A galactic leap of faith
TheDestinyuniverse is going to get a major shakeup — at least on the business side of things. Developer Bungie and publisher Activision will soon part ways after a partnership that lasted nearly 10 years.
Bungie made astatement on its websitethat the two sides are working on a transition plan for Activision to transferDestinypublishing rights to Bungie. It seems as though Bungie intends to attempt self-publishing futureDestinygames and expansions. The process is already underway, with Bungie saying everyone is “committed to making sure the handoff is as seamless as possible.”
Activision has corroborated this news with a brief joint statement onTwitter, mostly reiterating what Bungie said on its site. Post-Destiny, Activision says it will increase its focus on the intellectual properties it wholly owns. The Blizzard customer service team alsotweetedthat the PC version ofDestiny 2will still receive full support on Battle.net without any sort of interruption for the players.
Back in 2010, the two sides inked a 10-year deal where Activision would have exclusive publishing rights to theDestinyseries while Bungie retained full control of the property. That will come to an end a little prematurely, but seemingly also amicably.
As for Bungie, there’s certainly a lot of work to do. If it truly intends to self-publish futureDestinycontent, that’s expertise the team doesn’t yet have through experience. This new venture has high stakes right away, asDestinyis one of the world’s biggest games. The safety net of a giant, stable publisher like Activision is now gone. It’s high risk but it’s also high reward. Suddenly, the business ofDestinygot a whole lot more interesting.
