"Approximately one-third of the US$3.6 billion acquisition consideration consists primarily of deferred payments to employee shareholders, conditional upon their continued employment, and other retention incentives,” Sony announced in yesterday’s earnings presentation as first reported by Tweaktown. The approximately $1.2 billion will be paid out over several years, with an estimated two-thirds to be paid within the first two years following the acquisition’s official closing date. Sony is paying for the people as much as for Destiny 2.

Source

Good incentive, you have to pay for quality.

Employee shareholders?

So? The people sitting at the table. Maybe some team leaders? Any artists? Who knows.

Sounds lovely on the surface but who is the 1.2 billion going to? What's the breakdown of amounts?

1,200,000,000 / 900 employees = 1,333,333 $.

You give each employee 1,3 million USD, hopefully those guys are "happy" enough to stick around, and work with you?

Yeah, of course they are. The know-how in this specific space is the real value here, rather than any one IP. Sony was lacking in this type of thing.

Yup. 

I bet it's going to some board members, a few design/programmer leaders... Probably it. 

Man how the fuck does Bungie have 900 employees and all they have is Destiny, makes no sense.

He must have shares in bungie. Hopefully quite a few "regular" employees get a decent amount.

it happens in every deal unless the IP is too big and another developer can use that IP