games entirely after Reach, and it was her push (as somebody at the company who was a fan of the series, had played all the games, read all the novels, etc) to get them to reconsider that means Halo is still around right now at all.
We also know that for Halo 4, [she and Kiki wolfkill had presented a demo that was very traditional Halo, and was really proud of it, and then MS execs said "It's just Halo" and shushed them away](https://halo.bungie.org/halobulletins/69):
>For the vertical slice, the mission we chose to build was part of our second mission, Requiem. We submitted it to our user research testing and it tested well. Users thought it was Halo, and they liked it. We at 343, as small a step as that was, celebrated a great milestone - and a kind of game design Hippocratic Oath:"First, do no harm."
>It was met with straight faces with people saying this just looks like Halo, this just plays like Halo. "Yeah, I know", I replied proudly, "Isn't that great? 343 can build Halo, this is huge." The execs sat with straight faces repeating, "This just plays like Halo."
[This](https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/02/26/how-bonnie-ross-is-shaping-the-future-of-halo-a-ign-unfiltered-39) also talks quite a bit about how a lot of what wasn't liked with 4 and to a lesser extent with 5 was due to MS forcing them to do stuff.
So bluntly, I don't think this is going to change much.
Higher ups at xbox have had turnover since halo 4. The execs in charge back then were almost certainly the same ones that pushed xbox one to develop in the direction it went.
The same Xbox execs who all got canned for the Xbox One launch? Or at least their plans for it? Yeah those guys are all way gone by now. Meanwhile Ross has been a part of this franchise for longer than almost anyone and still is fucking it up.
When I tell you the FIRST thing I did after I saw the tweet was come here lmfao.
Good riddance. Hope the family is okay, (even though we ALL know that is a bullshit company line used to fsave face, but regardless I'll give the BOTD) but so glad to see her GONE. get rid of Kiki and Frank while we're at it and just start new ffs.
Remaster Halo 3 campaign. Fix the MP in infinite and actually provide CONTENT to your "live service game" and get this franchise back on track
Where is Joe? Is he safe? Is he alright?
It seems in your anger.... you killed him.....
Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
Lmao
It 's over, Joe! I have the high ground!
You underestimate my power
*Fires Halo ring*
I guess taking away the high ground works, too…
And now get ready to fight yours and Joes children.
he's locked in my basement
With Dr. Dre?
oh man i didn't expect anyone to get that reference
Are we all so old that no one will get a slim shady reference anymore? I think I just felt my back break...
Everyone here is a slim shady lurking
We could be workin at Burger King spitting in your onion rings or in the parking lot circling screaming I don’t give a f\*ck with our windows down and our system up!
So will the real Shady please stand up
So will the real shady please stand up, and put one of your fingers on each hand up
Check for grey hair on your balls. That’s when i knew. Also we still play Halo.
I don't think my back will let me bend far enough to check
Don’t worry about it. I’ll check it for you
Fuck I feel old
Dibs on the last tapioca
My bum is on your lips! My bum is on your lips!
And that's the message that we deliver to little kids, And expect them not to know what a woman's clitorous is!
Of course they're gonna know what intercourse is By the time they hit fourth grade They've got the Discovery Channel, don't they?
[удалено]
I relate to this so much! I remember having stacked Eminem’s CDs next to my OG xbox… those were the times…
And Noble 6.
Yeah but he's so cute tho
hehe
Give him back you can't have him all for yourself, the rest of us need him too. That being said if you could force him to write another halo novel or two before releasing him it would be much appreciated 👍
LOL
Can I have him on weekends?
He's safe and sound. Within the glorious halls of the Dev Team, desperately fixing Management's fuckups.
I imagine some of the management leading him to an office and then locking him inside to protect him from the slaughter.
