Video Gamers Podcast - We Sat Down with Bungie: Dev Secrets and How They're Giving Back - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Gaming has some truly epic franchises. Two of the most well known video game franchises in existence are Halo and Destiny. We sat down with Bungie Senior Producer Jarrod Luty and Bungie Foundation Director Christine Edwards to discuss their gaming history, pedigree and how the Bungie Foundation is truly looking to help the world. From video games to generous goals, this is an incredible episode you absolutely MUST hear. We get an inside look at development, how Bungie leads the industry in giving and much MUCH more! It’s another gaming packed episode from the Video Gamers Podcast! You can help the Bungie Foundation here: https://tiltify.com/bungiefoundation  Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Some games and studios are so iconic we remember our first game that they ever made or that we played by them. We remember the times with friends we had playing together in the excitement of a new major release. We've had the joy of talking with several indie devs and studios, but what about the big boys of the industry? What's it like working at a AAA studio and making some of the most iconic games of the

last 30 years? Well today we have the immense honor to do just that. But first some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh and joining me he's got more hours in Destiny than any other game he's played so he may be geeking out just a tiny bit. It's Ryan. Why do you have to remind me every time? Like, this is an amazing thing. It's a horrible thing. It's just like a lot of my life has gone to this beautiful, beautiful game.

It's an amazing thing, Ryan. And also, I'm pretty sure you don't even come close to my time in EverQuest. That's probably true. And joining us, they work for a little game studio you may have heard about, just the company that, you know, made two of the most successful franchises to ever exist. From Bungie Studios and the Bungie Foundation, it's Jared and Christine. Hello, world.

Hey, everybody. Happy to be here. How are you guys doing today? So good. What are we going to start on Monday? Yeah. Monday, yeah. Oh, man,. What do we start on Monday? Yeah. Oh man. We're excited. So number one, thank you both so much for giving your valuable time and hopping on this podcast with a couple doofuses like Ryan and I, we are really, really excited to have you guys here with us. Um, and man, this is good.

This is going to be a fun episode. So, um, I really kind of want to just start off by, you know, introducing you guys a little bit or letting you kind of introduce yourselves a little bit. So, um, Christine, you are the director of the bungee foundation and you've been with bungee for quite a while now. Is that right? Uh, pretty much my entire adult life. Yeah. Basically right out of college. Yeah. Started in 2008, April 2008. So I think like next month it's going to be 17 years. I don't

think 17 years. Yeah. I turned 40 this year. So 22 to 40 is a long time. That is amazing. I mean, how many people can get a job at Bungie right out of college? Right. You knew you were onto a good thing if you've been doing it this long, though, too, at the same time. Yeah, it's been a great ride, a really, really fun ride, for sure.

That is awesome. This place is pretty good. I think I'm going to stick around. All right, I'll stay. I'll stay. Yeah, totally. And then, Jared, you worked with Christine at the Bungie Foundation for a little while.

And then you are currently a senior producer for Bungie Studios, is that correct? That is correct. I began my journey with Bungie about three and a half years ago with the Bungie Foundation, with the boss over here. And just back in November, I had an opportunity to move over to the development side

and much to Christine Chagrin, in had an opportunity to move over to the development side and much to Christine Chagrin in my own, to be honest. I made the leap over to the development side and now I'm working on Marathon. That is awesome. I still keep on reeling him in. Here we go. Yeah, I mean, I actually haven't really stopped working at the Benji Foundation yet. I probably will never. Christine just keeps sliding me stuff under the table and under the door. foundation and I probably will never, Christina just keeps sliding me stuff under the table and under the door, just can't just do this. That's what you guys do.

You guys go on both sides now though. You get to still do the foundation stuff, but then you get to work with video games. You know, how awesome is that? She has not removed your photo from the Bungie Foundation website yet, so you're still on good enough. No, it stays permanently, yeah.

Change the title to like, consultant. It stays permanently. Yeah. Yeah. I'll just change the title to like consultant. Advisory committee, just one of one. There you go. Love it. We'll figure that out. She's slowly like fading the photo out a little bit every day. A little 10% every time. Like your replacement, just like a fade over.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. That works. Oh, man. That's great. So. We'll get an engineer on it.

He'll figure it out. Yeah, there you go. And so Jared, you have, you have been a fan of games for a long time. Yes. But Christine, you are not much of a gamer. Is that true? Yeah, it wasn't really my thing. Games make me like super anxious.

I'm sure there's games out there for me, but I'm, it's like my perfectionist mentality like games just, they're they're hard but the Bungie Foundation has taught me a lot about games and the importance of them so. I've tried to get her in. I've tried to. You don't want to see me play Destiny. You don't want to see it. It's not good. That's my wife. My wife likes a very specific type of game. She, you know, like Mario games, for instance, right? She loves those until she gets to the fire level and then she just quits. She's like, this is too stressful. I don't want this in my life. And then she's just out at that point. So, well, hey, we don't judge around these

parts. So you're, you're in good company. So we do have a question for you though, Christine, since you do work for the Bungie Foundation and you are familiar with Bungie Games and we figured this would be a good question for you. So you have to get dropped into either the world of Halo or the world of Destiny. Which one are you picking and why? That's a good question. I mean, I have like a really like soft heart, I think, for Halo just because like it was really my introduction into games. I started in 2008. We were like co-developing ODST and Reach at the same time. When I started, I was working in marketing.

So like I know the marketing side of things, even if I don't play. Yeah. And it was just like my first introduction into into games and the gaming community and how excited and passionate people are about games. And it taught me so much about what it takes to actually make a game and how complicated it is and how many different people you have and how many different teams are working on it and just the teamwork and camaraderie around all of it.

So yeah, I think I have a soft place in my heart for good old Halo. I think I could take a grunt too, to be honest. You think so? Just punch him right in the face. Maybe nothing else, but I think I could take a grunt. I got that, I got that. So Jared, you've been with Bungie for a bit now. As a gamer, I was actually watching some of your stuff. I think you are a long-standing gamer.

You're watching some of my Bungie bounty fails. Maybe a little bit. My ass kicked by the community on repeat. What is it? These games, what is it that takes you, what's a game that is that next level for you? What makes you kind of feel, as a gamer, what's the best that's out there? I mean, right now?

Or like all the time? Yeah, right now, right now. Oh, this is hard. I'm going to give you two answers. All right, I like it, I is hard. Um, I'm going to give you two answers. All right. I like it. I like it. So I've played a lot of great like single player games over the past couple of years.

You know, I think I finally finished Ragnarok after a long hiatus. I'm trying to make my way through all of Ghost of Tsushima, I've just been delaying it. Like they're kind of old at this point, but like I finally need to complete them. I think the game I keep coming, but I'm a very competitive guy. I love shooters. I love winning. I love killing people in the game and standing over their dead bodies. Um, so the, the game that I kind of go to, because I work a lot, so like when I play my games

now it's quick fixes. It's like I want to be in and out, get that dopamine hit and then move on with my day. So I play a lot of Apex Legends. Okay. Playing since the beginning. That is my dopamine hit. I drop in for a couple rounds. I hopefully come out with a dub,

or at least a couple top fives. And so I play way too much of that. Way too much. I will say a newer game that I've been begrudgingly hooked into, which I never, I hate mobile games. Like this is nothing, this is not for me. I hate the form factor. I'd like, I'd screen.

