Bungie makes 10-year deal... with Activision

[Hermie]

Uhm... Yeah. http://www.thegamingvault.com/2010/04/breaking-bungie-signs-a-10-year-publishing-deal-with-activision/

I guess most people have read about it everywhere already, but I still want the Thumbs' take on it.

Personally, I was as shocked as anyone else, but after reading a bit, it does seem like Bungie has taken the necessary contractual precautions to avoid an Infinity Ward/Neversoft situation. I wrote about it here, in the last part. (Shameless plug, I know, but it was too long to quote. ><)

TL/DR: It's only for publishing, Bungie still owns everything, it's only that one IP, and they spent 9 months negotiating it.

[syntheticgerbil]

Merge, make deals, and fuck your sister, the wonderful American way.

EDIT REAL RESPONSE: I don't see how giving one huge company the guaranteed publishing rights to all of your games is good business sense outside of a safety net, since now Activision must do everything in it's power to make sure each game is successful. The cynic in me sees that it would give the publisher free reign to make demands to ensure profitability under contract while the optimist in me (that does not exist) would say that it means Activision will be backing Bungie's needs every step of the way.

Also it's weird it's a timed deal and not develop x amount of games for us deal. Does that mean Bungie could make their own Duke Nukem Forever situation if they felt like it?

I'm glad it's not a developer I really care about making this deal either way.

Edited April 29, 2010 by syntheticgerbil

[Psych]

Ten years seems like a long time to make a deal with any publisher in the game industry. After ten years your contract will be with a totally different company, a company that in that time could have turned evil, returned to good, then evil, then neutral, then evil again!

[spindrift]

It seems like the publishing deal that IW wished they had. Good luck to them.

[Chris]

Merge, make deals, and fuck your sister, the wonderful American way.

EDIT REAL RESPONSE: I don't see how giving one huge company the guaranteed publishing rights to all of your games is good business sense outside of a safety net, since now Activision must do everything in it's power to make sure each game is successful. The cynic in me sees that it would give the publisher free reign to make demands to ensure profitability under contract while the optimist in me (that does not exist) would say that it means Activision will be backing Bungie's needs every step of the way.

Also it's weird it's a timed deal and not develop x amount of games for us deal. Does that mean Bungie could make their own Duke Nukem Forever situation if they felt like it?

I'm glad it's not a developer I really care about making this deal either way.

It's not a merger, nor is it "all their games." Bungie is still an independent company, and this only applies to Bungie's next internally-developed game or series of games within a particular universe. They're still developing Reach for Microsoft, and from what I've heard they have yet another team on top of that working on a third game; rumor has it that one is for Sony, but there may not even be anything signed yet.

As for your other questions, nobody knows. The terms of the deal are not public.

[Murdoc]

Is there anyone currently at Bungie that was there during the pre-MS days? I don't pay attention to them all that much.

Obviously a bunch of talented people there and I think Reach is looking pretty damn interesting, but I just wonder how many pre-halo bungie people are still there so expecting Bungie to bust out another Myth or whatever else I keep reading on the internet seems to be a little foolish since thats not what these guys do(or did).

[syntheticgerbil]

It's not a merger, nor is it "all their games." Bungie is still an independent company, and this only applies to Bungie's next internally-developed game or series of games within a particular universe. They're still developing Reach for Microsoft, and from what I've heard they have yet another team on top of that working on a third game; rumor has it that one is for Sony, but there may not even be anything signed yet.

As for your other questions, nobody knows. The terms of the deal are not public.

:( Oh here we go. Look, I'm just being a dick, I didn't say they were merging. I do realize that. By "all of their games" I meant the ones for the next 10 years.

"Edit real response" is there for a reason since I *knew* you were going to reply to me with your matter of fact manner since that's what happens if I ever post about anything business related. But I suppose I'll be taken care of by the fanboys soon for my lack of concision.

