Sorry, no.  Destiny may have a massive marketing push behind it but you're taking words spoken out of context.  The contract between Activision and Bungie for the Destiny IP is 500 million over 10 years for 4 titles.  It was not, and never was supposed to insinuate all 500 million was invested in the first title.  

"That number has been widely misinterpreted as a production number for the first game," Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg explained in an interview today at Gamescom. "That number is an all-inclusive number that's several years worth of investment, including marketing and several games, and a lot of up front investment in things like engines and tools that will be able to be used for years to come."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/13/destiny-500-million/

There is $500 million of stock on shelves, we dont exactly know how much has/will sell at the full price point. We also dont know the cut Activision gets so they are currently around $200 million of profit to be had at the full price point. Not saying that it wont make that money back but we might want to hold off a bit before we jump the gun on bloated budget AAA games. People are going to become more resistant to hype as more luke warm recieved games like Watch Dogs and Destiny come out.

Im enjoying the heck out of Destiny. the gae is just flat out fun.

Controls are tight, missions are varied and the story seems pretty solid so far.

Gonna level up till level 10 before I jump intp multiplayer.

Well, it just shows something that really looks surprising to publishers: advertise your game and it will sell. Of course, you need a genre and game that can really catter to the mass market, but once you get it and advertise as the best thin in the universe so everyone knows about it, it will sell and it will sell a lot.

This is a lesson that the movie industry already learned with the blockbuster movies, but it looks like the gaming industry just started doing that in the middle of the last gen.

Yes, it didn't paid itself in one day because of retailer margins and Sony/MS cut (of course, the exclusivity deal could mean that Sony took less royalties on it). But the game will profit that 0.5B in a matter of weeks. And that 0.5B is for the entire franchise this gen so it means that Activisio didn't invested all this money yet. For what they invested for "Destiny 1", the game is probably already profitable and in the next weeks it will generate money to pay for the rest of the franchise and that will be pure profit.

Destiny made 500$? That doesn't sound like a lot.

There's also the point where you inest too much in marketing in a certain game, ex Tomb Raider.

I have Watch_Dogs and it is a decent game, fun at times even, but not a masterpiece or anything...

Yup! It definitely deserves the FOTY ( Flop of the year) award!

True.

I see companies investing more into their marketing now. Millions spent on marketing a game as opposed to making it good... GTA 5, a crummy single player and still no heists. Watch Dogs the product of E3 bullshots which's PC version suffered an unnecessary downgrade. Destiny a halo/borderlands/CoD hybrid that chases several rabbits and catches few.

You're right BraLoD, marketing indeed does work if done right and that depresses me. In an ideal world, the game would sell itself, not the marketing. You're also right that gaming is certainly not dying but it's dying to me.

I'm gonna go read a book. Let me know when Bayo2 comes out.