I'm the same way. If they're on my phone, I'm gonna play them too much. Yep. We had an internal thing called Pentathlon, a competition back, when was that, December, this one? Yeah, December. And we were playing Balotro. Oh, yeah.

And I was like, what the hell is Pilatro? Yeah. And I watched all the people trying to tell me about it. They're like, oh, it's like poker, but it's a- Highly, highly addictive. And I'm like, all right, whatever. Let me download it on my iPhone. 10 bucks, cool.

Worst, best decision I ever made. I'm now so addicted to this thing. I'll play it in bed before I sleep. Oh, yeah. And I was like, are you still playing your stupid game? I'm like, I'm'll play it in bed before I sleep. Oh, yeah I was like, are you still playing your stupid game? I'm like, I'm not deleting it till I hundred percent it Oh god, it's gonna take a while. So yeah, I mean honestly, it's a great game. The design is phenomenal It's so simple, but it's so I'm addicted We just we just did an indie episode with like top five indie games and stuff and

Bellacra was on my list list for just one of those that people just can't stop themselves. They can't help themselves, man. It's one of those that grabs a hold of you and holds on tight. Them putting that on mobile, we joke that productivity everywhere is just done. The fact that they put that on mobile devices, it's like, yeah. It was the best. It was a genius marketing decision by far. I love that phrase, by the way, the best worst decision. Like, that's a good one.

That's like playing Rust. So, Jared, we put Christine on the spot. We got to put you on the spot here too, just to keep things fair. So, favorite weapon in Halo? I mean, I go back to my days of halo three. Those are my hay days. He's talking our language. It's the race to get the sword, man. Like whoever gets that sword, you're just king. Um, but if we're not talking about the sword, which I think everyone loves sticky grenades, nothing's more satisfying than throwing grenades,

sticking some and you're dead. Just waiting. Yeah, or getting stuck and then waiting is the opposite. That's the worst, too. Yeah, when you know and then you're just running away, you're like, well, this is the end. That's awesome. Oh my goodness.

All right. Well, we've got to put you guys on the spot a little bit there, too. All right, so Bungie is, you know, we got to put you guys on the spot a little bit there too. So, all right. So bungee is, I mean, it is such a huge name when it comes to gaming. I mean, I don't think that there's a gamer alive who hasn't heard of halo or destiny. And you know, we're all old enough to remember the launch of the Xbox and the impact that halo had on the gaming world as a whole. The heyday of Destiny, the massive success of Destiny 2 is honestly legendary. And so we'd love to chat a little

bit about some of the culture and then kind of the magic of Bungie over the years, if that works for you guys. So Christine, you know, you mentioned that you got a job working for Bungie right out of college. Like how does one get to work at one of the most iconic game studios in existence? It's a really good question, especially for somebody who doesn't play games and doesn't make games. What am I even doing here? Yeah. So my personal story, and it's like unique to me, everyone has their own journey, but

yeah. So I, out of college, I was like a Latin American studies major. I planned on going into global health. Like I knew I wanted to be a nonprofit. Um, so after college, I moved to Guatemala and I was volunteering with the medical clinic, spent every last dollar that I had, um, and moved home and just like immediately, I just like needed a job.

And I had already, um, gone into, I had already like registered for my like master's program that was supposed to start in six months and I was just like what can I do for six months to get me like any penny to my name and at the time Bungie was hiring for a six-month contract admin position and I'm like I know nothing about video games but it's the exact time frame that I need and I can do admin work I'm like, I know nothing about video games, but it's the exact timeframe that I need and I can do admin work, I'm sure. So I applied for it. I went into the interview and no joke for a six month contract admin role.

It was an eight hour interview. I interviewed with every sick, like a representative of every single department at bungee. And it was like the best interview ever. Like they, everyone was just like so kind. They were super excited to hear about my story. At the time we had recently separated from Microsoft and so Bungie as a whole was like really interested in figuring out, hey, like how do we leverage

this amazing community, this like amazing game that we have and how do we like leverage it for the power of good? And here I was this like 22 year old, you knowold person who was kind of volunteering for a living at that point and they're like, maybe you can help us figure this out. Maybe you have some ideas on how we can harness this thing and do some good in the world. So yeah, so I started with a six-month contract and we pretty quickly started diving into the world of like, how do we start a nonprofit? Like, what does that look like?

What would we do if we were to start a nonprofit? Like, how can we actually like, you know, build this? And six months turned into 17 years and just like, just like that. Yeah. Yeah. I may be in my mid forties, so I understand how fast like time can go by all of a sudden. Yeah, it does. Yeah. I love, I'd love to ask just like, oh, admin job.

I'll just hop into one of the best studios of all time. I told my friends that I was interviewing. They're like, yeah, like I'm just like this, this company called Bungie, like I'm going to go in for an interview. And all my friends like slack job, like there just like, this company called Bungie, I'm gonna go in for an interview, and all my friends, like, slack-jawed, like. Are you kidding me right now? There's this soldier, he's named Halo or something, I don't know.

Yeah, that guy. Like, come on. Some master chef guy. Yeah, he's really tall, I don't know. He seems cool. He's got a cool voice, you know. Yeah. That's, you know.

Oh, that's amazing. So Jared, what about you? Now you've been, cause you started, did you start with the Bundy, the Bungee foundation? Is that actually how you started? Yes, that is, that was my first role at Bungee. Um, I on the other, like unlike Christine had wanted to work in games forever. Yeah. Very intentional. Very, very hard to break in. Um, yeah, I, I'm from New York. from New York. I studied finance in college and I thought I was going to work a traditional finance career. And I was. I was working at a bank on Wall Street for many

years and then my wife packed up and said, sorry she didn't pack up. They're still together. We're still together. They packed up and said, sorry, she didn't pack up. They're still together. We're still together. They packed up. She got a job at Amazon. This was supposed to be really depressing. Sorry, she took a job at Amazon and we packed up

our one bedroom apartment in Manhattan and came out to Seattle right before the pandemic hit. And so that was fall of 2019. And I was like, well, if I'm quitting my job, because remote work doesn't exist in 2019, I come to Seattle, I'm gonna try to break in the gaming industry, what I've always wanted to do, because in New York, it just doesn't happen.

It's really hard unless you're already in it. There's really just rockstar out there. So I tried to, I interviewed for like two years across every known studio or really just applied, not much interview going on because who's going to hire some guy from finance background that's not applying for a finance role that wants to make video games. But this role with the Bungie Foundation came across my computer screen one day, and they were looking for someone who had, you know, video game desires and interests

and within some nonprofit experience. And I had done some nonprofit stuff through my work back in New York. And I was like, okay, yeah, this sounds great, why not? And I wasn't really sure what the role was gonna be like and I ended up getting the job and I fell in love with it. It was it's we've grown the Bungie Foundation so much over the past three plus years. My role was the role I ended up working was definitely not what I was hired to do.

It's changed a bit. But for the better I think. I had no intention of really leaving anytime soon. And then the job internally popped up and I was like, let me throw my hat in the ring and see what happens. And here we are. Heck yeah. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right? That was kind of, that was honestly my thought behind it all. Yeah.

