Sony spend over $1 Billion to keep Bungie staff after acquisition
Nobody's Bungie-jumping ship
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The big gaming acquisition news just keeps on coming. Following Microsoft’s wave-making Blizzard purchase, Sony countered with a landmark deal of their own. And Sony may have spent more than it was initially willing in order to make it a smooth transition. Out of the $3.6 Billion spent on acquiring developer Bungie, it has been reported that $1.4 Billion was just used to retain talent following the deal.
Bungie’s future
As part of Sony’s Q3 2021 financial statement, the company has announced that it has no plans to lay off Bungie employees following the merger. Additionally, no ‘major’ restructuring of Bungie is planned. Though it remains to be seen what ‘minor’ would mean in this case. Overall it appears as though Sony is an interested in Bungie’s talent is it is the company’s IPs. It is doubtful that $3.6 Billion would have been spent purely on Destiny, regardless of how successful the franchise is.
Sony baiting the hook
While the deal would have been in the works long before, the timing and specifics of Sony’s purchase almost make it look like a retaliation against Microsoft. Long before Microsoft’s purchase, Activision oversaw Bungie during Destiny’s development. But Bungie’s own relationship with Activision was significantly strained, leading to the company going independant. And it had been doing well on its own since, releasing successful expansion to Destiny 2. To go back to another publisher, Sony had to offer something big.
A Microsoft standoff
As these acquisitions keep ramping up, it seems only a matter of time until one franchise or another becomes a console exclsiive. But perhaps there’s something else going in these console wars; a nuclear deterrent. With such large investments across the aisle, no side can make their big franchise purchases into console exclusives without the other threatening to do the same. And the potential loss of revenue and player base would likely be too much to risk.
Bungie sticking around
After such a heavy investment, it looks as though Bungie are going to be sticking with Sony for a while yet. Will players see Destiny rise to new heights with such support behind Bungie? Or will the developers move on to all new creations?
