Quake3World

o'dium wrote: I don't like what IW has become. I don't like how they got so big headed they thought they could get away with murder.

Eraser wrote:First two IW employees left now another four leave as well.

But Activision isn't phased, and claims there's still "a deep bench of proven talent" at Infinity Ward ready to work on "exciting new projects"

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:"Acti"

Mat Linnett wrote:Okay, this is getting a bit bizarre now:
Bungie has just signed a 10-year publishing deal with Activision.
I'd have thought big developers would be avoiding Activision like the plague at the moment.

brisk wrote:i'm sure they went into the deal with the intention of making a new ip, but since its activision, i wouldn't be surprised if they didn't end up making call of duty: combat evolved

Eurogamer: To paraphrase a question I recently asked Jason West and Vince Zampella, what first attracted you to multi-billionaire publisher Activision?

Brian Jarrard: Well you know, honestly, Bungie for over the past year has been working really hard on trying to secure our future, and it's been no secret that Jason Jones and our core team have been working on sort of the initial foundations of our next big IP and our next big universe in parallel to the team making Halo: Reach. This is a big step for us, this is a huge chapter, and it's not something the studio has taken lightly.

So, Activision was one of many partners that Bungie has been in talks with, and this discussion began in earnest about nine months ago, so there's only a couple of publishers in the world who could have the scale and scope to align with what we would like to achieve in our visions for our next creative universe, so I think at the end of the day there's a couple of reasons why it ended up being Activision.
'Bungie explains Activision deal' Screenshot 1

Most importantly was that we have a tremendous deal, we have a tremendous partnership, and Bungie did not have to compromise sort of the core values of our studio. We have these seven principles of our constitution, and we stuck by those and were able to find a deal that aligned perfectly.

Specifically I'm referring to really important things to us like the fact that we remain an independent company, the fact that we will actually own this IP outright, the fact that we have a significant degree of creative control and this will be a true partnership for us. So Activision was the partner that ultimately believed in those terms for us, and in return we definitely can't deny their ability to bring huge entertainment to market on a global scale, their multi-platform experience and expertise, and they're just a really great marketing and distribution company, so I think all those things together made Activision the clear choice for Bungie.

Eurogamer: One of the things Activision brings to the party of course is their ability to handle games that have plastic peripherals that cost $100. Is that the direction you'll be taking with your new IP?

Brian Jarrard: [Laughs politely.] Um, you know we haven't got that far into it, but that definitely wasn't one of the initial discussions that we had. I could say that more interestingly to us and possibly more appropriate in the future was Activision's experience in the online space.

[...]

Eurogamer: A cynical person might say that Activision's had a lot of bad press regarding the Infinity Ward thing lately and this is a good news story they can get out there to take some of the pressure off. Do you think that's fair?

Brian Jarrard: Yeah, I'm not going to lie, timing was certainly something we discussed, but like I mentioned the long form agreement was just signed this week so it was... and we have our beta coming up and we didn't feel like it was fair to the Halo community and frankly to our friends at Microsoft and to our own team to have this news overshadowing a really momentous occasion for Reach. So we had a really short window to work with.

I agree the landscape's a little bit volatile right now, the timing is definitely interesting, but I feel like it is what it is - we want to get this news out there. We're really excited that we have a secure future that aligns with our creative vision, and we just want to get back into doing what we do, and have our team focus on making games. When the time comes we'll have a lot of new time to show, and at that point Bungie's next game and next IP will start to speak for itself.


Eurogamer: Does what happened with Infinity Ward make you nervous at all?

Brian Jarrard: No, it doesn't, and I definitely don't want to comment or speculate. I think I probably know as much about it as you do - we all read the internet, it's hard not to follow it, but we're pretty comfortable. We have a great deal with Activision, I think a couple of key points for us again is we're a fully independent company, we're not owned by Activision, we're not first-party for them, we're still our own studio, and we still own this IP for ourselves and have creative control to make the games we want to make. So, not that we would have concerns about being in any sort of situations down the road, but I feel like we're entering into this partnership on the right foot and have a really great mutual understanding of where each of our groups will plug in in the future.

[...]

Eurogamer: There's a similarity between the Respawn Entertainment guys deal with EA and your one with Activision. You both own the IP, you both remain independent. Is that something you think we'll see more of?

Brian Jarrard: We talked about that a lot with the Activision folks, and I get the impression you're not going to see a lot more of that, because to hear them talk about it - and I think it's better to look at their perspective because I have a pretty insular view of these things - but there aren't that many developers out there that can demand and get that kind of deal. I think you can count them on one hand.

If Bobby Kotick could do one thing, he would make Call of Duty "an online subscription service" as soon as tomorrow.

[...]

"I think our audiences are clamouring for it."

"I think our audiences are clamouring for it."