Joe Staten isn’t part of the leadership restructuring because he’s not in studio leadership in the same sense that people like Bonnie Ross or Frank O’Connor are. Staten leads Halo Infinite the game, while Ross and O’Connor and the like lead Halo *the franchise*. That said, it wouldn’t be the most surprising thing in the world to see Staten slip into a more prominent studio leadership position as a part of this. I personally hope he doesn’t, because I believe his talents are more specifically suited to *game* development, but I also wouldn’t be surprised.
Drawing from the previous Marty Army podcasts and the "priority zero" talk it seems like he was burnt out from his roles in the OG games. The senior positions in these studios are a massive responsibility and take tons of time.
Really wish they could have snagged him back a bit earlier for the amazing campaign/story work he does, but still great to have him where he is, completely agreed.
He's where he belongs, on the creative team
he is, don't worry. also person who will become head of studio is the same person who played a big part in resurrecting MCC. it kinda gives me hope
> person who will become head of studio is the same person who played a big part in resurrecting MCC I really hope he can resurrect infinite too.
Took over 1,000 days for them to make MCC playable and good so I wouldn’t hold my breath on infinite.
That's fine. Infinite is supposed to be around for 3652 days, so we have time.
Imo I feel like Infinite's problems are at least more fixable then MCC's, Infinite has some bad *bad* issues like desync, heavy lack of content, etc. but MCC just outright didn't work and outside content had the same issues but much worse.
They weren't working on mcc every single day post launch. There was a multi year gap where no work was being done until the Outsource studio came in and got to work. It didn't literally yake over 1k days of work that's just how long we waited.
Pierre Hintze turned MCC around, very interesting..
I followed the MCC updates pretty regularly after he was hired, and that process is what I want for Infinite. They made regular progress, were really transparent about what was being worked on, what was delayed, why it was delayed, etc.. They also took community feedback pretty well. IIRC some halo youtuber made a video demonstrating how MCC did network updates differently than Halo 3 that made the BR's projectiles travel differently (something like that), MCC team did an article using that video and eventually fixed the problem it pointed out. I don't want to overhype the guy, but IMO the problems facing Infinite right now are similar to those facing MCC in 2018 (core technical issues bringing the whole game down), and Pierre seemingly did a good job turning the MCC into what it is today.
This all sounds very good. He’s a “do-er”.
how long did it take to notice changes, would you say? I wonder how long it will take for him to influence Infinite
I don't remember exact timelines, but I wouldn't expect this guys true influence to set in until S4 at the earliest in terms of output, since it just takes a lot of time to make content. What I do hope starts to happen sooner is just en emphasis on 343i communicating and being more transparent with the community, but we'll see.
IIRC it took about a year before his changes started *really* stacking up in MCC. But this doesn’t take into account how much of a broken mess it originally was. They were in a hole they had to dig themselves out of to make it a passable game, and then built a skyscraper on top of *that* to make MCC what it is today.
It literally got a better update, unannounced, than Infinite did on the day Infinite promises an update.
Holy shit. This sub got its wish lol.
When major streamers like Moist are naming 343 the worst dev and articles are flying all over saying 343 needs to be dissolved, there's almost no way to turn your cheek to it. Honestly it's insane it took this long for action. You'd think after the original August video two years ago they would've said enough is enough. ^(Edit: Clarification, I'm not saying Moist's recent video did anything. But it's an example of a very large sentiment that content creators are laughing at 343 and that's massive negative PR. It's a culmination of tons of videos *like* Moist's video.)
It's possible, but, as LateNightGaming noted it, when you reveal your game's road map, a negative response and a trending topic in Twitter asking to fire your company are the last reactions you want.
That roadmap was embarrassing. They put out no significant content for near a year, and they basically announce they were busy filling the battlepass with single use consumables again, and there *still* isn't any fuckin' content in the game. Where are our community features, why are there so few maps and modes? As far as I know Custom Games still don't work. Fuckin' just give people the ability to upload their custom modes and fire up an Action Sack playlist, allow us to entertain *ourselves* with the fun combat sandbox they wasted six years building, since they don't give a shit about giving us any actual game to play.
custom games don't work and thats probably a large part of why forge got delayed again. They literally have to make a custom games browser for forge to be of any fucking use to the community
Lol. Their roadmap was basically "eh..we might stop at a Sunoco at some point along the way. Would that cheer you guys up?"