[miffy495]

I think the thing was that it's not all of their games for the next ten years either. The deal applies to one, and only one, franchise. Since Bungie is big enough to have several teams on the go now, only one of those will be working with Activision. I think we can assume that, since it's Bungie we're talking about, there will be a second team devoted to cranking out the latest Halo, and possibly then a third which has ties to neither Microsoft or Activision. I'm interested to see where this goes, but a bit leery myself. Still, if they can separate from Microsoft and stay on good terms, their legal team has already proven their prowess. Good luck to 'em, I guess.

[toblix]

I don't know anything about this, is the only reason filthy rich developers like Bungie, Valve, Blizzard (which I'm assuming are really really rich) still need publishers is so that their games can be sold in cardboard boxes? Couldn't they theoretically ditch the publisher, get a marketing firm to do the marketing and go all digital distribution? Is the reason they're not doing that that games are still mostly sold in boxes rather than on Steam et al.?

[Hermie]

Like Chris and Miffy has said, it's only for this particular property, they should be free to produce whatever they will out of other IPs. In addition, Bungie is still the full owner of the IP, so there shouldn't be a situation where they are forced to make more than they want to, hopefully.

Many are saying that the 10 year number is oddly long. Many are attributing it to the fact that Bungie loves building universes, then telling several stories from within it, while some are saying that maybe it's some form of MMO or other long-running game. My money is on the former, if only because both Pachter and Bungie themselves are throwing the words "action game" around.

[Chris]

:( Oh here we go. Look, I'm just being a dick, I didn't say they were merging. I do realize that. By "all of their games" I meant the ones for the next 10 years.

"Edit real response" is there for a reason since I *knew* you were going to reply to me with your matter of fact manner since that's what happens if I ever post about anything business related. But I suppose I'll be taken care of by the fanboys soon for my lack of concision.

It's nothing to do with being concise. Be as long-winded as you like. I was just pointing out that it isn't all their games for the next ten years. A lot of people are interpreting it that way; it's not the case. Bungie will still be making other games in the next ten years that aren't published by Activision.

[Hermie]

I I think we can assume that, since it's Bungie we're talking about, there will be a second team devoted to cranking out the latest Halo, and possibly then a third which has ties to neither Microsoft or Activision. I'm interested to see where this goes, but a bit leery myself. Still, if they can separate from Microsoft and stay on good terms, their legal team has already proven their prowess. Good luck to 'em, I guess.

Forgot to mention this here, Bungie has said they have no further plans to make Halo games. While that can always change in the future, it seems that after Reach they will have had enough Halo for quite a while.

So I guess the franchise will be in the hands of whatever studio 343 finds, if they don't make one from scratch.

[Chris]

Forgot to mention this here, Bungie has said they have no further plans to make Halo games. While that can always change in the future, it seems that after Reach they will have had enough Halo for quite a while.

So I guess the franchise will be in the hands of whatever studio 343 finds, if they don't make one from scratch.

Microsoft has been building up an internal Halo team for a while now. They may also bring in additional studios, like Activision has with Call of Duty, but there's definitely one main non-Bungie Halo team right now.

[Patters]

Is there anyone currently at Bungie that was there during the pre-MS days? I don't pay attention to them all that much.

Obviously a bunch of talented people there and I think Reach is looking pretty damn interesting, but I just wonder how many pre-halo bungie people are still there so expecting Bungie to bust out another Myth or whatever else I keep reading on the internet seems to be a little foolish since thats not what these guys do(or did).

Very much so, they have gotten a lot bigger and of course some have left. In fact so many older employees still work their they are able to call them the "Grizzled Elders" Marty O'Donnell being one of them. Bungie seem to have a fantastic community both inside the studio and between the studio and community, which is apparent from their podcast and their website.

I really don't know what to think of this move, it seems much more similar to an EA partners type deal. Maybe Activision is changing, maybe Bungie didn't want to be owned by any one thus tied to them.

