Bungie and Activision Announce Exclusive, Worldwide Partnership

Now this is all hearsay of course, but isn't Activision '10 kind of the terrible slaver overlord master figure of the games industry? Bungie bought themselves back to freedom ... why? Ostensibly, obviously, probably because they didn't want another party to determine what they can and cannot work on anymore. Entering obligations with Activision now doesn't seem exactly compatible with that direction.

 

Bungie for Modern Warfare 3

 

Soo...they singed the contract with devil himself,great move bungie

 

I don't think Activision's decision is anywhere near gambling. I think they obliged to do something to lessen the effect of IW situation and this is the best way to do that.

I'm not a Bungie fan but they have a good rep and Activision signed a 10-year exclusive deal with them. Bungie will earn a lot of cash that's for sure, but most important thing about this deal is Activision showed everyone that they still have the "power".

Very very smart move by Activision.

 

Fear not. They can always walk out like IW. Signing with the devil is more sticky.

 

They own the IP and maintain creative control. That's seems to be the the line from Bungie atleast. How it works out in the end, we'll see.

It'll also be interesting to see if people from Bungie join up with 343 after Reach. While the heads of the company might want to do a new IP, there's likely some key individuals who might want to carry on with Halo.

 

inbe4 kotick finds a loophole and owns bungie.

Could this contract have pissed of some of infinity ward heads.
Because bungie could keep their ip in their control and IW wanted that too.
New ip in 3 years when cod cash cow is milked died empty.

 

The announcement certainly is meant to calm down shareholders and state that they're still going to have some AAA franchises for the upcoming years, even if COD crashes and burns.

 

I believe they already have PC versions of Halo!

I'm surprised no one mentions the Wii as a target platform. Expect it...

 

Why oh, everything is possible ! including 3DS, PSP2, iPad and whatnot.

 

Okay...WHAT !?

 

was this a surprise?

I'm amazed by the meltdowns throughout the internet. Ever since Bungie severed ownership with MS, we all knew a deal like this was coming. Independent studios sticking with one platform will become an oddity. I predict Insomniac will be the next one to go multiplatform.

 

According to Activision guy:

 

I'm surprised people react so shocked. I asked if it could be anything other than an MMO because, well, it can't - it's definitely going to be some form of persistent universe. I'm also surprised at how many people worry about Bungie getting a good deal, or being incapable of setting up a good contract. They're in the perfect position to do this, and when they left Microsoft they made it very clear what they were after. You can bet they got pretty much exactly that.

Also, when Bungie says Activision, they mean the company that also is Blizzard, you know, those guys that run WoW. They'll work with that team to get the MMO infrastructure up and running - in fact I bet that they already talked with Blizzard and set up a good relationship before they signed the deal (which they mention was in the making over 9 months). The business infrastructure of Activision will be the global marketing and publishing, and support from its various other teams on the multi-platform development front.

There are just two things I think that can go south in a deal like this:

1. Activision will get a lot less from publishing Bungie's new IP than from a studio they actually own, and they'll mess up the marketing, lower the marketing budget, or mess up the release schedule. But I'm willing to bet that Bungie has negotiated that the release date will be of their own choosing, and as the marketing budget will probably be set to a specified minimum as well, and Activision will be wanting to make some money from this, it's unlikely that they'll mess that up. The actual marketing message could suck, but I'm sure Bungie has a veto or a creative say even here.

2. Activision will block Bungie from working together with their studios or with Blizzard, telling them to be as uncooperative as possible (probably even this is negotiated in the contract). But no part of Activision has that kind of say about Blizzard, and Blizzard doesn't strike me as the kind of team that would cooperate with anything like that.

Anyway, here's a good interview by Eurogamer. I think it's a must read if this interests you.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bungie-explains-activision-deal-interview

 

What about option 3, Bungie try something big that just flops, and Activision ended up blowing a load of captial on a dead-end contract? Or am I the only one here and doesn't believe that once a developer has laid a golden egg, everything they lay henceforth will be golden?

 

Of course! I was just responding to everyone's reaction to Bungie choosing Activision, not the other way around. Mind you, in case of Bungie it will be considered laying 3 golden eggs. But yeah, I think you can make a much longer list of potential problems for Activision. And noone mentioned yet either that the problems with Infinity Ward may have been a direct result of the Bungie deal, but it's certainly not impossible.

 

I somewhat disagree. 'Halo' was the golden egg as a franchise, and it'd generate revenue for a couple of turkeys on brand alone. What are Bungie's credentials outside of Halo, and how much probability is there that they can echo that success with a new IP? I wouldn't bet on any computer game IP for ten years! The only ten-year licensing deals I can think of tend to be for huge franchises like DnD/Forgotten Realms. Activision Blizzard have an awful lot of faith, maybe hoping to capitalise on Halo interest with 'from the studio that brought you Halo' marketing. Otherwise whatever appears is in essence starting from a blank slate, like Resistance, Blue Dragon, Haze, Lair, etc., all with different degrees of success and no guarantees regardless of the creator's credentials. Then again, that's publishing for you. Publishers value a name rather than a product, and would rather print crap from some known celebrity than quality works from some complete unknown...

 

Bungie has a phenomenal track record, though. Probably the only game they made that wasn't good was Oni (I don't like Halo, but I can recognize its quality), and AFAICT that wasn't even the same team.

 

I can't imagine a cross platform MMO. And Bungie has never done anything like that anyway...

 

Their record is good but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was phenomenal other than in terms of unit sales (and that is mainly due to the Halo series). Oni was hyped but generally regarded as a flop, and the greatness of the Marathon series is debatable (lots of Mac users are big fans but the reception of M2 on the PC and later Xbox live was a resounding "meh"). Myth did well but outside of a dedicated fan base I doubt many people remember it now. Even the Halo games, despite their insane sales, had design flaws that were repeated up to and including Halo 3.