Bro management is essential for any business or corporation. To say it has zero impact is just ignorance. Now I don’t know people at 343i personally but if I had to guess I would say that the regular developers are probably pretty good at their jobs, but due to horrible decisions and management from atop they get screwed over.
This isn’t like politics where the President has no real legislative power, this is a corporation, they are closer to Kings and Queens than they are just studio puppets. Now they are not without reprise, they absolutely can be held accountable (as was Bonnie) but to just imply that the head of a company has no impact is just bonkers.
Frankly this could be awful, maybe Bonnie Ross was a godtier leader and nobody knew, but I think its far more likely to be the opposite. I think that the upper management has been leading 343i astray for many years now.
See I think we don’t know enough about the operation of 343 to predict the impact of her departure.
I would have said that Frank O Connor had more to do with the overall direction and story. Whilst Kiki Wolfkill I think was more involved in the TV show.
I actually got the impression Bonnie and Frank were stepping back quite a bit before Infinite as they were much more prominent for the launch of Halo 4 and 5. Frank especially was a no show.
With how Flood firefight was handled as well as Forge I am also optimistic. Flood firefight had new models for combat forms added when they didn’t really have to be, and Forge had campaign assets worked into it that were previously never attainable. They definitely care that much is certain.
This is very true. A similar instance to this was Activision’s departure from Bungie in which monetization was speculated to be lessened, but instead went into overdrive in Destiny 2.
I can’t overstate how important it is that this is becoming a dedicated position. I work in public business/op sectors and splitting this responsibility into it’s own role is 100% the right move.
If you objectively review the things someone in Bonnies position was responsible for, it’s tough to say she did a bad job imo. She was the lead for a studio that actively kept a 20 year old franchise in global relevance. We forget how many franchises simply disappear over the years, and I would argue Halo is more globally relevant now than many points in the past.
This brings a lot of uncertainty into the conversation in the context of Halo, and imo uncertainty is not good
From the standpoint of the structure of 343’s development efforts and the operational effectiveness of their developers, I would argue that Bonnie, as studio head and primary liaison with xbox-microsoft proper, has had much more of an impact on the overall franchise.
On a per project standpoint, I would agree that the responsibility would lay with them (Frank/Kiki) for the direction things have taken, specifically with regards to the efforts they have spearheaded. (Both good and bad.)
In spite of the state of the games they’ve released, 343 have done a lot of expanding the universe and engaging with books / other published media that never would have occurred in the Bungie era. There are a lot of people that love that part of the cannon just as much as the games themselves.
(Bungie was never thrilled about the novels that were released under their tenure at Microsoft. I doubt they would have wanted to expand their world in the way that 343 has, for better and for worse.)
I feel badly that Ms. Ross had to leave her position for any reason. For a long time, I’ve wondered why those around her and above her rubber stamped the direction she headed. Microsoft appears to be a collaborative environment (maybe to a fault). I don’t expect to see a big change from the current direction re: seeing Halo as competitive first, seeking a broader audience at the expense of longtime fans, and adding lore that doesn’t connect or inspire. But I hope I’m wrong, of course.
