Sony’s Strategy with
Bungie’s Acquisition
As mentioned before, Bungie is a Video
Game Developer that is known specifically for their Live Service Games, Sony in
a surprise move has bought Bungie for $3.5 Billion Dollars. With this
acquisition, it can naturally be assumed that now all new games that Bungie
develops will be PlayStation Exclusives, however reports indicate that is not
Sony has in mind for Bungie. Instead, the Tech Giant is going to be taking full
advantage of Bungie’s Live Service Game-building experience, and capitalize on
it in order to integrate Bungie’s Game-building philosophies into their other
Franchises made by their other Video Game Developers. In simpler words, Bungies
games in the future will continue to release on all Platforms across the Video
Game medium, however Sony’s existing Intellectual Properties will be integrated
with a Live Service Feature will be very reminiscent to the games that Bungie
themselves developed prior. This announcement comes at the helm of the
announcement that Sony is looking to introduce a massive slate of Live Service
Features in their existing games after realizing that their existing Franchises
are not a viable source of ongoing revenue stream, since most of Sony’s
franchises offer primarily a Single-player Experience.
Bungie’s History of
success with Live Service Games
Having initially been a part of
Microsoft’s Gaming Division Xbox, Bungie was responsible for the conception of
and the development of Xbox’s most well-known and successful Exclusive
Franchise ‘Halo’. Launched in 2001, Halo’s first installment ‘Halo: Combat
Evolved’ changed the landscape of the Gaming Industry, as it not only
introduced a compelling single player story, but also an innovative Multiplayer
option that was to be the prototype of Live Service Game offering which Bungie
would go on to be known for in the future. After splitting with Microsoft,
Bungie signed a 10-year partnership with Activision, and developed a new
Multiplayer-only Gaming Franchise for which Bungie is currently synonymous
with, ‘Destiny’. Destiny and its subsequent ongoing sequel ‘Destiny 2’,
breathed new life into Bungie as it showed their unique creative expertise in
handling Live Service Features that kept Players coming back to the Destiny
franchise over and over again. It is this same expertise that eventually
motivated Sony to acquire Bungie, in exchange of which Bungie will be allowed
to remain a standalone game studio akin to Naughty Dog, which is another Video
Game Developer bought by Sony.
What Bungie can bring
to the table
Although not a lot of exact information is out with regards to the details of how Sony aims to utilize Bungie’s expertise, however with the aforementioned information a general idea can be developed with regards to the primary practices that Bungie can bring to the table for Sony. The first could be Bungie’s capabilities of consistently Fulfilling their Gaming Roadmap Content. Bungie has been a reliable source of producing constant content that sets them apart to their competitors who have more often faltered where Bungie has persevered. Additionally, Bungie has also not shied away from scrapping aspects of their games that they believe did not work or resonate well with their Player. This is made clearly evident through their Destiny franchise as they got rid of redundant and unnecessary rolls and primaries in their initial Destiny game, and rectified them all in the sequel Destiny 2. This also leads to another aspect of Bungie, which is careful consideration of the Players’ feedback which they definintly take to heart as indicated by the aforementioned changes. With Bungie’s focus on Longevity and Consumer Experience, Sony could most positively continue to remain at the apex of the Video Game Industry for the foreseeable future.
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