Earlier this week our friends over at egmr.net posted an article, with author Caveshen claiming that he wants Destiny to fail for the good of all gamers. Now I’m all for winding people up to get a discussion going but Destiny failing will truly help no one – except perhaps some whiny indie who thinks he is better than everyone else.

The essence of the Destiny fail article is that Activision are reportedly budgeting $500 million for Destiny which if you use some grade 2 maths means they need to sell 16 million copies before even breaking even. The author obviously doesn;t want Destiny to fail because it’s a bad game, but rather suggests that any company investing this much in any game is a troubling indicator for the industry.

That, however, forgets that this budget is spread over a 10 year period with Activision promising to continue to invest in the game and its future and to continue bringing new content to gamers as the game progresses. However even if that wasn’t the case then the idea of a massive company investing half a billon dollars into a game isn’t a bad thing. It means that a company out there, and their shareholders, believe that the industry is healthy enough to entrust a massive amount of money with and that they truly believe they will be making a healthy profit on the other side.

Bobby Kotick hasn’t made the decision to invest this money by himself and trust me the people who are making this decision aren’t doing it to just make gamers happy. They have done the numbers and are taking a very calculated risk that this will end in a huge profit for the company and shareholders.

It also doesn’t mean fewer games will be made and smaller games will be ignored. There are still plenty of other publishers and companies such as EA, Ubisoft, 2K, Konami, Valve plus Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo who are all looking for that next great game to bring in profits.

The worst thing about Activision investing such a huge chunk in a single game and it succeeding is that the pressure will be taken off Call of Duty, Skylanders and World of Warcraft to keep the company strong. That, in turn allow them to diversify more. You all complain about Call of Duty being a cut-and-paste of the last year and don’t for a second think that Activision doesn’t hear you. But when COD is one of their main incomes do you really think they can take a chance of changing the formula much?

Everyone who hates the Call of Duty model should be embracing Destiny and thanking Activision for showing they really do listen to people; this is the originality you have all been asking for. Appreciate it and stop hating the company just because they are successful. For those who don’t like shooters, well you have no place to complain really with Activision also releasing a slew of different games in other genres and they are also not your only option.

Anyone investing this amount of money in any industry should be applauded rather than having failure wished upon them. As a side note, I’m very worried Destiny won’t be fun, I haven’t had any hands on with the game yet so I’m hoping I’m wrong. I just have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that it will be too intricate for casual gamers to pick up and enjoy.

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