Sony acquires Bungie for $3.6 billion - staying multiplatform

[DonFerrari]

twintail said:

aTokenYeti said:

They paid $3.6 billion for a studio with a single IP that brings in an absolute maximum of $200 million per year in revenue. There are studios with half the employee headcount that bring in double that yearly. That tells you all you need to know about the confidence Sony has in the live service games they currently have in development. 

As to my second point, it’s not going to “tank” Sony’s future negotiations, but it is going to raise bidding prices and make Sony have to agree to things they otherwise wouldn’t. If Sony is attempting to acquire a Square Enix, for example, it stands to reason that square would see the terms of the deal Bungie got and would ask for either a higher price out Sony, more production autonomy written into contract, or both. That is not a position Sony wants to be in. 

Compare this deal on the balance to the $200 million they paid to purchase Insomniac. That deal has probably already paid for itself 5-10 fold. 

As Potent already pointed out to you: the acquisition is only 2.4B. The other 1.2B is part of an employee incentive package to avoid losing talent when Bungie are on the verge of unveiling and releasing their new live-service IP, 'Matter'. This 1.2B is also not a lump-sum: but rather will be paid out to employees over a few years.

This tells us that Sony is in fact very confident in what Bungie is working on that they aren't willing to lose staff and therefore jeopardize development of the game. 

Sony is getting Destiny 2, Bungie's next live-service title 'Matter', 1 or 2 other games in development, cross-media push with Destiny (and eventually their next title), and extensive live-service knowledge which will affect the 10 live-service titles Sony have confirmed to have in development. 

Insomniac of course was a fantastic purchase based on their value. However, Insomniac didn't bring with them any notable IP nor were they going to contribute to a gap in Sony's portfolio. Apples to oranges. 

Anything put in comparison to Insomniac is ridiculous on value. This is more like Minecraft deal, at the moment it seemed obtuse for MS to pay 2.5B for an Indie studio with a single game, but well it seems like it paid back. We will discover in the next 10 years if this was a good buy (right now it doesn`t seem like it, but as also pointed out maybe if inflation wasn`t so rampant and consolidation so strong this deal wouldn`t be made or would be cheaper).

Also besides the 1.2B for retention it is quite possible that some of the other 2.4B have a good portion dedicated to increase team count, headcount, new locations, tools, etc. We may never know the truth, but maybe in the end the leadership won`t pocket as much money as we first though.

And it is quite possible that there is very strong terms in the contract to prevent Bungie trying any shenanigans like pocketing the money and in 5 years running with it.