Kudos to 3of9 for pointing out that it's My Modem is on Fire's birthday! We wish Stefan the best birthday ever while settling in to his new home. =)

Kudos to Cyberbob, who pointed out a handful of news items at www.bungie.net. Of particular note concern Bungie's hiring of an interface designer, while the coveted web engineer job remains unfilled. Dust off those resumes, folks.

Second up are hints that the Bungie Store may ride again in the near future... certainly something to watch for if you've accumulated Bungie points and not yet put them towards the purchase of some controlled substances (you just need to know where to look...)

Just a tidbit or two from the newest issue of Computer Gaming World. First, in the read.me portion of the magazine, they make a small comment on Oni:

Free Multiplayer Add-Ons
Three cheers for Sierra and Ritual Entertainment, which are releasing free multiplayer add-ons to SWAT 3 and Heavy Metal FAKK 2, respectively. Both should be out in October. If coding and playbalancing multiplayer will add months to the development time, we think this is a good compromise. Let's hope Bungie and MicroProse do the same thing with Oni and B-17.

Also, CGW shows they're behind the times with their listing of estimated release dates. Oni is still down for Fall 2000, which may work, but Halo is still on the board for January of 2001. Wishful thinking at best... but oh, that would be grand. =)

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 .

Kudos to Zin, who pointed out a brief discussion regarding Bungie's acquisition of Microsoft, and the handling of that righteous endeavor. The topic is more or less about keeping it real, and how that works in today's dog eat dog development world... an interesting read.

A terrifyingly open and plain-spoken Matt dropped by our forum to answer a large basket of questions about the current workings of Bungie. He talks about hirings, b.net, the future of the Myth series, the Bungie West team, fanfests (as in there will be more and better, ) and many other things. Definitely worth reading.

However, he doesn't mention the wall-hugging hippos--and he also says he can't talk about Chris Butcher's impending horrible doom. The connection seems obvious...

• Forum: Delta Bungie... (MATT U REED THIZZ!)

There are rumors coming from XBox.IGN that the entire Microsoft Games Group will likely be moving to the Millenium Park. Here's the short blurb, shamelessly ripped from their news:

While the Microsoft games group has been planning on moving the sprawling group of designers into its own set of offices for some time, it looks like that day has finally come. The Xbox team, developers, engineers, artists and all have begun to move today to Millenium Park, about two miles away from the main Microsoft campus.

The rest of the games group will be moving over at a later date, and when they finally combine into the one large building, they'll be able to transform into an unstoppable robot capable of slashing through metal enemies, or if you will, giant alien monsters with what looks like an aluminum sword. When questioned about why said unstoppable robot wouldn't just use giant rockets, or possible just a big laser, the spokesperson refused to comment.

Perhaps the Bungie Mind-Control Rays™ weren't enough for Microsoft. One could well-understand why Bungie might want access to such a monster. Viva la Revolucion!

Things are active all over. A post at bungie.net by Bungie's Yeroen speaks of an online team at Bungie, and hints at things to come for the website and Bungie's online community services. Among the to-do list are the filling of two jobs at Bungie (the web engineer and interface designer positions, I would imagine... definitely worth checking out), and perhaps even a resurrection of the Bungie Store.

And of more immediate concern for you b.net denizens, there's a final hint of a little ranking surprise ... something else to watch for over the next little while.