In its third-quarter 2021 earnings report, Sony recently confirmed that it plans to use $1.2 billion of the $3.6 billion total for a long-term incentive program to reward employees who remain at Bungie.
Sony will pay the remaining $2.4 billion to acquire Bungie’s private stake outright, while the $1.2 billion bonus is intended to keep Bungie’s current staff intact after the acquisition.
Sony plans to defer payments for a number of years after the acquisition, and the company is preparing to pay about $792 million in deferred bonuses in the first two years after the deal closes.
Under Sony’s leadership, Bungie will have unprecedented freedom to enjoy the autonomy of the development program while remaining independent and independently publishing games on all platforms.
Bungie is the developer of the “Destiny” series and the creator of Microsoft’s head IP “Halo” series. In 2000, Bungie was acquired by Microsoft and became its first-party studio and developed the FPS “Halo” series for the console platform. In 2010, after the release of “Halo: Reach”, Bungie broke up peacefully with Microsoft and signed a cooperative distribution plan with Activision Blizzard.
Four years later, the multiplayer online shooter “Destiny” came out, and once set a number of records for multiplayer online games on console platforms. In 2019, Bungie terminated its contract with Activision Blizzard, resumed its freedom, and continued to update Destiny 2 as an independent developer.