That's awesome. Also, zero bitterness detected for Christine getting this job and just kind of falling into it. I feel like there's like millions of people out in the world that just like hate me right now. This doesn't happen. Oh, just stumbled right into Bungie. No big deal at all.

No big deal. You know, it's fine. I actually, I used to live right down the street from the studio and then I moved a I just stumbled right into Bungie, no big deal at all. No big deal, you know, it's fine. I actually, I used to live right down the street from the studio and then I moved a couple miles away and I would just like stare at their building, like one day, one day, just on me and just, yeah. And look where you are now though.

Well congratulations, that's amazing. You did it. Yeah, you did it. Sure did. That's awesome. So like, you know, you talk about like, Christine's been here forever, you know, you talk about like Christine's been here forever, you know, you're newer to this kind of side of it, but you know, they let you in as a finance

guy. So there's gonna be a culture there. And a lot of times as gamers, you know, we hear about the cultures in a dev studio and what it takes to create just these awesome games that people make. What is the culture like at Bungie for you guys? Well, I think just take a step back and then kind of moving into the culture side. So I think part of the reason why both Jared and I probably got jobs here, even though we got jobs in something that we weren't necessarily directly experienced in, is because we're I think both like really strong team players, really adaptable, really willing to jump in to like whatever is necessary to make sure that our teams are successful, the company is successful, you know the projects that we work

on are successful. And so you know like obviously there's specific jobs like if you're not an artist you're probably not going to get an art job, right? But like, for the most part, there are so many different types of roles within a gaming company. And some of them are development related or like an engineer, an artist, a designer, whatever else. But there's a ton of other operational roles, finance, HR, like marketing, you know, all sorts of stuff. So like the pathways into a company like Bungie doesn't have to be, I think, as linear as people think that it needs to be. I think like the more important thing is like if you're passionate about something,

like pursue that passion, like pursue it, you know, in your free time, on your own time, like study it, like whatever else. But they don't think that you have to be like one specific thing to, I think, get a job at Bungie or anywhere else. But don't think that you have to be like one specific thing to I think get a job at Bungie or anywhere else. Because I think once you're in, like, I mean, there's been so much mobility. Like my job, I think is a really good example. Like, again, I started as a six-month contract administrative, you know, role. Started the foundation, you know, early on, we officially formed in 2010. But even in 2010, it was like a 10th of my job, moved into like a marketing role was in marketing for a long

time until the foundation was big enough to kind of, you know, become like a full time thing. And now we're a team of five and still growing. And so I think that's like, like adaptability, like saying like, yes to things like what does the company need? Like, how can I show up and be of service gets you so far and gets like that's where like the growth opportunities I think happen. And so when I think about the culture at Bungie, like that those are the types of things that I think of that we're really really good at is showing up for each other, being adaptable, putting in the work that we need to get done, caring for our, you know, fellow colleagues.

And not just kind of like to a certain extent, like not necessarily like staying in our own lane. Like sometimes like, you know, you have a job and you have to get it done, but like being willing to say like, what does this project need? What does my team need of me? How can I show up and support? Yeah. So it's just created, I think, like a really inclusive, really supportive environment because we all show up to do our best work. I love that because like, I mean, Jared is an example of, I mean, literally right in front of us of saying like, Hey, you know, I had a finance background. I, you know, you jumped in with the bungee foundation, which we were absolutely going to talk more about here in just a little bit, but.

You know, I think, I think a lot of times as gamers, we tend to think of like, I think it's easier to relate to like a small studio, where it's like, hey, there's eight guys that are working on this. So all eight of those people have to be very, very talented at what they do. And it also helps if you understand the business side of things as well.

But for some of the larger studios, I mean, there are a much wider range of talents that are needed in that regard. So just because you don't know how to code or you're not an artist doesn't mean that there's not a spot for you if you are talented and you are passionate. And I mean, Jared, you know, just to kind of point to you again, taking that chance and saying, okay, I'm gonna, I'm to go work for the bungee foundation and get my foot in the door and start to meet these people and work hard and all that can absolutely lead you to something else that, you know, you never know where your path is going to go. You just got to take that first step, so to speak. Yeah, absolutely.

There's, there's, when you said passion, like that's one of the biggest things that you kind of see across the people at Bungie. There is a Bungie type here and everybody here, even the non-gamers are very passionate about the work that we do as a studio as a whole. To your point about there's a lot of different roles, we wouldn't exist without a lot of those other roles. The dev teams wouldn't function without those roles on the GNA side, or like the employee services team.

Like these roles that keep the studio moving, and the heartbeat of the studio pushing forward, and giving us the tools and the resources, and answering the questions that we have that we can't think about it or don't know about. So like, and yeah, a lot of them may not be gamers, Christine, but there's a passion and like just a belief in the company that exists through everyone that's here that really comes out, stepping up to the plate, helping people out. Like, you know, when we do our bungee bounty streams, like I'll get messages all the time from folks,

you know, in finance are like, Hey, I want to go on and be, I want to messages all the time from folks, you know, in finance who are like, hey, I wanna go on, I wanna be on the next Bungie Bounty. And I'm like, oh, you play? It's like, yeah, I'm like really, really good at Crucible. I'm like, well, okay then. Like, it's awesome to do that. Like, it's really cool to see when that passion comes out. And yeah, there's so much,

there's so many different functions that exist at the studio that often go kind of get overlooked for like the glamour if you will, not that there is any glamour of being an engineer, an artist or designer, like It's it's hard work. Like it's not red carpet type Hollywood stuff. It is hard work. Yeah Yeah We have like a saying here that like every bunch of employee is a game dev. Like whether you directly work on the game or indirectly work on the game or indirectly support the studio, like we are all here for like a common purpose. And without any of those specific rules, something

else fails. Like we need all pillars of the chair, you know, to keep the chair upright. So. Like Nick, who is here setting all our stuff off, like his team, like literally provides all of the equipment and infrastructure to allow developers to develop. Right. Without them, we are sitting there with pencils and paper and drawing. Like that's all we have. Yeah. Right. Enable people to do what they do best. That really is. Yeah. That is, that's awesome. There's a lot of, there's so many stories at Bungie where people have started in one job and risen through that or going off to other teams.

Like, look at, everyone knows DMG, Dylan, right? He started off as a Destiny player support, right? Like answering emails and customer service. And now he's global community head for Destiny franchise. right? Like, you know, I don't want to point to myself here, but like there's other people who have started new roles and just, there's one of my members of my dev team. He was a tester and busted his ass to figure out how to become a designer. He failed three times in the internal interview to become a designer and He failed three times in an internal interview

to become a designer and he finally got it and now he's one of our top designers on our team. So like we provide the ability for that mobility. That's, there's something to be said about that too, like you keep saying it with the passion and like people that will put in the work and the effort to do these things, it's not just,

oh, you failed this time, kick him to the road. You can see the opportunity within them and what they can achieve, and you let that develop. And that's just such a cool, we go back to the community and what a studio is, and it's cool to see such a big place still kind of feel that small to where people feel like they can make a difference. And so that's awesome to see. Yeah, there's, I would say there's probably no leader here or no manager here that like doesn't take it very seriously, that the people on their team,

they're not going gonna be there forever. We want to see people grow, we wanna see people learn, we wanna see people continue to pursue their passions, we wanna foster them to be able to do whatever, follow whatever growth path they want. And so yeah, we have a lot of people who are in test to design. We have people who are narratives to something else.

