After years of partnership with Activision for their Destiny series, Bungie have parted ways with their publisher, Activision on January 9th. Bungie will now solely own the Destiny franchise they created. Bungie told their team in a meeting today and they all thunderously applauded.
They do not have to deal with the hassle of annualization anymore that Activision does with their series. They can focus on creating the game they thought of at first, and listening to their community more so than before.
After Bungie began operating as a private company in 2007, they then agreed to be a part of Activision in 2010. This deal was supposed to be a 10-year commitment. The deal would also mean that the new IP that Bungie would create, Destiny, would be owned by Bungie and not Activision, which turned out to be a big leverage point to help them split up.
The tensions between the two sides began before Destiny 1 was released it seems. As development went on for Destiny 1, and then Destiny 2, it would presume the two sides saw this franchise differently on how to handle certain things like micro-transactions, releases on DLC, etc.
Bungie now has to focus on being in control of their own franchise that is one of the biggest online service games today. That includes the hurdles they will surely have with sales, marketing, and publishing their own game now which they have never done in their long history. However, it is Bungie, the creators of Halo.
Overall, this seems like a good move for Bungie, even with hurdles. They own 100% of the Destiny franchise and they do not have to deal with publisher pressure. They now have the freedom to create Destiny into what they planned on having it as in the pre-production phase.
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