More than a few people don’t see much point to Google Stadia, especially with other options available on the market. For Bungie, however, Google’s game-streaming console is keeping Destiny 2 development going while the company is on lockdown.
Speaking to IGN, Bungie’s COO Patrick O’Kelley has detailed how the company has been managing so far. As Washington state often has inclement weather, they already had plans in place for snow days and the like — but nothing on the scale of a multi-week lockdown like they’re experiencing now.
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Fortunately, Chinese colleagues from NetEase kept them apprised of how things were unfolding and that helped Bungie prepare. Game devs received beefy laptops and the specialized software that they would need to keep working. The most difficult part, however, was figuring how to test new content during Destiny 2 development — and that’s when Google stepped in to help.
“[It] looks like [Google Stadia is] going to be our test solution,” Mr. O’Kelley said to IGN. “Getting playtests at scale is a hard thing to do – a lot of bandwidth involved – so they’ve been collaborating with us to set that up and that looks like it’s going to be a really amazing solution for us. It’s not something we necessarily thought about initially but it looks like it’s going to be a great way for us to keep getting regular playtests and do it pretty easily.”
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