Like we have people who sort of move within the company pretty freely because we're always looking to continue fostering that, that growth. So you're never stuck. Like, I mean, again, I was an admin to the director of the foundation. He, you know, as my producer knows on the dev team, like this, it's like a daily story here at Bungie of people continuing to learn and grow and evolve and move on. Yeah. People are the greatest resource a company can have legitimately.

And when you see a company value that and treat them well, I mean, that goes a very long way to keeping incredible talent, you know, and success for the company as well. So, okay. So we're gamers. We're a gaming podcast. We can't not talk a little bit about halo and destiny. So Jared, this, this little part might be a little bit more geared towards you, but Christine, if you have any comments at all. I have any company anecdotes. I mean, legit, please feel free to jump in here if you have something to say on this, but Jared, as a gamer, do you have a favorite moment or moments from Halo or

Destiny slash Destiny two that stand out to you? Um, I'll give you one from each. So, as I mentioned, Halo three to me was my Halo. I was in college when it really when it came out, when it was hitting its peak. So like, I don't I don't know why this moment sticks in my head, but I remember specifically it was when Mountain Dew Code Red, they had Halo cans, okay. Oh yes, I remember that. I had to be like a, I had to be like a freshman or a sophomore in college.

And you know, one of our, one of myerclassmen in the fraternity I was in they had an apartment and we were over their apartment and it was like an all night halo party. Yes! That's awesome. Literally it was like two TVs and just we were playing halo all night long and I must have had seven or eight cans of Code Red. I was ignoring like the keg of beer I was just like I just want Code Red and I just want to play Halo all night. And I don't know why that memory sticks out so much, but like that was my Halo experience,

just multiplayer online, Code Red. So no specific memory in Halo, just those times. It was the ultimate multiplayer experience back in the day. It defined it really. The LAN parties and the Halo with buddies, you know was was absolutely Incredible and you said you had one for destiny as well. Yeah, so I mean I've been playing destiny since the the launch the beta to be honest and I've always I would kind of play content solo often and I out the line matchmaking

You know, I'll go into my apex Legends matches solo and just scream at my teammates. Back in the day, Destiny 1, Rage, you had to have a full stack of six people in your fire team. For me, I had my cousin and one of my other buddies who I got into it, but we never had the full group. Until one day we finally talked and we got a group and we did Vault of Glass OG together. And like just going through a raid the first time,

it was my first raid ever. I would get, I was a single player game guy, Sony guy, and then like shooters. Like this concept of a raid to me was like, what is this? And like just going through that raid the first time like blew my mind. It was so fricking hard and like so mechanically heavy. And I had never experienced this before.

But when I finished it and beat it, it had to take, I don't know how many hours it took us, we had guys who had cleared it already kind of get it, sharpening us through it. Just like that experience, that late night experience, that first time. It was awesome. Like nothing can replace that. Yeah. That first time going through a raid with your buddies back in the day. Especially Vault of Glass.

So I'm an OG Destiny guy too. I have like 1700 hours in Destiny 1. I was lucky enough to where I had a big enough crew, we had enough for a raid, and every Tuesday we'd run all three characters. I'd run my Hunter, Warlock and Titan. Every Tuesday we'd run all three and we'd run through the raid, but there was just nothing like that, the mechanics and the way that that raid kind of went together with Atheon and all that stuff like in the vault of glass there was it was just something that was so different And hunting for the Gjallarhorn. I I ran everyone has the Gjallarhorn looking at you could see his head like oh, yeah

Because everyone else got the Gjallarhorn, but me for like I didn't get it. I'm just like come on man. So There's the first time you shoot the Gjallarhorn when you never experienced it before It's the it was like shoot the Gjallarhorn when you never experienced it before. It's the it was like the best feeling in the world. The wolf pack. The wolf pack. Yeah, immediately.

The wolf pack. And then there's all these other missiles, you know, and it's just like, oh, okay, that's that's what the hype's about. So yeah, yeah, it that just shows the with the development, you know, like what what it takes to draw people in to make people keep playing the game, you know, it's just, man, that, yeah, I have, I have so many fond memories of Destiny 1, just doing those raids in Vault of Glass,

like that's, the second you started talking about that, you know. Yeah, you can't replace it. Well, my question though for you, since you said you ran all three characters every week, but what main are you? Oh, I was a question though for you. Yes, since you said you ran all three characters every week, but what what main are you? Oh, I was a I was a Titan main. Oh, yeah. Okay. I was a Titan. I love the smash man I I love to run in the crucible and they're capping the flag and I come in and slam and just like everyone. Yeah Oh, I'm that guy. Yeah. No, I'm playing Marvel rivals right now

and I'll main I'll main moon Knight and then I'll just drop the Ankh and then I'll just ult on everyone on the base. But yeah, I'm more of a just kind of like just smash everyone, kind of Hulk smash. Punch-lake, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I liked Warlock but I could never get the good vibe. I would play him but I was never a big hunter guy. Yeah, see I'm a hunter. I'm always a hunter, fast, stealthy, agile. That's me. Give me a rogue any day of the week. I got a couple of buddies that were the hunter mains and you know, they just, they just vibed well with them. To me, I was, I was either the warlock, um, with the power punches and stuff or the, or the Titan with, you know, uh, an AR and then just smash, you know. That's amazing. I've been receiving that way too many times.

That's why he's mad at you already, right? Yeah, I know, right? Don't worry, we'll get in. We'll go to the lighthouse, buddy. That's good. For me, the answer is Halo 3, the Warthog run at the end of Halo 3, is honestly, it's one of those legendary gaming moments that just sticks with me forever. I still remember being out of buddy's house,

going through that and all of us just being like, what is happening? Like, this is the greatest moment ever. And then failing a bunch because I drove off the side until we got there. So absolutely. So Jared, has moving into a producer role changed the way that you look at gaming at all?

Now that you're taking part in the development of games and you see behind the curtain a little bit, does that change the way you look at games or how you game? I definitely see it with a different eye. I think it even started before I moved into a producer role. Even I really started at Bungie because I had tried to prep and get break into gaming so I was taking game design courses and just trying to learn about how to make games. So I started seeing things with a different eye but now that I'm fully on the development side I do I look at something and content and be like okay I

see like the trade-offs they probably made here or that experience is a little bit different than this. There's definitely a cost that they had to take into account here. Just understanding where we are in our development and how we make things, understanding how the games I do play that are out in the public, how the type of like processes they may have had to have gone through challenging conversations they had to go through to put those things in the game. You know, I think I look at mechanics a little bit differently now and try to just analyze it a little bit different.

You know what goes into it. So I think being able to see it, you can kind of go, Oh, that took a little bit different. You know what goes into it so I think being able to see it you can kind of go, oh that took a lot of work. We just talked with an animator and he was telling us how it takes you know three months to do ten seconds of animation and like you know who knows what it is with you know with with doing the video game stuff behind because there's a lot of motion controls involved as well so yeah there's, I'm sure there's just so much that is the behind the scenes work that people don't see.