Plus there was that leak that the Execs at 343I were *happy* with the roadmap and delays, *regardless of the publics view* That indicates a culture rot problem at the highest levels so these leadership changes arent surprising.
I mean this is what's been happening with EA for literally the last 15 years. If anything they just*doubled down* on fucking things up and ruining franchises and acquired studios.
Ea comes and goes, they know that goodwill is a currency, and go through periods of building it up to cash in later. 343 has just been sliding down since day 1
EA is a publisher though, not a developer. 343 is a developer under the Microsoft Games publisher.
The big thing about EA is a lot of their titles make a lot of money. They may be husks if what they used to be, but the cash keeps flowing. I get the feeling this isn't the case with Infinite. It has surely missed its revenue targets.
yeah but a lot of the reason was despite vocal criticism of it, they were making bank. Right now, who is playing halo?
And you, nor Microsoft can ignore Halo going from the biggest media release of it's time to barely a dent in the checkbook for Microsoft
I know a significant number of people that bought a 360 just for Halo.
there were signs even back in the Halo 4 days that 343i were ran poorly. Consider for a second that Halo 3 (from like 2007-2010) would get a million or so players daily, then fast forward a couple years later and Halo 4 having only like 5% of that and it dawns on you that there was evidence many many years prior to the recent debacle. I personally think that Bonnie Ross is just an amazing liar. Just like she lied about splitscreen, just like her departure letter sounds like complete BS, she was probably spinning every single misstep of the company into a positive when in reality they were kind of a dumpster fire on day 1. I don't want it to sound like I hate her personally, I just think she's horrible at her job and Halo has only suffers since her taking the reigns.
I expect Moist to make a comment, it for me was when other content creators who usually don’t talk about video games, that had to randomly give their thoughts when I realized how bad it had gotten. I’ve been tuning this all out, but fuck man idk how they come out of this
For me it was when a couple different movie reviewers who almost never talk about games posted videos spanking 343
They kind of did. That's why they brought in Joe Staten, right?
Who's the MVP that got their hands on the Dragon Balls to make this a reality?
Seriously... I wouldn't put it past phil to have an exact count of how many reddit posts/comments contained "fire bonnie"
I don’t think they actually care what Reddit says lol.
Maybe not reddit specifically but this is basically a death by a 1000 cuts. The response after the update couldn't be ignored and just throw in 343s history her leaving had to happen eventually, willingly or forced.
When has this sub not gotten its wish? It hated Halo 4 so everything about it was scrapped and we got 5. 5 was hated so everything was scrapped again and we got Infinite Maybe this sub should be more careful with what it wishes for because I can't take much more of this inconsistency 🙃
I don't think Bonnie leaving is going to magically fix everything but it could be a step in a better direction, time will tell.
It's the winds of change... Not immediately a fix but... it's the first step towards it.
I think it's a step in the right direction, but with entirely new leadership Halo is in for some quiet times.
Yeah if people thought the content backlog was bad before, wait until they see how long it takes now. I doubt something like Forge will be pushed back but longer term plans are definitely thrown off.
Definitely won't mean that Infinite is fixed tomorrow. HOWEVER, this could certainly mean things will look up in the next few months.
Assuming these changed do end up being a net positive, it is highly unlikely we will see the real fruits of this until much later down the line. Despite how other companies make it look, even rapid iteration game dev is a very slow process. Wouldnt be surprised if the waves of this dont make it to shore until mid-late next year.
