Well, this is an interesting development: Bungie, the video game developer behind the Halo series, among others, which spun off from Microsoft in 2007, and Activision, the mega-sized game publisher, have struck an “exclusive 10-year partnership to bring Bungie’s next big action game universe to market.”
While many gamers’ knee-jerk reaction here will be to bring up Infinity Ward, the Modern Warfare 2 developer which recently sued Activision for hundreds of millions of dollars, alleging nonpayment of royalties and other bonuses, Bungie will retain ownership of its intellectual property.
From Bungie’s release announcing the partnership:
Bungie, the developer of blockbuster game franchises including Halo, Myth and Marathon, and Activision, a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the #1 online games publisher (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that they have entered into an exclusive 10-year partnership to bring Bungie’s next big action game universe to market. Under the terms of the agreement, Activision will have exclusive, worldwide rights to publish and distribute all future Bungie games based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices. Bungie remains an independent company and will continue to own their intellectual property. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Also not disclosed: What exactly Bungie’s “next big action game universe” will be, exactly. One outcome seems likely: Now that Bungie’s no longer locked into an XBox 360-exclusive publishing deal, Bungie games just could be coming to the Wii and PS3 in the near future.
(h/t Ars Technica)