You can definitely see where they try to be repeatable. They try to hide something, because you can't make everything you want in a game. It would take way too long. You never make the game. Ten's just, it would take way too long. You never make the game. Yeah. Right. You have to learn how to cut things and kind of hide things a little bit to make it the same experience come through to the player. So, you know, you pick up on those little tiny things that like, they don't make or break any type of player experience, but you're like, okay, I see what you did there. Yeah. I see what you did there.

Yeah. You're like, I see it. It's just a little bit of a different eye that you look at things with. Sometimes I do feel myself, because I play Apex way too much, I feel like I am a bit overly critical. Sometimes when I'm shouting in the game or TV. Trust me, we get it. So like, you know, like, you know, why did they make this choice? You know, a lot of it's just because they're like, it's really just the people I'm playing against doing things that has nothing to do with the mechanic.

It's just, or it's just me sucking that day. Like, well, I hate this game now because I'm terrible versus no, it's actually it's a me problem. It's not a dear problem. Yeah Now so does hatless like because you are such an involved gamer. You've been playing for so long Does does having that kind of outlook on these games help you with kind of the development side? Like you're you're in the know, you know what people want. You know what you want. Is that a you know kind of advantageous for you? know what people want, you know what you want, is that kind of advantageous for you? There's kind of both sides of the coin there. Yeah, you can look at titles that you play and you like or maybe you don't like and saying, hey, they do something like this, this way, should we use a similar approach or should

we do something different compared to that approach but at the same time you want to make sure you're not just copying like mechanics and and experiences from other games you want to make something unique yourself so yeah you do draw some inspiration of things to do and not to do but at the same time you want to try to think outside the box and do something that you haven't done before but But again, like for me as a producer, I'm not there to give, make decisions, creative decisions like that. It's more of me and kind of just like the large development team in general, like when we give feedback on play testing and stuff like that, like, you know, feedback is feedback

and that's it, right? You shouldn't take it as a do it. It needs to be like this because that's often not the case. It shouldn't be like that for reasons that we've defined in terms of what the game actually is that we're making. So that's an interesting kind of like thought process there because gamers are super opinionated. I mean, you know.

No, you're another, now you're talking about. I know it's hard to believe, but it's like. They're the nicest, most continual people in the world! We're so friendly, we love each other! It's all rainbows and hugs and... Especially in those competitive games like Apex. You shake your hand, good job, bro. Everyone tried real hard, you all did a good job. I don't play these games, no way.

Great job, now go delete the game. Yeah, ugh. Uninstall. Josh has never said that before, ever. I've never. He. Yeah. Oh, uninstall. All right. Josh has never said that before. I've never. He's never told anyone to uninstall. I never said that to myself this morning. Right? Yeah. So I mean, how do you balance that? I mean, how do you balance the fact

that everybody has an opinion on the way that something should be? And you know, you guys are current, we're not going to talk about it because I know you can't, but you guys are currently in, you know, developing Marathon, which we are super excited about. We can't wait to hear more about, but you mentioned, I'm sure there's internal play testing and you guys have to try things out and say, okay, yeah, this is working, this isn't working. But how do you balance the opinion of a gamer,

because we all have them and we all think that people should do this, this and that. Like how do you balance that towards like what the vision of the game is? Because before you know it, you start listening to too much feedback. You've lost your vision now. Yeah. And that's, that's the point right there. You listened, you, you listened to what the vision of the game is at the end of the day.

You come back to very core principles and core pillars of what a game, the game is that you're building and you, and you, and you take it from there. Obviously, a game, especially in the live service, is going to evolve over time, because it's a live game, as it should, but you always have to come back and be centered on, hey, what is this game that we're building? Why are we building it?

You always have to answer that why question. Why are we making this change? For what reason? Is it because all these people said so? Or is it, is there actually something mechanically in the game that should be changed? Something like along those lines. So. I think our leadership team does like a really good job at balancing like everything that Jared said, like while also really taking like great, you know, critical feedback, like ingesting critical feedback, like, whether it's anecdotal or not, but we also have like a wonderful analytics team that is not just like looking at like,

what are you know, all the words that are being spewed at us on the internet, but like, what does like the data actually tell us? Like, how big of a problem is this actually like, is this, you know, the 1% of the population just wants to rage on the internet? Or is this actually like is this you know the 1% of the population just wants to rage on the internet or is it actually like something's broken we actually need to fix it so like taking that balance of like what's our vision what's the time constraints that we actually have and that's where we have amazing producers come in to like help us really navigate that piece and then how do we prioritize like what are the pieces

that we can actually move the needle on what What are the biggest pieces of improvements that we can implement that doesn't divert from the goals and the vision of the game to move the needle forward? But, so it's not just, I just want to make sure that we're not saying that feedback is not taken. Like we take a ton and a ton and a ton of feedback, both anecdotal, but also like really data-driven feedback to really make those key decisions. Yeah. Yeah.

And like, you know, loud voices seem to always prevail, right? That's the internet these days, that's social media. And you know, when you have content creators who are very popular and they're amazing partners that we have with them, like one thing they say can skew their entire audience one way, good or bad for these things. And so like it may seem like an issue could be bigger than it is, but at the end of the day,

we looked upon our community team a lot. So we have, so they're, shout out to the community team. They're able to see that internal data and all the. So we have, so they're, the community, the shout out to the community team, they have, they're able to see that internal data and all the metrics that we have, while also kind of collecting all of this feedback from the community and lining it up and seeing where things aren't matching. And they do, they are, have such a hard job. They're often in a very thankless position because people just scream and yell like they never really get the, hey that was really good. Like that was an awesome thing that you built. And that's hard but they're so important in the process especially in a live support

model like this where they're constantly listening to the community and they can only do so much, right? Because feedback is always going to lag behind development because that's just life, right? Like you release something that was actually made six months ago, right? Or something along those lines. So like the feedback you're giving now takes a while to put into development and to iterate upon it.

So like that's a huge challenge that you know sometimes the community I don't think necessarily understands that well. Gamers are an impatient bunch and we don't understand that things take a lot of time. We do listen though, and we listen to a lot, a lot more than I think folks think. And to be honest, without a lot of their feedback, we wouldn't have built some amazing features that have come into the game. So, you know. I love it. It's just tough.

I can't imagine, honestly, I can't imagine being in that position to kind of say we have to listen to people, but at the same time, we can't cater to every person out there and what they think a game should be or have or something like that. And it's not, it's not a position that I envy somebody to have, but it's also super important at the same time. So as you said, shout out to the unsung heroes of the community team. Yeah. Like moving into live services, as you all know, like it's

so different from putting out box products, right? Like, like there used to be sort of, I think, an expectation of like, okay, like they, you know, they launched a game. Now we can provide feedback and then they're going to like incorporate that feedback, whatever that looks like, build a new game and then launch that game. Right? So you have an expectation that like not everything everything is gonna happen immediately, but like in this live service world, like everything does feel immediate and like, you know,

you should have what you asked for today, five minutes from now. And it just doesn't, it doesn't work that way, even though game development still takes just as long as game development has always taken. And in a lot of ways, I think it's a lot harder than it used to be. And it's just communicating that with the community

and actually like getting that level of understanding and empathy maybe, I don't know. We hear you. Empathy of gamers? What? I don't know. All right, so Ryan and I had, because I really want to move on to talking about the Bungie Foundation here.

