An Analysis of Bungie.

Bungie was first founded as Bungie Software Products Corporation in 1991 by the University of Chicago student Alex Seropian, The small team developed quickly and they eventually brought out a Pong clone called Gnop!  This was the start of their publishing chain.

In its early years Bungie focused their attention in games to the Macintosh systems producing the popular Marathon and Myth series. But in 2000 Bungie was acquired by Microsoft and in gaining the interactive developers they also had gained their then-current project which had been initially design for Macintosh.

A first person shooter called Halo: Combat Evolved which was converted and rebuilt for Microsoft’s new Xbox console. This asset they had inherited went on to become Xbox’s “killer title” going on to sell millions of copies and creating a billion dollar franchise that has spawn a series of games, merchandise and an in-works film.

October 5^th 2007 was the day that Bungie announced that they had decided to detach from Microsoft and become a privately held independent company.  In the same year the company had signed onto a ten-year publishing deal with Activision Blizzard the American holding company for Activision and Blizzard Entertainment.

Before the Halo Franchise Bungie had developed a small list of games, once they had struck upon the large fortune and popularity that Halo had gotten, Microsoft had Bungie continue the series until they had detatched from them.  From 2001 to 2010 they had worked on projects completely on the Halo franchise, which hard sparked harsh criticism against them. Only until recently have Bungie revealed that they are working on multiple projects with partners and a unknown new IP, even with rumours still circulating on Bungie still working on creating new additions (and remakes) to the Halo franchise.

Bungie is well known for its in-formal workplace, allowing employee’s to get comfortable and become more appreciative and dedicated to the company with its workplace culture. Bungie usually displays this on their website’s daily updates and ViDocs showing their work environment and attitude towards work

Some members of the company like to show their humor a lot in their public relations by abiding with sharing public messages so much so that you can almost always expect an April Fools message from Bungie every year.  If they are not showing this through their website or other means they like to keep their mythologies and “inside” references that they have kept going over the years. Like their “Bungie's 7-Step Plan for World Domination.” and unhealthy obsession with the number 7.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie

http://www.bungie.net/

http://www.bungie.net/Inside/aboutus.aspx