Destiny is not getting great review scores. In fact, it's getting resoundingly mediocre review scores—as of right now, Bungie's ambitious shooter has a 76.29% onGameRankings and a 77 on Metacritic.

That's certainly not the type of critical reception Activision was hoping for when they pumped half a billion (!) dollars into this franchise, and the mediocre reception may wind up costing Bungie a great deal of money, if their 2010 contract is still active. Turns out those review scores—those arbitrary attempts to quantify a game's subjective quality—might be worth $2.5 million.

Let's take a trip back to 2012, when Activision was embroiled in a nasty legal battle with Call of Duty creators Vince Zampella and Jason West. As part of that court case, Activision had to share details of its original contract with Bungie for Destiny, which was then scheduled for release in 2013. Buried in the public documents is this little nugget:

Activision shall pay to Licensor a quality bonus (the "Quality Bonus") in the amount of Two Million FiveHundred Thousand Dollars ($2,500,000) should Destiny Game #1 achieve a rating of at least 90 asdetermined by gamerankings.com (or equivalent reputable services if gamerankings.com is no longer insen/ice) as of thirty (30) days following the commercial release of Destiny Game #1 on Xbox 360.

Right now, Destiny is nowhere close to a 90 on GameRankings. It's unlikely if not impossible for the game to make that score by next month.

Now, it's worth noting, the numbers here are old. This contract is from 2010, and I've heard that it's been reworked since then, though I'm not sure if they removed or altered this specific bonus condition. It's certainly possibly that Bungie fought to take it out. Activision is staying mum on the specifics—when I reached out yesterday for clarification, the publisher declined to comment.

Either way, it's insane that there's even a possibility that these review scores—some of which were published just two days afterDestiny came out—cost Bungie that much money. For more on how the whole review score system is broken, check out our piece from last year on the many flaws and issues with Metacritic and the way publishers use it.

Metacritic Matters: How Review Scores Hurt Video Games

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So internet chatter does make a difference after all...?

That will probably hurt its legs. 

good thing I don't buy into the hype of all these games lol

Loll "at least a 90"
Yea, they weren't even close

I hope the billions they will make will help to cope with this loss.

Reviews might not matter for this game when so many copies were sold at launch. It's all up to word of mouth. Just like Wii Sports (76 on Metacritic) helped sell the Wii to many new gamers, Destiny will be sold to fans who like whatever genre Destiny is (have not kept up with this game at all).

When was the last time activision/EA had a 90+ game in their hands?

Cash incentives based on critic scores. No wonder games are rarely innovative.

Hurts to miss that one.