A quick question, specifically to Chris but if anyone else knows feel free to answer. Were Bungie the only the only company to ever successfully split from a giant company?

[Murdoc]

I don't know anything about this, is the only reason filthy rich developers like Bungie, Valve, Blizzard (which I'm assuming are really really rich) still need publishers is so that their games can be sold in cardboard boxes? Couldn't they theoretically ditch the publisher, get a marketing firm to do the marketing and go all digital distribution? Is the reason they're not doing that that games are still mostly sold in boxes rather than on Steam et al.?

I think it has something to do with more then uber nerds buying games and they are tend to be found outside, in malls. I think there is a startling(at least to us uber nerds) amount of sales done on going to the store, looking at the box and thinking it looks neat; also word of mouth in said stores.

@Patters: Ah cool, then we could see some classically bungiesq type titles(Personally I don't want to see them rehash old titles or just go back to what they were doing pre-ms, but getting different type of properties in the mix that embody their flavor would be neat)

[Chris]

Very much so, they have gotten a lot bigger and of course some have left. In fact so many older employees still work their they are able to call them the "Grizzled Elders" Marty O'Donnell being one of them. Bungie seem to have a fantastic community both inside the studio and between the studio and community, which is apparent from their podcast and their website.

I really don't know what to think of this move, it seems much more similar to an EA partners type deal. Maybe Activision is changing, maybe Bungie didn't want to be owned by any one thus tied to them.

A quick question, specifically to Chris but if anyone else knows feel free to answer. Were Bungie the only the only company to ever successfully split from a giant company?

I don't think think Activision is changing; it probably doesn't plan to build up a whole distribution business around third-party developers like EA has, it just recognized Bungie as an unusually proven and successful developer. And yes clearly one of Bungie's demands when it was shopping this game to publishers was that the studio remain independent. They have the leverage to demand that. If studios like Double Fine can pull that off, Bungie easily can.

I can't think of other cases of becoming independent after being owned by a publisher, but I know there are others. One somewhat similar example is Big Huge Games, which is now owned by independent developer 38 Studios after previously being acquired by THQ. It's arguable whether that's the same situation, since BHG is now owned by another developer rather than buy a small group of people or whatever, but I think that's effectively an academic difference.

[Murdoc]

I can't think of other cases of becoming independent after being owned by a publisher,

It's still kind of a crazy notion to me though. I suppose MS felt it got enough milage out of bungie and the halo property was worth more then the studio?

One could almost say that the same thing is happening with Infinity Ward though the independance was/is achieved in a bloodier manner.

[Chris]

It's still kind of a crazy notion to me though. I suppose MS felt it got enough milage out of bungie and the halo property was worth more then the studio?

One could almost say that the same thing is happening with Infinity Ward though the independance was/is achieved in a bloodier manner.

I imagine Microsoft wanted to avoid exactly what is happening with Infinity Ward now.

Infinity Ward is sort of similar, but not nearly as impressive as the Bungie case. What's happening now with IW happens a lot more often, just not with such highly-publicized studios and this much drama; large groups of developers frequently leave internal teams to make their own studios after wanting to leave the traditional publisher model.

[Hermie]

Thank you for your insight, Chris! It's nice to have a person around that knows more about the business side of this business than most other people in it.

However, I'm very interested in hearing your personal take on the deal. I know everything is up in the air right now, but if you took a trip to Hypothetical Land, where could you see this leading?

[Chris]

Thank you for your insight, Chris! It's nice to have a person around that knows more about the business side of this business than most other people in it.

However, I'm very interested in hearing your personal take on the deal. I know everything is up in the air right now, but if you took a trip to Hypothetical Land, where could you see this leading?

