Sony Is Spending 1.2 Billion To Keep Destiny 2 Devs From Leaving

A major chunk of the Bungie acquisition price tag is just to retain talent


When Sony revealed its surprise $3.6 billion deal to buy Bungie, it was clear the PS5 manufacturer was paying a premium for the original creators of Halo and now Destiny 2. Now the company has revealed roughly a third of that price tag is actually just to pay Bungie developers so they don’t immediately leave the studio.


“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.


To put that number in perspective, Sony paid $229 million for Spider-Man maker Insomniac Games as recently as 2019. While Bungie has more than double the number of employees, at 900 people $1.2 billion still comes out to over $1 million per developer, though obviously some folks at Bungie will get much more while others will get much less.





The massive payouts come as consolidation in the gaming industry kicks into overdrive, and capital from other parts of the economy floods the market. This has led to unprecedented competition between companies for game development talent, and it’s clear from the way Sony has talked about the Bungie deal that what it’s most interested in is the studio’s expertise when it comes to making live service games. It can’t capitalize on that if senior developers all cash in their chips at once.


Source: Kotaku