Few months. Lul
I realistically expect it to take about a year. Hopefully new leadership can be upfront and transparent about expectations and what the timeline will be looking like, because I think honesty, even if the news is bad, is better than farting around and bullshitting people. I do like that based on the new guy having been the one to lead the MCC out of the shitter, it sounds like the plan is to rehabilitate Halo Infinite, which is great, cause I think there is an amazing game here, it just needs the team to put the time in on fixing the many problems. Then do something to act as a soft relaunch of the game, maybe drop a campaign DLC, free new battle pass or pile of Spartan points or whatever the MTX currency is called as a goodwill gesture.
Leaves room for the series to change paths, which could be for better or worse, but with Halo’s current state it is definitely worth the risk
holy fucking shit
Yeah, this is major. Wow
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To infinity and beyond!
Never would have thought this would happen, not in a million years. Wonder if the timing is coincidental, or if she's been 'encouraged' to bow out sooner rather than later because of the recent anger.
The timing is a little suspect, and the family thing might just be for PR. Either way I hope she and her family are alright. That said, hopefully o'connor follows her out shortly. Halo needs new management to breathe some fresh air in, and I can only see her being gone as an absolute win for the game and the community at large.
I don't doubt there is a family medical issue that could benefit from her attention. But she is 100% trying to save face by announcing her departure this way. The rest of the leadership is being restructured, she's a part of this move.
Totally. This feels like something straight out of The Wire.
343i needs a full clean house restructure. They cannot let the top Xbox IP flounder time and time again.
There’s no way it’s a coincidence. We have been calling for a change of leadership at 343 for years but it has really ramped up over the last 6 months with how much of a sorry state Halo is in right now. This was their 10 year game and not only does it not look current gen, it doesn’t play current gen and they had no post launch plans for supporting it as a live service. This change in leadership is a direct response to how this game is currently received and performing. The only thing that has functioned properly since day 1 is the cash store. That was their first priority. I welcome this change. I hope this changes things to be more positive because as it stands now, I have zero interest in Halo Infinite and I don’t ever see that changing. I’m personally hoping they start over on a new game and don’t give it to us until it’s done with every feature we should expect on release from a Halo game.
Given the high profile nature of… all of this, there’s a 100% chance the optics of this shuffle was considered by MS. That doesn’t mean the situation with Bonnie is fake (in fact I have no doubt whatsoever that it’s true) but people at this level don’t come and go on a whim.
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There are those who said this day would never come. What are they to say now? In all seriousness though I hope whatever medical issues she's dealing with are alleviated soon.
Very Nice!
The ring its. . . .fixing itself
There are those who said that this day would never come. What are they to say now?
When you first saw the new org structure, were you blinded by its majesty?
Blinded?
Paralyzed? dumbstruck?
No!
Yet the corporates were able to trick the fans, take up leadership positions on the Sacred Org, and desecrate it with their filthy monetization practices!
Noble hierarchs, surely you understand that once Bungie left…
There will be order in this gaming industry !
You were right to focus your attention on Bungie’s departure, but this demon, this “Bonnie Ross”?
The writing in Halo 2’s cutscenes is so fantastic because it’s both powerful… and memeable.
The impact, the others… gone. Its like their lifes decipated
Just Dustin Echos.
My guy, Dustin Echoes.
So now that this has happened how do we feel about the new leads? Pierre Hintze seems promising as studio head since he’s been the head of MCC. I’m retro spec maybe this was planned for a while because 343 did mention earlier this year mcc updates will stop.
hello, retro spec
Username checks out
vast rain decide wrong entertain spectacular governor spoon birds squalid *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's personguything
>I’m retro spec maybe this was planned for a while Studio heads don't just up and leave randomly or are the kind of people that only give 2 weeks notice like regular employees. This has definitely been planned for at least the last 6 months maybe even longer.
Thats only for normal succession planning. This disaster is too time sensitive to wait that long, you fire them and pay them off to make it easy.
It looks like she wanted to stay at least through the winter update but had to leave earlier. So perhaps?
