Bungie Community Lead Brian Jarrard has dished the dirt on the publishing ‘alliance’ that was formed between Bungie and Activision in the midst of an ugly lawsuit between Activision’s former star studio, Infinity Ward, and the mega-publisher.
Straight to the 10 year contract point, Jarrard said: “It is good to see that as the news starts to sink in – as people start to really look into the fine print – they see the deal we have puts Bungie in a pretty radically different situation [to the deal with Infinity Ward.]”
“We are going to own our. . .IP and we have creative control to create these games. We can really realise our vision in this new universe, so we feel incredibly excited and happy that we were able to get the exact deal the way we wanted it.”
Bungie is famously behind the Halo franchise, which was a veritable jackpot for Microsoft who owns the IP. The studio became independent from Microsoft in 2007 but was still under contract to produce Halo: ODST and Halo: Reach, which is currently in the public beta phase.
Keen to develop their own unique IP, and when specifically asked about the prospect of developing Activision IP, such as Call of Duty, Jarrad said: “We have no interest at all in working on anybody else’s intellectual property.
“Realistically, the scale and ambition of what we hope to achieve with our own IP for the next ten years can only really happen if we had the full might of the entire studio working on it. We are committed to fully engage and really work on executing this collective vision as an entire team,” he continued.
Jarrard was tight lipped about what this new IP might actually be, but gave an indication that they have been establishing a framework with which they could approach publishers for deals. “To try and get a publisher to commit to a ten-year vision obviously requires a little bit more than just a great track record.”
Not much more detail was given, other than to say a l#mce_temp_url#ot of internal debate has been taking place around technology, developing concept art, and the move to a multiplatform release.
Jarrard concluded: “We’re tremendously proud of what we’ve accomplished with Halo. If you look at Bungie’s history, each new universe we’ve built has gotten a little big bigger and a little bit broader – with Halo obviously being the crown jewel these days. “
“As a studio, we wouldn’t want to embark down a future path where we didn’t think we’d continue to improve and eclipse our previous efforts. We definitely have our sights on something that will take gamers to a new exciting place.”
Thanks goes to CVG who conducted the interview with Brian Jarrard.
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