But we have a question that already caused an argument between Ryan and myself before we started recording. And so we're going to ask you the question and Jared, you might be a little bit more suited to answer this, but Christine, if you have an answer, I would love to hear it. What is the best vehicle in Halo? I love the sigh. That's how you know.

That's how you know. That's how you know. I mean, listen, I think it's got to be the Warthog. It's got to be the Warthog. Just because you could do so much with it. Like you could be up on the turret. You could be shooting from the side. You could drive it. You could just not drive. You could just sit there in the car by yourself. Yes. Like, yeah, it's got to be the Warthog. To be fair, I was also going to say the Warthog, not because was also gonna say the warthog not because I've actually You know what they are they're queuing up to reload because they're dead because I came through with a banshee and smoked them all That's what happened

The warthog is the right answer People that's just iconic is all it is. Like it's obviously iconic. It's amazing. Banshee is the superior vehicle in my opinion. That's iconic for a reason. Yeah, exactly. Plus, if you got a good Warthog driver and a Gunner together.

That is true. A good combo is solid for sure. All right. And not to put you both on the spot here. And Christine, I don't know how familiar you are with Destiny lore and stuff like that. I've played a little bit of Destiny, but not a whole lot, not nearly what Ryan and I feel like Jared has played.

But Jared, can you explain what Vex Milk is? Um, I wish, I actually just saw Todd Haberkorn, aka Adriftr, last weekend, and I would love him to answer this question for me. But I don't, honestly, I don't know. When I think of Vex Milk, this is what I think of, you know, you go to Disney World in the Star Wars Cantina, you have like the blue and the green, whatever they're called. That's what I think of Vex milk. That's what I think of.

It's like some milky clear opaque substance that you are drinking. I know it's not right, but that's where my mind goes. That sounds disgusting. I don't want to drink that. Yeah, no. I mean, if it's a bunch of radial iron fluid, that means you'll just probably die if you drink it. So I'm thinking something better than that.

Vex milk is the lifeblood of the Vex alien race. That's what Vex blood is it is I don't want to drink it, but I I know what Vex milk is and I just shoot it and explodes and then I feel happy Destiny theme park it's definitely happening. It's not happening for legal reasons. Will the canteen be serving Vex milk? Oh my goodness. It better be by Kate Six and he slings me a Vex milk and we're good to go. And some spicy ramen and some Vex milk. I took the spicy ramen. Now we're talking. There you go. Oh my goodness. OK. We got to be stupid occasionally, guys. All right.

So with that, let's transition to talking a little bit about the Bungie Foundation, because this is amazing. Honestly, this is something that is incredible to us. I mean, it's very near and dear to our hearts. But Christine, you have been with them, I mean, it's very near and dear to our hearts. But Christine, you know, you have been with them, I mean, your entire career, basically, with the Bungie Foundation and Gaming for Good. For the listeners, can you explain what it is that like the primary mission of the Bungie Foundation is?

Yeah. So our primary mission really is to empower our community to make the world a better place through supporting three core pillars that we have which is supporting children's well-being, inclusion, diversity and equity, and humanitarian aid. So what a lot of people I think don't really recognize is the Bungie Foundation is like 98% funded by the Bungie community. It's through our fundraisers, it's through like when we do in-game activations, it's the core of what we do and it supports all the work that we do. So yeah, so I mean from a children's well-being perspective we

kind of have two core areas but one really primary focus which is the Little Lights program, formerly iPads for kids, where we partner with children's hospitals all over the country to provide entertainment technology, entertainment distraction for kids while where we partner with children's hospitals all over the country to provide entertainment, technology, entertainment distraction for kids while they're going through some of the darkest days of their lives. Yeah, so it's really intended to provide entertainment, distraction, therapeutic play, a sense of normalcy, just give them something that brightens their day when they're really struggling. And as we all know, games is such a powerful tool for that. So any

patient who comes into the hospital they get an iPad. It's downloaded with a whole bunch of entertainment content that's age appropriate to their age, takes into account their cognitive abilities, their physical disabilities. It's worked in in partnership with with Children's Hospital's Child Life Team and nursing staff to really make sure that every child gets the content that they can best utilize. And we're in 20 plus hospitals at this point, which is super exciting.

We also have a really amazing partnership with Make-A-Wish, where we provide all their entertainment technology as well. So we do anything from like converting somebody's basement into a DJ studio to, kids who want to be YouTubers one day set up their YouTube setups, whatever it might be. If you can plug it in, turn it on, we're the group that helps Make-A-Wish make those happen. I love that. We just talked to Make-A-Wish. We actually had them on the show recently as well. Oh, cool. Yeah.

And absolutely just love. We're very passionate about just giving back. And as well and absolutely just love. We're very passionate about just giving back. And if there's something oddly special about the gaming community, because we're a very divided bunch a lot of times, but if you can get gamers to come together, crazy things can happen. There's nothing more powerful than a gaming community.

Legitimately, I don't think there is. It takes something to get them to all come together Instead of just fighting and calling each other names But but I think we figured out pretty well like what motivates gamers to give back like we have pretty good Yeah, yeah, it's like you literally you are the worst tank ever but also hey, let's go help this kid, you know, it's like they can just we can do so like I I've I mean I My son has been in the hospital, you know, when he was younger for some things, and then my little sister as well, and Phoenix Children's here locally.

And the stuff that all these different organizations do is just, the outreach that they do is just awesome. What is the most powerful moment that you've seen from your time there with Bungie? Oh gosh. I know it's going to be hard. There's so many moments. And honestly, some of the things that I think stand out for me most, like why I won't go into detail, because a lot of them are actually really hard.

Oh, yeah. I can only imagine. Really heartbreaking moments. But I think the ones that are most powerful that really stand out to me have been kids who maybe in the end didn't make it, right? And who in their last days and their last weeks and their last moments moved to games, moved to technology

to bring those final moments of joy to distract them from what they were going through, to distract them from the pain that they were maybe feeling. I mean, you all know, like, if you're in a game, like, you are hardcore focused, like the world just kind of disappears around you. And that's what we see, I think, at children's hospitals with Make-A-Wish kids all the time,

is these really hard, painful moments that they're going through. When you immerse them in something that puts them in a different world and a different mentality, for just a little bit the world gets to fade away a little bit and they can just be kids. They can just have pure joy, pure fun for however long that happens to be. And so hearing those stories being, even in person with some of these these stories with kids who just, you know, one moment are just in, you know, really, really deep pain or just, you know, just fear or anxiety and then immersing them in something, a video game,

an iPad, like whatever it happens to be and just seeing their eyes, like their eyes light up, their like demeanor completely change. It's just really powerful. And that's where I think for me as a non-gamer, I still have so much passion for what games represent because I get to see these moments. It's such a good escapism for so many people. I mean, everybody plays games for different motivations, whether it's competition or it's relaxation or escapism, you know, and it's one of those things like with our podcast, like we, we don't get into politics. We keep it family friendly so that everybody can listen and things like that, because we understand that for a lot of people, they just want, you know,

an hour to just not think about the hardships that are going on and stuff like that. And it's such a necessary thing to have for people, but it's getting harder and harder to like find that for a lot of people as well, which is one reason that we love gaming, you know, and we love like the fact that the bungee foundation exists and that you have dedicated 17 years of your life to this, you know, and Jared, uh, you know, left you after three years, but he dedicated three years. I just, I got to pick on the dress.