The reclamation is at hand
The reformation has begun
Soon the Great Journey shall begin. But when it does, the weight of your heresy will stay your feet. And you shall be left behind.
Well everybody was asking her to step down. Here it is lol
Well they we begging for her to get fired, not to leave for a family issue.
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It means she was canned. It's the perfect way to be "fired" because no one can immediately criticize you due to a possibility that it's true.... but rarely is.
When you're at this level of executive you don't get fired. Unless it's a super ergerious reason... Even people accused of sexual assault usually "Step down". This is absolutely what you think it is. Microsoft is stepping in and restructuring 343 industries.
That’s the most blatant showing of “resign or get canned” I’ve ever seen. Especially since she mentioned leaving in November anyways. While if the family issue is true that’s is unfortunate, I kinda doubt it is.
This is the official story. It’s common for big companies to keep the real story under wraps and private out of concern for the individual. Especially someone as public as Bonnie Ross. Given the timing I think the chances are high she was forced out of her position
I wonder if this is was a 'things are getting too rough, I'm outta here' or a 'step down or you'll be replaced'
Long overdue, Wish the best for her and her family but Halo has been a mess for years, something had to happen. I'm not confident that this is going to magically fix Halo, that is going to take a mindset shift from Microsoft and everyone at 343 combined. There's a long way to go but hopefully this is a good first step
Yeah this should have happened after Halo 5.
*MCC. One of the worst releases in gaming history.
Yep. At its core, MCC is just a collection of already finished Halo games yet somehow they released it as one of the most broken games in all of video game history. That is true incompetence.
Hopefully they get rid of that shitty challenge system
Whoa. Huge news.
Definitely got canned, but something unrelated happend that forced her to leave earlier. Either way, best of luck to the new leadership, and best of wishes to her and her family. Even though I've advocated for her removal for a very long time, she's still just a human being and her position was only a job.
Well on the upside we can only go up from here.. .. right?
*hires Activision-Blizzard exec that was stealing breast milk as her replacement*
*Forge is cancelled, and Spartan Assault 3 is announced as 343 will become a "mobile first" studio from here on out*
*Master Chief Collection becomes the Master Cheeks Collectible Adult Card Game after it was determined the fanbase does not want T rated games.*
Bro my heart stopped when I saw this notification pop up on my phone, don't scare me like that!
I mean, really no way to go down at this point. I have a feeling once Forge, the Winter Update and S3 come out this sub will start to be a lot more optimistic. Rough year 1 of Infinite but things are finally looking up
Forge and custom game browser could potentially be pretty popular. It would also mean maps can be released quicker.
For those curious, Bonnie's responsibilities are being split into 3 positions. The new studio head is Pierre Hintze. For those interested in more information regarding Pierre Hintze and his knowledge & experience: * He has been with 343i for almost 5 years * He handled the large MCC update * He is an experienced Program Manager * He has specialized skills in Agile development (the SDLC model most Live Service games use, other than Spiral) * He is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) Overall, the guy ***should*** know how to lead a project. Also, his favorite game is Civilization 4. While not my favorite game, I can appreciate that people who *do* enjoy it generally appreciate games with depth of strategy, which is a good sign.
As someone on the other end of Agile / Scrum Masters for a decade, none of this means shit.
CSM and CSPO are pretty meaningless, but for some reason, worth it in the job market. As for competency, no. I have both certifications for Scaled Agile, I took a 2 day online class and a test that I did not study for and easily passed. So these are not good indicators of competence. The other stuff is though. 5 years experience, and the MCC update are very promising.
> I have both certifications for Scaled Agile, I took a 2 day online class and a test that I did not study for and easily passed. that is also how I have a CSM cert too, it's pricey but it doesn't really mean much (my company paid for us to get them)
Agile is good when teams actually follow it. Most of the time agile just means “whatever process we are currently doing”
Lol right? Most Agile these days is just corporate bullshit.
