Yes, this story is in fact entirely nonpolitical. But given the concentration of Mac users I seem to remember hang around this place, I thought a person or two might be interested. It's now being widely reported that effective monday, Microsoft is spinning off Bungie, the studio responsible for the billion-dollar Halo franchise.
Those of us who grew up with Bungie might remember the day in 2000 when Microsoft announced their acquisition of the company, shortly after Bungie announced Halo at MacWorld Expo as the next generation in action games. There was no joy in Mudville that day as one of the great innovators in electronic gaming sold out to the Evil Empire.
The predictable happened, of course: After Halo became a monstrous success, the bean counters directed the studio's efforts exclusively toward cranking out sequels. And that wasn't really what they thought they were getting into:
Harold Ryan, head of the game studio, elaborated in an interview Friday. Bungie was a small team when it became part of Microsoft, he said. The creative professionals who worked on the "Halo" franchise were "used to being able to look around the room and see Bungie people." They "feel lost" inside of the much-bigger organization of Microsoft Game Studios and, despite the success of "Halo," "that desire to be independent is something that a significant number of the people on the team still felt lacking," Ryan said.
Bungie, fortunately, seems to have had something most acquired companies lack: leverage.
Microsoft did not disclose financial details of its 2000 acquisition of Bungie, and specific terms of this week's separation were not disclosed, leaving analysts and observers to speculate.
"I'm sure that the Bungie part of the [2000] deal was some sort of share of the ['Halo'] franchise when they came over to Microsoft," said Billy Pidgeon, a gaming-industry analyst with IDC. "[Bungie] may have traded some of that equity off to get some of that independence. Maybe they're just tired of turning down offers or ideas for other platforms."
It seems like a reasonable scenario: A bunch of creative types sell off the right to a property they've gotten bored with to attain the resources to try something new.
Anyway, I don't know about anyone else, but I look forward to seeing these guys get back to what they do best: blazing new trails and giving the finger to the "creativity is dangerous!" establishment.