Business
15:30, 04-Jun-2018
Destiny developer Bungie agrees US$100m partnership with NetEase
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Blockbuster gaming studio Bungie, the developer of popular franchises like Halo and Destiny, has agreed to sell a minority stake to Chinese Internet and gaming company NetEase for 100 million US dollars.
According to a statement on Bungie’s website, the deal will see NetEase “empower us to build new worlds and invite players, new and old, to join us there. They’ll help us support separate teams inside Bungie to bring our newest ambitions to life.”
NetEase CEO Ding Lei said the two companies “share the same vision and ambition to deliver incredible experiences to millions of players all around the globe. We are excited to partner with Bungie as they transform from a single franchise development team into a global, multi-franchise entertainment studio.”
Bungie had previously partnered with larger games developers like Microsoft and Activision to develop its most prominent titles. While details of the deal with NetEase remain vague, Bungie is likely to look at developing new franchises on its own in a bid to move on from the huge success of Halo and then Destiny.
Online first-person shooter Destiny launched in 2014, becoming the fastest selling console game in history on its first day of sales by raking in 500 million US dollars for publisher Activision.
Bungie’s Halo franchise, first launched in 2001 on the Xbox, has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide, earning over five billion US dollars.
Bungie’s statement looked to reassure gamers that the NetEase deal did not mean it was abandoning the popular Destiny series of games after sequel Destiny 2 was launched last September.
In fact, the deal could signal a release for Destiny in China. NetEase has a history of releasing games into the Chinese market to great success, with Activision Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Overwatch played by millions across the country.