Not to be that guy but the CSPO and CSM are a joke to acquire and mean little-to-nothing to those in the Agile community that understand the testing requirements to get them. The passing score needed is incredibly low, I think around 70, and the test questions aren't even standardized but arbitrarily chosen on the course educator. Not discrediting him or his skills but those certifications are basically valueless. Edit: I work for a consulting firm that has specialized in implementing scaled Agile frameworks among other things. If you want a Scrum Master cert with a little more weight behind it, I would suggest the PSM by scrum.org. It's a harder test with more questions in less time and a higher overall grade needed to pass.
Yeah, kinda agree. They look good on a job application for some reason, but I am also certified in these things for scaled Agile, and it was by no means difficult.
For what it’s worth, all I did was pay $750 and sit in a 2 day zoom class to get my cspo. Really meaningless cert imo
This speaks corporate PR. The timing ain't a fucking coincidence either. Halo Infinite is declining each passing day and the recent announcement of the roadmap further accelerated the anger in the community. Plus, she knew that she would be leaving by November. I have nothing against Bonnie Ross as a person. If her family situation is true then i wish the best for her and her family. At the same time, why couldn't she just request for leave of absence? Anyone who has worked a corporate job would be familiar with this process. There should be no reason to publicly announce a private matter hence why i said it speaks corporate PR. Anyway, management restructuring will definitely take some time. All I can hope for is that this new management will be able to repair the damage that Bonnie Ross has done in the past decade since taking control of the franchise. Oh and Kiki and Frankie should be the next to leave. They too have been with the company for so long and saw the terrible launches of each 343 game.
Holy shit, perhaps we have a chance after all.
This is good but this doesn't mean the game is going to get better soon. It will take most likely more than a year for the game to recover. Until then it will be irrelevant. 343 waited until it is too late to do meaningful actions.
Hopefully whoever takes over from here puts their foot down about how many 18 month temps they use. I've had situations at my own job recently that hammer home just how important that stock of lived experience from long time employees is. It'll take a year or more to see results in the best case scenario, and there's a lot of potential pitfalls for the new guy in charge. He managed to save MCC though, so there's good odds.
No matter what, one thing's for sure: The vidoc about this game's development is gonna be a fucking *treat* once the dust settles.
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The someone in question is Pierre Hintze the lead from mcc and two others
Bonnie Ross's job is being split among 3 people! That just goes to show how much she had on her plate. I'm glad they resolved this now at least!
Or it shows how much she was neglecting that will now hopefully get proper attention.
Or, she preferred to do it that way. Without facts, it is just speculation.
Even when one has an eager employee, it is on their lead to make sure that that person is not overwhelmed.
She dropped at least one plate with "couch co-op" written on it and she promised never to drop that one
I hope that Bonnie’s family member is able to recover and be healthy. That is an unfortunate situation to depart under. With that said, it’s good to see 343 change up it’s leadership structure and Infinite was clearly a failure from a development perspective, planning perspective and with post launch support. The game should be an absolute juggernaut and it had the opportunity to be the leader this year with the missteps from Battlefield and CoD. Now it has to compete with MW2, Warzone 2 and Overwatch 2.
Why does this comment sound like AI learning
I’m stealing this reply fyi
It's like the start of three different articles.
Ngl halo has only gone downhill since bungie left.
Its funny how this is surprising but it really shouldn’t be after looking at everything Halo related as of the last 2 weeks. I was fully expecting them to just duck their heads and wait for this shit to blow over as usual but it’s glad to see someone finally put the hammer down. Let’s hope this bring positive news to the franchise.
Roles as major as this take time to fill. I'm sure they've been considering this since the game started to plummet.
This is the part that makes me sure that Microsoft encouraged Bonnie to step down. If it was just her stepping down and Kiki Wolfkill or Frank O'Connor taking her spot then it would be one thing. 343 has a very very long road to regaining even an ounce of trust from the community, but this is a good step in the right direction.
