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Bungie Signs 10-Year Deal With Activision
An anonymous reader writes "Infinity Ward may be suing Activision under allegations of low payment and no royalties, but it seems some developers are still happy to work with the publisher — it has just signed a 10-year deal with Bungie, the studio behind the popular Halo series of FPS games. Activision will publish all of Bungie's games in the next decade — although Bungie will own the IP. The terms of the deal are similar to those brokered by former Infinity Ward chiefs Jason West and Vince Zampella when they signed with EA after being fired in March."
No more rehashes of Halo :D
Disagree != mod troll.
Looking forward to Guitar Hero: Halo and Call of Duty 57: Master Chief
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The summary is wrong, they've only signed away the publishing rights to their new franchise, not all games. If things with activision go sour they can still go to another publisher and not continue whatever the new franchise is.
Because Bungie is the people, not the corporate entity. Oh, how we'd all laugh if all the Bungie staff tunnelled their way into Respawn.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's probably enough money to support the company while they rebuild after being let loose from under Microsoft's wing for what.. 8 years now? You need a huge chunk of investment cash flow from somewhere to support a major studio while they build a new AAA level blockbuster game. Activision will be breathing down their neck to see a first release inside of two years, so expect it to be shitty. They won't have the luxury of time to put out a top notch game like Blizzard does. Does anyone remember Blizzard announcing that FPS game "Ghost"? Luckily Bungie is sitting on the Myth property, along with ... well, [googles bungie's properties owned] uh, Marathon, and Oni [googles "Oni"]. So unless their plan is to release Myth 4 less than two years after Starcraft II, they'll be building some sort of new property just to generate cash. I'm doubtful if much of the creative staff that built Myth and Halo still work for the company.
moox. for a new generation.
Well, here we go. One more good game out of Bungie, followed by layoffs, firings, and an endless line of crapass worthless "sequels" from ripoff studios like Neversoft.
Activision didn't buy out Bungie, it's just a publishing deal for one franchise, they have no control over them so they can't fire anyone.
As for rip off sequels from Neversoft, Bungie still own the IP
saying ea improved themselves is like saying microsoft suddenly became ethical. I'd give it a solid 20 years before companies this large would be expected to reasonably stop treating their customers like shit.
They've released a few big time games with no DRM (Dragon Age being the most notable). They are well on their way.
Living With a Nerd
Luckily Bungie is sitting on the Myth property, along with ... well, [googles bungie's properties owned] uh, Marathon, and Oni [googles "Oni"]. So unless their plan is to release Myth 4 less than two years after Starcraft II, they'll be building some sort of new property just to generate cash. I'm doubtful if much of the creative staff that built Myth and Halo still work for the company.
Bungie transferred the rights to Myth and Oni to Take-Two Interactive as part of being bought out by Microsoft so those are toast unless they manage to buy them back. Myth 3 was pretty much a disaster so I'm betting they don't bother. Oni was an extremely cool FPS at the time it came out but it also didn't go too far.
I'm on board with Bungie being pretty much dead. Most of their original staff left for more exciting work over the years and they'll have to do a lot of rebuilding. Maybe they'll pull it off but they certainly aren't the same company that innovated with Marathon and Myth years ago.
Sapere aude!
Every time I see this story, there's some ridiculous note about how Activision is screwing Infinity Ward or how Bungie worked to break off from Microsoft, so why would they go back to Activision?
This is a PUBLISHING AGREEMENT. Microsoft owned Bungie, just like Activision *owns* Infinity Ward. A publisher has a degree of control over a developer, yes, but comparing that to an ownership situation like Bungie/MS or IW/Activision is patently absurd. It's not even apples to oranges; it's apples to rocks.