I'm sorry. I think he's like pick on the director, I'm so sorry. I think he's like actually like permanently tethered to the foundation. Like he can run as far as he can, but he's just gonna bounce like it. He thinks he's out. He's not out. He thinks he is.

He thinks he is too, so. Yeah. Yeah. So, Christie, can you give us like, what is the day in a life of being the director like? I mean, you know, it's a title, but for a lot of gamers, it's like, oh, cool. Okay.

You had that up, but can you give us a brief synopsis of what a day is like for you? Yeah. I mean, it's definitely evolved over the years. When I started it in 2010, it was just me, right? I had 100% of everything that we did. And so it's kind of been like, okay, like we grow the organization, we have enough, or I like I physically can't handle enough of it anymore. Okay, when I hire a new person kind of take on like this like specific, you know, role project

management, production, communications management, whatever. So my role has changed from just kind of like 100% hands on in every single thing that we do to, you know, being more in a management and strategic leadership role. So most of the time at this point, my day is a lot of meetings. It's a lot of meetings with my own team, you know, supporting our team and all the efforts that they're doing, whether it's massive fundraising campaigns that take,

you know, months to plan and organize, whether it's, you it's talking about different strategies for the programs that we run, like the Little Lights program or things like that, just making sure that we're really looking at what our long-term strategy is and how the various activations and things that we're doing on a day-to-day basis are really moving the needle into where we want to go. It's a lot of also working. We have a wonderful board of directors,

primarily comprised of Bungie Inc executives. So really working with them in terms of like, what is that five year roadmap? Like where is it that we want to go? How do we want to represent ourselves as the charitable arm of Bungie? How do we kind of continue to be that cultural driver within the company?

And how, like what do we need to do to get there, right? Like what's the funding mechanisms that we need to do to get there? What's the funding mechanisms that we need to do to get there? Are we on track when it comes to partnering with the Destiny community in the ways that we do? Do we need to think about different strategies? It's also a lot of working directly with our partners.

We have a lot of nonprofit partners that we work with day in and day out, year over year. And so it's figuring out how can we best show up for them and how can we do that in a way that's in alignment with our mission and our values. Ultimately so that we can make sure that all of those donor dollars that are coming to us are being put back out into the world in a way that's really gonna make

the world a better place. That is awesome. That's so good. She does a lot of work. Yeah, I can only imagine. Jared came on and he took a lot of work from me. I tried to take so But just, when Jared came on and he like took a lot of work from me. I tried to take so much from her just to give her some normalcy in her life.

He started and I could finally go to sleep at night. Breathe, breathe. There you go. And now he's leaving and I'm not okay with it. Yeah, and then he's just left you to go help make games. He's like, well, I'm gonna go have some fun now. I'm gonna. Yeah, whatever.

Oh man, that is awesome. So like, I mean, as speaking of gamers, you know, we're a fickle bunch. We're kind of all over the place, you know, as we talked about getting together, I think overall the community is truly at its heart good. Like, and there can be an impact with that. Like what can they do? Like, what is, what is something that that you would love to see gamers come together on? Like something that we can

all just unite on? Because because at the end of the day, we all get home from work or whatever we do, we want to log on, we want to be together, we want to get our time in to this world. Like, what can we do together as gamers to have an impact on your world as far as helping people? I think we spend so much time trying to figure out how we build those moments, especially on the Destiny side, obviously. We have put together really amazing, compelling campaigns that we do twice a year, Game to

Give and Bungie Day, where we're partnering with our content creators. We're creating in-game activations, creating really fun, meaningful ways where our community can give back, and they're also receiving something really cool out of it, like the gamification. I think we've done a really good job of gamifying

a fundraising that really makes it a fun experience and something that people want to unite together on. So I always participate in those events, showing up monthly when we do our Bungie Bounties for Good. It's an opportunity for us to, not necessarily fundraise, but to create awareness around the organizations that we support, to find different organizations that you personally might be passionate about.

The Bungie Foundation is like, of course, we always want you to come and hang out with us and support us, but ultimately we want you to find the organizations that you feel connected to and passionate about and if we can help educate and raise awareness on those different organizations so that you can go and support them directly. I think that's amazing. Yeah, I think I would just love to see more engagement like across the board. Destiny has however many hundreds of thousands of players,

millions of players over its lifetime. But yet the amount that we see that engage with our programs is percentage wise very low. Just more engagement and all it takes, we're not asking for money. We're just asking to share. The biggest thing that anybody can do is just share the word because if you share that word and then it gets to someone who's like, that's a cause I really believe in, boom. Then it just, it snowballs from there.

So just, it's the simplest thing is just sharing, use that loud social media platform of whatever, of your choice for good and share it with people. Or just offline, right? You doesn't always need to be on social media. You can just be talking about it in like your, you know, discourse and chats and stuff like that. But I think I'd like to turn that a bit and put that, the same question to more studios and developers.

There's only two studios that really have a nonprofit, us and Call of Duty, with the Call of Duty Endowment. That's really it. A couple other studios, they have some initiatives and they do do good work, I'm not saying they don't. But I would like the industry as a whole to think about doing good in the world. They have massive audiences.

They have hundreds and hundreds of millions of people worldwide who play their games. And all they need to do is put a little bit of effort into putting one thing in their game to help Spread good and whatever like cause an area that they feel close to that's totally fine you know, I use the example of the Mercy Skin from overwatch back in the day for the breast cancer

Yep, right that I think that to this day is like the most successful I was gonna say phenomenally successful. $20 million and like overnight, which is crazy. Like if they kept doing that, make it regular, right? Like have all these other studios. I don't want to call anybody by name, but like they have the audience and the capability and the dev teams to do something like this. And it could be as simple as creating pixels in a game that then gamers don't

even know, like honestly, if they don't even know that they're donating money, it's not even like, like, cool. That's just really cool thing. I want it. And then for them to know that, Hey, that was actually that money went towards charity. Yeah. It's that simple.

What we found, I think on our side, on the dev side, like any of the in-game activations that we've done have never detracted from like the profits that Destiny has made. Like it's only bolstered, you know, the level of awareness in game, the level of excitement in game. You know, so it's like a net positive across the board. I think there can be this like potential fear of like, you know, because margins are already really thin in a lot of like, you know, because margins are already really thin in a lot of cases, right? And so, you know, thinking about how you know, doing something in game

that could potentially detract from, you know, especially if you're like MTX reliant or whatever it happens to be like, will this thing detract from like the money that we have to make to pay our employees to, you know, to innovate to do whatever. And for us, at least the answer has always been a resounding no, it's always only been a net positive. So I think overcoming some of that fear is a big piece of it because I think there's sort of like that expectation of like, you give something, you take something, but in this case, like it really is like you get something. It comes at a cost of some sort when really there's more of a benefit than a cost there as well.

