So how tough is it to be an up and coming game developer after years and years of... well, being up and coming? Harder than one might think.

However, things seemed to have turned out all right so far for Bungie Software, which earlier this year became Bungie Studios, part of Microsoft's gaming division. Still, it wasn't always this easy.

Capt. Squeky, in forum posts on Halo.bungie.org, Oni Central, and Rampancy.net, asked someone at Bungie to answer the question about how hard it is to get noticed, and how difficult it is to do good work that doesn't get attention. The question was sparked by the absence of any mention of Bungie in a recent Gaming Gods feature in PC Gamer. (Note: this article is in the print edition and is apparently not online yet.)

Well, Matt had some interesting responses on the Oni Central forum, starting with what it was like when Bungie was emerging onto the bigtime scene with the award-winning Myth:

Things are much better now than they used to be. Myth really opened a lot of doors for us.

I have a vivid memory of my first day manning the Bungie booth at GenCon a few years ago, showing off Myth several months before it was done. The editor of a major gaming magazine (no need to name names) waltzed up and asked So why haven't you jerks sent me a beta of this yet? It looks great. What are you, stupid?

I stared blankly at him for a few moments, wondering if I should mention that we would have sent him a beta months ago if he or anyone else on his staff bothered to return our phone calls.

Matt also included the interesting tidbit that Jason Jones was approached to be part of the PC Gamer feature on gaming gods -- but respectfully declined.

The reason?

He'd rather be working . And perhaps that's what separates Jones and Bungie from the rest of the garden-variety gaming gods .