Speaking from personal opinion, I would imagine that there definitely was some impact. I just cannot make the logical deduction, though, that the entire franchise is going to be bent and discarded because of it. From a conceptualization point of view, more of the story exists than we have obviously been told. In a portion of the industry that is about delivering artistic content, the concepts would almost have to predate breaking ground on what would become the official product. That being said, when anyone of a high-profile leaves a team, there is a void to fill. Whomever is brought in is going to make changes, and that is a given. Whatever the scope of those changes are or will be, though, is something that we can only speculate about. Even in a worst case scenario, that content had to be changed to accommodate for a larger change in the narrative, it would be something that would be addressed before the next major release, in terms of giving us a more unifying experience. The DLCs are simply not part of that picture, in my opinion. I believe that they are more about providing side-content and minor narrative that are not about the progression of the main storyline. Instead, I would expect to see the disjointedness that we definitely do see in the base game, to start being turned around in the Comet - assuming that is the next major release. Interesting point... Urk had tweeted not to believe everything you see in that slide going around, but when asked if the Comet was something that Bungie was still looking to do, he said that it was. Read into as much as you would like, but to me, it implies that he is not disputing the fact that those items are coming, rather that the details around them are not accurate (any more, assuming that they were valid, at one point). https://twitter.com/UrkMcGurk/status/554862266277838848

I guess my specific question was more about IP. Did he take any rights or content with him when he left?

Sorry. Had meant to say something to that, but I went a bit off-track, it would seem. :-) I would be surprised if he was given buy-in to the rights of the IP itself. Bungie would likely want to not give any one person rights to the IP in the event that something like this were to transpire. A lot of shops specifically put clauses in the contract stating things the explicitly exclude any actual rights of ownership. Putting the rights of the IP in a non-corporate entity could provide some interesting maneuvering in that person being able to take the IP with him/her, so I would imagine that at least Bungie's legal team would have seen this, too, and that the contract would be worded in such a way to prevent that. That being said, I can only speculate if to he was owed some aspect of a royalty as part of his compensation package. Just generally speaking, the higher up the food chain someone is, the more negotiating power he/she will have in contract negotiations. Some of the clauses in those contracts are absolutely ridiculous, too. I've seen contracts that have told me that not only what I did on company time was the property of the company, but whatever I did on my own time, was too. (Needless to say, I never signed one where that clause remained intact.) It is all guesswork, but considering what has happened, I would be very surprised if he is not getting at least some level of reimbursement for extended clauses in his contract.

Well thank you for your insight. I think we can all agree that we wish more content would've come out with the first release, regardless of DLC. If we had received the original game with more content and then purchased DLC on top of it, we might have seen higher reviews from the gaming critics. But I am not in that community, aside from actually owning the game, so anything I say is purely speculation.

Same here. I only speak on two fronts, mostly - my opinion, and why I believe in my opinion based on my own experiences. Gladly will welcome any and all disagreement, when spoken with a civil tongue. It only makes this community a bit stronger, in my opinion. Definitely agree about the content. I've held the same opinion from early on, that there is not enough, what is there is not told in any sort of compelling fashion, and that parts of it just feel more polished than others. On the subject of reviews, Joystiq posted an article (yesterday, I think) specifically related to your point there. They have found that reviews are becoming less and less relevant, because people are putting so much faith in them, as we are in a time where games are evolving over time. So, they are doing away with numerical/star based reviews, instead to focus on discussing the merits and shortcomings of the games, allowing people to draw their own conclusions based on facts, instead. Applaud them for that, personally. :-)

I would hope, though, with the reviews being a bit harsh, that bungie, or Activision whichever or both, will see that they need to step up their game a bit. I think it's too much to hope that DLC sales were low enough to warrant a red flag, but perhaps this time around there won't be so many preorders. I know I'll be waiting before I buy the next one. Maybe. But I doubt it.

And this is not to say I'm not happy with destiny. My Xbox live account says I've put in 578 hours and I think they are well worth it. I'm going to run both raids this week and probably the nightfall. All of them 3 times over. But I wish the campaign would've been better. And then the little things like race mattering a little more.