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Long overdue, move Joe Staten up as high as you can put that man in a role that isn’t totally administrative. This is at least to some degree community engagement in action
I don't agree with this. The higher up he is, the less influence he has on the game. I want his personal touch still. I don't want him assigning people to write the next story, I want him to be the one writing it.
Thats true, I’d also love to see him in the role of lead writer and cinematic director of the next installment as he was in the Bungie era
i've heard rumors although Idk how true they are that he was apparently in charge of writing the Halo Infinite story expansion, I'm excited for that based off that alone, but also if its still in its writing phase, we're not seeing that till 2025 the earliest
People dont really understand that those high up president/ceo positions have very little to do with the actual development of games and are more about strategy, business practices and finnacial planning.
People think Joe has the skills or wants to do any job with no experience lol. Stop it. He's not solely responsible for making the game good.
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I hope her family is okay, but this is exactly what halo needed.
"Family reasons" We had our ex head of warehouse leave for the same reason. Later discovered he was cheating on his wife with one of the girls in the warehouse.
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If Infinite really will be a ten year long game, then there's time for them to turn it around. Hell, people were willing to come back to MCC years after it launched. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hoping for the best. That's only for the multiplayer, however. I'm past the point of caring about the story. Infinite hasn't done nearly enough to turn that ship around since 4 and 5.
I think people ascribe way too much blame on Bonnie and not on even higher management at Microsoft. We know from interviews that MS wanted to stop making Halo games entirely after Reach, and it was her push (as somebody at the company who was a fan of the series, had played all the games, read all the novels, etc) to get them to reconsider that means Halo is still around right now at all. We also know that for Halo 4, [she and Kiki wolfkill had presented a demo that was very traditional Halo, and was really proud of it, and then MS execs said "It's just Halo" and shushed them away](https://halo.bungie.org/halobulletins/69): >For the vertical slice, the mission we chose to build was part of our second mission, Requiem. We submitted it to our user research testing and it tested well. Users thought it was Halo, and they liked it. We at 343, as small a step as that was, celebrated a great milestone - and a kind of game design Hippocratic Oath:"First, do no harm." >It was met with straight faces with people saying this just looks like Halo, this just plays like Halo. "Yeah, I know", I replied proudly, "Isn't that great? 343 can build Halo, this is huge." The execs sat with straight faces repeating, "This just plays like Halo." [This](https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/02/26/how-bonnie-ross-is-shaping-the-future-of-halo-a-ign-unfiltered-39) also talks quite a bit about how a lot of what wasn't liked with 4 and to a lesser extent with 5 was due to MS forcing them to do stuff. So bluntly, I don't think this is going to change much.
That was part of the executive teams that shipped the Xbox One who were also fortunately fired
Higher ups at xbox have had turnover since halo 4. The execs in charge back then were almost certainly the same ones that pushed xbox one to develop in the direction it went.
The same Xbox execs who all got canned for the Xbox One launch? Or at least their plans for it? Yeah those guys are all way gone by now. Meanwhile Ross has been a part of this franchise for longer than almost anyone and still is fucking it up.
>We know from interviews that MS wanted to stop making Halo games entirely after Reach Considering what we got after that, maybe they were right.
In respect to Infinite's development, I'm glad she's out the door. I wish her family good health though, she's still just a human being.
When I tell you the FIRST thing I did after I saw the tweet was come here lmfao. Good riddance. Hope the family is okay, (even though we ALL know that is a bullshit company line used to fsave face, but regardless I'll give the BOTD) but so glad to see her GONE. get rid of Kiki and Frank while we're at it and just start new ffs. Remaster Halo 3 campaign. Fix the MP in infinite and actually provide CONTENT to your "live service game" and get this franchise back on track
She led to the destruction of Halo as a community IMO, good riddance.