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because, I mean, we talked about like gamers coming together. I mean, I think from a gaming standpoint recently, you know, there was hell divers too, right? Like every gamer in the world was saluting each other and, you know, we were all coming together to defend this virtual planet and stuff like that. And it's like, guys, like, imagine if gamers came together to do something good for people like the bungee foundation.

I mean, if we can defend a virtual planet from insects, like we can absolutely come together and just donate a few dollars, you know, to something great, like what you guys are doing. So to put our money where our mouth is in that regard, we wanted to announce that we are donating $5,000 to the bungeeie Foundation. It's amazing. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. That's so sweet. This comes with a thank you to you guys for what you do. I mean, honestly, it's like you said, Jared, like we would love to see more of this in the gaming industry.

And if gamers can come together to do stuff, then maybe studios can come together to work together as well. But I mean, Christine, the fact that you've dedicated so many years of your life to helping people out through the Bungie Foundation and Jared, you know, the fact that you have helped with that and made that such a large part of your life and continue to do so, even if we joke a little bit about you kind of getting into the production side, we know it's still a large part of your heart and what you're interested in as well. And so thank you for what you guys do in that.

And I'm glad that we can just give a little bit and then hopefully that motivates other gamers to jump in there as well. So, you know, it should not be taken lightly what you guys do and that you dedicate your days to this to helping other people. And so we wanted to just take a minute to say thank you for that number one.

Thank you for the dedication that you have to making the world a better place as well. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I would just say, just so you know what that does, how impactful that is, when we look at our make-a-wish technology grants that we do, a $5,000 grant is our average wish. So want you guys to like think of that donation literally as granting. You're going to make me cry.

I can't think of that. I'm going to do it. Come on. So truly, like because of you, like there's a kid out there who's going to get their YouTube set up. Someone's going to get their, you know, their DJ boot, their, their, you know, custom gaming PC. Like it really, every single dollar matters so, so much.

And it's the thing that changes people's lives. So you guys are so great. Thank you so much. You guys are great. So no, you are. All right, listen, we, we are running out of time very quickly here, but we wanted to just end things on a little bit of fun, some quick fire questions for you guys, um, before we wrap this episode up here. So, these are gonna be nonsensical you guys, but here we go. So, if you could take one cool thing home

from Bungie headquarters, what would it be? I think, so we have, what's the, the battle axe, iron iron battle iron battle axe whatever it's called we have like a one-to-one replica of the battle axe that's like made out of like pure iron it's like giant it's like like it's got a weight of like 45 40 pounds I don't know it's super heavy just like super ornate like it looks exactly like it does in game and it's super heavy, just like super ornate. Like it looks exactly like it does in game. And it's like the real deal.

Like you could chop someone's head off with it. I wouldn't do that, but it's real, real cool. I think, so we have a, we have a life-size chief. I was gonna say, that was probably, I think I've seen that before. Yeah, I mean, but the thing is- He's seen better days though. Yeah, he's a little dusty. He would, he, yeah. He's a little dusty.

He would scare the shit out of me if I saw it, like in a dark room in the middle of the night. I'm just like going to the fridge to get some like water and like, whoa, like just like, he's about, it's about seven foot tall. Yeah. How tall is, how tall is he in the game? Someone knows, someone definitely knows this. Seven foot seven, like seven foot one or something like that. He's like seven feet. Yeah. So he's, he's one to one or something. He's like between seven and eight feet tall if I remember right game? Someone knows this. Someone definitely knows this. Like seven foot one or something like that.

He's like seven feet. Yeah, so he's between seven and eight feet tall if I remember right. He's life size. But I think I would take, and we have also a full-size sparrow. Oh! So I think I would just have a sparrow

just be like, that'd be like my gaming chair. I'll just game you on a sparrow. Yeah, I think that's what I would take. It's massive. I tried to 3D print a Thorn handgun, hand cannon, and I got to like a third part and something messed up, and then I was like, there's too much here. It's too much.

We have a lot of Wrapper replicas around the studio too. We have like a professional maker who's on staff. I'm so jealous right now. Oh man, that's amazing. Come out, we'll come out and we'll show you the wall. I just need to get the finance and then somehow I'll just end up, you know, over there in the game department. That's all I need to do.

That's how it works. It's a proven career track. I was going to say, proof of concept is there. So, all right. So odd question. You guys are a AAA studio. What's the parking situation like at Bungie? It's pretty okay. I think it's okay. We have a garage underneath us. We it like recognizes your your license plate. Some days. That's true. I just brought it.

Not every day. You have your badge just in case it doesn't. I did get stuck once. Some days. But so we're like in what used to be an old kind of like outdoor shopping center movie theater and then we used to share this in a gym but now it's all ours so like parking in the garage is it's largely for us now it used to be have to share it with retail but now it's largely for us so yeah yeah there was a minute where it got real real rough so no like half mile hikes to get in no no you can't you can kind of see the Bellevue everything like with all minute where it got real real rough. So no like half mile hikes to get in or anything like that. No, no you can't you can kind of see the Bellevue everything like with all the buildings in Bellevue

you have to provide like X amount of parking spaces these days underground with all these towers going up lame Amazon. Yes. I feel like we like need to create a juicy story that sounds so horrible. It's awful. I had to park I got showed once and then I had to go to the bus to the train to the boat to get my car. No, but the truth is like, like they've actually made it really easy for us. Like we drive our car and you can register your license plate. Like you don't have to like, I don't know. You don't have to pay for parking to go to the park.

Yeah, I know. And I mean, and Bungee, if you don't have a car, Bungee will, you know, cover your, they, we have bus, um, and rail. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. We have, yeah. Like, um, yeah, the bus pass or like sound transit. Um, we also like have a really cool, like go green initiative. Like if you walk carpool or ride your bike, I think to work, you get like something, like gift card or I don't know like there's like a dissent to like not take your car well to get to get into the juicy side of it here's the big one who would win in a fight Master Chief or doom guy I'm be honest I don't know who Doomguy is.

Someone say Master Chief. I mean, listen, Doomguy's literally gone through hell. Yeah, literally. But it's Chief is Chief, right? No one's going to beat Chief. Chief says save the world how many times? Space and killed space aliens. Yeah.

I mean, Chief's just got, he's on another level. Doomguy, yeah, he, you know, it's Chief. Chief, I mean Chiefs has got, he's at another level. Doomguy, yeah, he, he, you know, it's Chief. Chief, that's a good answer. We'll take it. There's no wrong answer on this one. Exactly, yeah, there's no wrong answer. Well, listen guys, we want to just thank you again for your time on this. This has been incredible to just get to talk to the both of you to hang out with you guys, to, you know, just learn more about Bungie, the Bungie Foundation, just gaming, have some laughs, some fun. I mean, this has really been a joy for us.

We just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to chat and just have a good time together. This has been great. Thank you both for everything that you do for the gaming world. I mean, honestly, it's really truly incredible. So it's been an honor for us to have you both on. And so for us and all of our listeners, a very hearty and humble thank you to both of you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And thank you to you guys. It's been a pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you for the generosity. It'll go to a good cause, I promise. That's really good. So, all right. Well, listen, that's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. Jared Christine, thank you so much for hopping on here and talking with us all about all things

Bungie, the Bungie Foundation. You know, just this has been an absolute joy. That's going to do it for this episode everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya! Take care.