Bungie
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Bungie is a development studio owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. They are the creators of the Marathon, Myth, Halo, and Destiny series of games.
Didn't See That Coming: Bungie Signs 10-Year Activision Deal
Well that's not something I expected to wake up to.
I'll implore you to hop over to G4 to read Patrick Klepek's full breakdown of the situation, as he's been on the forefront of all of Activision's recent high drama since the day Jason West and Vince Zampella were terminated from Infinity Ward, but here's the gist of it: Bungie has signed a 10-year publishing deal with Activision, a deal that will allow Bungie to retain the intellectual property rights to whatever new universe it cooks up. The plan apparently includes bringing the new property to "multiple platforms and devices," which would mark Bungie's first foray outside the Xbox hardware in a good long while. Bungie claims that while it's been working on Halo Reach for Microsoft, it has another team led by Bungie co-founder Jason Jones that's already hard at work on this new property. If the delicious irony here isn't already apparent, this seems to be exactly the deal that West and Zampella were looking for with the Call of Duty series, though it took their termination from Infinity Ward, the formation of their new studio Respawn Entertainment, and the negotiation of a deal with Activision competitor Electronic Arts for them to get something resembling it.
There's more, including an open letter from Bungie itself, but I'm just going to let all this sink in for a little bit. Feel free to go absolutely bananas in the comments below.
Well that's not something I expected to wake up to.
I'll implore you to hop over to G4 to read Patrick Klepek's full breakdown of the situation, as he's been on the forefront of all of Activision's recent high drama since the day Jason West and Vince Zampella were terminated from Infinity Ward, but here's the gist of it: Bungie has signed a 10-year publishing deal with Activision, a deal that will allow Bungie to retain the intellectual property rights to whatever new universe it cooks up. The plan apparently includes bringing the new property to "multiple platforms and devices," which would mark Bungie's first foray outside the Xbox hardware in a good long while. Bungie claims that while it's been working on Halo Reach for Microsoft, it has another team led by Bungie co-founder Jason Jones that's already hard at work on this new property. If the delicious irony here isn't already apparent, this seems to be exactly the deal that West and Zampella were looking for with the Call of Duty series, though it took their termination from Infinity Ward, the formation of their new studio Respawn Entertainment, and the negotiation of a deal with Activision competitor Electronic Arts for them to get something resembling it.
There's more, including an open letter from Bungie itself, but I'm just going to let all this sink in for a little bit. Feel free to go absolutely bananas in the comments below.
I've heard a couple different views here. One view is that this has been in the works for a while. IW heard that Bungie gets to keep control of THEIR IP's, get angry, and the whole IW situation happens. The other way I see it is that Activision needed a big developer after losing most of IW, and Bungie fills that role nicely.
Feel free to go absolutely bananas in the comments below.
Already have
B.A.N.A.N.A.S.!!
That's pretty crazy. I hope Bungie doesn't get screwed over like West and Zampella.
Awful news, Activision are terrible publishers. I thought Bungie left Microsoft because 1. They wanted to be independant. and 2. They didn't want to be stuck making Halo games until the end of time. The first popular game series Bungie end up making now will be milked to death within the first two years, and the second they make something that sells below expectations, the entire team will be fired.
Why on Earth did Bungie do this? What happened to the Seventh Collumn?
Holy shit, if Microsoft was to blame for the unfinished state Halo 2 shipped in, this is going to be WAY worse.
Bungie´s going to make 1 game a year from now on and they are going to poison whatever IP they´re working on. Way to go Bungie, so much for "independence".
Interesting, i'm sure Bungie know what they are doing but the question is did they sign the deal before or after the whole IW incident, if it was before then no wonder the guys at IW were peeved off, and if it was after did Bungie really think Activision was the best place to go, personally I would have stayed well clear, No doubt Activision will be looking towards Bungie to fill the COD MW crater that has been left behind.
I think Bungie has enough experience with being pressured by publishers that they wouldn't sign an agreement with Activision if they thought they wouldn't let them be flexible with their new IP.
Very surprising, I'm thinking many assumed they would go for Electronic Arts, given the recent fiasco as it were but since this was a long talk, guess not. And it seems to be a publication deal only.
Course, things have been stranger. Lets hope it won't be like Vader, altering a deal. Pray he does not alter it any further.
It wouldn't surpise me if the sticking point in negotiations was who got to hold the IP rights. When the IW situation came through, Activision realised that it might be worth giving in on that point for Bungie if it still meant that they would get 10 years of money out of the deal. Mind you a big difference between Bungie and IW is that Activision actually owned IW, whereas they only have a publishing deal with Bungie
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Anyway, I really don't see what the fuss is about. All it means is that an Activision logo will apear next to Bungie's on game boxes for the next 10 years. Sure, it came out of the blue, but it really isn't going to affect gamers in any noticeable way. It's not like Activision has taken over Bungie, and we're going to see a repeat of the IW fiasco again. They've just signed a publishing agreement. It's really not a big deal. The Bungie team have enough sense to not relinquish too much control to the publisher in a deal like this. The contract will leave the ball firmly in Bungie's court.
Ultimately it makes sense. Bungie need a publisher for it's new IP. Activision are a willing to publish it. Sure, why not?
It makes sense. They needed someone to do the publishing/marketing for their new IP and as MS only publish exclusives it was going to be either EA partners or a similar deal with Activision.
As to Activision - minimal risk for them as a Bungie game is always going to sell and while they prefer to own the whole pie - getting a small slice of a potentially huge pie for just publishing - and taking it away from their competitors - is a no loss proposition.
This whole situation surprisingly makes MS look good. Faced with a rebellious studio that was going to splinter anyway they showed some class by accepting the situation and setting them free rather than having the whole thing self destruct like with IW.
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