It’s hard to think of anything Bungie has done in the last, oh, eight years as a risk. They’ve got what is easily one of the most successful game franchises of all time spread all over the globe. At any given time you can find more than 200,000 players looking for a game in Halo 3‘s matchmaking – a system that was largely based on the Halo 2 experience, which is a system Bungie’s calling “a big risk.”
In speaking with OXM, Bungie’s Brian Jarrad had a lot to say about the middle child of the current franchise. “I remember matchmaking, when we rolled that out with Halo 2 it was such a big risk,” Jarrard said. “We walked away from the established norm, there were no server lists – we turned the whole thing upside down and it was a big leap of faith.”
I don’t know about turning the whole thing upside down, but they certainly changed the way players look for games as compared to a PC, and it worked. And it continues to work. Pretty well, for the most part. There are still boosters ruining games, and people who just won’t seem to stay banned, but my own experience has been mostly positive when it comes to playing Halo online. Sure, I prefer the LAN experience, but I’d bet most people do. For my part, I’m still happy Bungie took the risk.