Do you mean for Bungie, or in terms of having larger industry impact? I don't think it will serve as any kind of bellwether; Bungie is an unusually prestigious studio and probably secured a TON of money from Activision for this deal, and I think it will be pretty anomalous. For Bungie, I don't really know. Surely by a decade from now, the studio will look pretty different to how it looks now, just as it looks a lot different now to how it did ten years ago. I imagine, though, that this will really only end up producing two or three games total, considering a ten-year deal will straddle the console life cycle, so it's not actually all that different to Epic Games signing up with Microsoft for three Gears of Wars or something like that, it just sounds a lot more imposing this way.

[Patters]

Do you mean for Bungie, or in terms of having larger industry impact? I don't think it will serve as any kind of bellwether; Bungie is an unusually prestigious studio and probably secured a TON of money from Activision for this deal, and I think it will be pretty anomalous. For Bungie, I don't really know. Surely by a decade from now, the studio will look pretty different to how it looks now, just as it looks a lot different now to how it did ten years ago. I imagine, though, that this will really only end up producing two or three games total, considering a ten-year deal will straddle the console life cycle, so it's not actually all that different to Epic Games signing up with Microsoft for three Gears of Wars or something like that, it just sounds a lot more imposing this way.

Yeah it seems to be similar. The 10 years bit is the weird thing to me though, in every industry that has contractual obligations they tend to be for releases, particularly in the Record industry.

I'm quite interested to see where this goes towards the end of the contract, it could well end up with MW2 sales or even higher, considering how well the Halo franchise sells and how powerful the Activision marketing machine is.

I'm wondering whether this is the project which was mentioned other than ODST Reach last year, or something entirely different, whether they will use the engine for Reach for this among other things.

[Lork]

I was initially very confused by this news, but that was mostly because I got it from various other forums and news sites, which all conveniently left out the part about it being only for one IP.

Really, I think the biggest difference this makes to people like us is that we'll see Bungie's next game on multiple platforms. Possibly even the PC, which would make me very happy.

[Xeneth]

I imagine Microsoft wanted to avoid exactly what is happening with Infinity Ward now.

Oh, absolutely. I remember being quite surprised they pulled that off at the time. It painted a picture of a prodigal son tossing big ol' dad a phat case of beer and running off to art school or something while he was good and sauced on the success of Halo. Mmm, sweet Master Chef beer. "I'll still come back and work at the shop Summers, paw, but a man's gotta blaze 'is own trail!"

I already made a couple of comments in the episode thread so I won't go on and on here, but I remain cautiously optimistic in amongst all my "WTF ActiBlizzon"-ing, and want Bungie to continue doing stuff in spite of my chagrin at the prospect of moar moneys for the goliath. Wouldn't it have been a kick in the pants if EA were somehow publishing this on top of the whole Respawn thing?

Ah, well. Looking forward to Reach and any news on how this IP shakes out.

[toblix]

I think it has something to do with more then uber nerds buying games and they are tend to be found outside, in malls. I think there is a startling(at least to us uber nerds) amount of sales done on going to the store, looking at the box and thinking it looks neat; also word of mouth in said stores.

Yeah, so basically boxed copies is the thing keeping these big publishing companies alive? Are there publicly available (and reliable) numbers on how the split between physical/digital distribution is in PC games? The publishers must be working like crazy to get Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo not to go all digital distribution (or even allowing both physical and full digial) for their next generation of consoles, then.

[deveus]

Yeah, so basically boxed copies is the thing keeping these big publishing companies alive? Are there publicly available (and reliable) numbers on how the split between physical/digital distribution is in PC games? The publishers must be working like crazy to get Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo not to go all digital distribution (or even allowing both physical and full digial) for their next generation of consoles, then.

I don't know how you managed to make that leap. Publishers sells more boxed copies because that's what consumers buy more of. If everything went 100% digital, publishers would still be around to publish the games. It's actually a benefit to publishers because there's no used-games market for digital sales and you have no manufacturing costs for boxes, manuals, disks, display stands in Best Buy, etc.

Publishers do a lot more in the process than physically take a disk and put it into a box.