Take 2?

[Lugas]

I have a few questions about Take 2.

1)Myth is doing no good to Take 2, so why haven't they considered releasing it as Shareware?

2)Why can't Bungie buy the rights to Myth and Oni back?

3)Why was Marathon not given to Take 2?

4)Considering how sucessful Bungie was (and still is) with Halo, why have they not attempted to re-purchase the rights to Myth and Oni?

5)How did Take 2 get their grubby hands on Myth and Oni?

Now that we're speaking about Take 2, it is possible they could be sued (or something) because of their new game, Bully.

[Tireces]

I have a few questions about Take 2.

1)Myth is doing no good to Take 2, so why haven't they considered releasing it as Shareware?

Looks like they r still selling it. Few months ago here in Poland Take2 released Myth DVD collection ( Myth Total codex + Myth 3 ) for circa 8-9$.

[Orlando the Axe]

1)Myth is doing no good to Take 2, so why haven't they considered releasing it as Shareware?
Money

2)Why can't Bungie buy the rights to Myth and Oni back?
Money

3)Why was Marathon not given to Take 2?
Money

4)Considering how sucessful Bungie was (and still is) with Halo, why have they not attempted to re-purchase the rights to Myth and Oni?
Money

5)How did Take 2 get their grubby hands on Myth and Oni?
Money

--------------------- Now for more detailed answers---------------
1)Myth is doing no good to Take 2, so why haven't they considered releasing it as Shareware?
The only reason to do this would be for good publicity or to please their fan base, neither of which they care about. In fact they probably don't think about Myth at all.

2)Why can't Bungie buy the rights to Myth and Oni back?
They can but Take 2 would probably charge them so much it wouldn't be worth it.

3)Why was Marathon not given to Take 2?
This is related to number 5.

4)Considering how sucessful Bungie was (and still is) with Halo, why have they not attempted to re-purchase the rights to Myth and Oni?
The price they would have to pay wouldnt be worth it. Take Two isn't doing anything with them but once Bungie started taking interest they would jack up the price significantly to the point where it would probably be cheaper to just start over with a new story. The other reasons are that Bungie doesn't make games for computer anymore and most of the people who worked on those games no longer work at Bungie.

5)How did Take 2 get their grubby hands on Myth and Oni?
The short (without going into how the game industry operates) version is that Take Two owned 20% of Bungie. Because of this they got the rights to Myth and Oni while Bungie kept the rights to Marathon, Halo, etc.

[vinylrake]

1)Myth is doing no good to Take 2, so why haven't they considered releasing it as Shareware?
The only reason to do this would be for good publicity or to please their fan base, neither of which they care about. In fact they probably don't think about Myth at all.

For all practical purposes shareware is "freeware" and Take2 isn't in the habit of giving things away.

5)How did Take 2 get their grubby hands on Myth and Oni?
The short (without going into how the game industry operates) version is that Take Two owned 20% of Bungie. Because of this they got the rights to Myth and Oni while Bungie kept the rights to Marathon, Halo, etc.

Correct. To go into a little more detail, Bungie sold a 19.8 or 19.9% share of Bungie to Take2 in exchange for the promotional resources and distribution channels that Take2 could give to Bungie to market their games. When MS bought Bungie they didn't want to buy 80% of Bungie they wanted to buy it completely so they didn't have to share profits with anyone. That meant that Bungie had to buy back the 19.9% of the company that Take2 owned. The price that Bungie paid Take2 to get the 19.9% of their company back was Myth and Oni (which hadn't been released yet).

My guess is that since Marathon and Bungie's other older games were Mac only games and were OLD games at that point that Take2 didn't WANT Marathon, or Pathways to Darkness, or GNOP, so Bungie kept the rights to them just because Take2 didn't want them. If you want to be annoyed or blame anyone for Myth fading away, blame the original Bungie owners/founders not take2, Bungie traded away their historical crown jewels - the myth franchise - so they could sell their new jewel (Halo) and get the big payday of a lifetime from Microsoft. It worked, they got their retirement payoff and Bungie is more famous then ever.

[The Elfoid]

4)Considering how sucessful Bungie was (and still is) with Halo, why have they not attempted to re-purchase the rights to Myth and Oni?

Microsoft's choice and they are focussing on the 360.

M$ pull the strings now remember.

For all practical purposes shareware is "freeware" and Take2 isn't in the habit of giving things away.

Myth's price has been looked into. Its far far far more than the franchise is worth. Halo Wars or whatever its called has a more valuable lisence and if Bungie felt like it they could do something similar (though only 3 Myth-making guys are at Bungie now anyway).

Looks like they r still selling it. Few months ago here in Poland Take2 released Myth DVD collection ( Myth Total codex + Myth 3 ) for circa 8-9$.

Over here XPLOSIV games has told TFL for years in their range of £10 old games. Not sure about the rest though. Who produced the DVDs? XPLOSIV buy the rights to distribute old things, I doubt very much its direct from Take2 themselves.

And its $8 not 8$

[Lugas]

The price that Bungie paid Take2 to get the 19.9% of their company back was Myth and Oni (which hadn't been released yet).

You've confused me there. Are you saying that Bungie still have the right to give out Myth and Oni as freeware? Because this is not the case.

So when M$ purchased Bungie, did Bungie have to sell Myth and Oni to T2 so that T2 would not get any money from Halo?

Also, does this have anything to do with what a "success" Myth III was. It was their own fault that M3 was incomplete. M3 is full of typos, mispelt words and text that doesn't comply with the voice. Apart from that, M3 is great (except for the Mjarin and Mazzarin).

I suppose Bungie still owning Marathon does explain why it was released last year. I though M$ owned Marathon.

My guess is that since Marathon and Bungie's other older games were Mac only games

That is not 100% correct. Marathon 2 was ported to Windows shortly before Infinity was released.

[The Elfoid]

You've confused me there. Are you saying that Bungie still have the right to give out Myth and Oni as freeware? Because this is not the case.

No he means Bungie asked for the 20ish% of themselves that Take2 owned and T2 basically said 'so give us some franchises'. M$ couldn't buy 100% of Bungie from Bungie if they didn't own it to begin with.

Its not that Take2 bought a game Bungie was still making and released it. Take2 just wanted to rush it out for Xmas. That's it in as brief detail as possible at least, a lot more to it than that. Mumbo Jumbo was HIRED by Take2 to Make Myth III after the buying of Myth.

Most people's complaints about Myth III were gameplay based or a dodgy narrative. I don't think you could ever argue it was 'great' considering what a commercial flop it was, how bad reviews were and how disgusted both the Myth community and the community's presence within Mumbo Jumbo was (i.e. Santa's Head, who agreed with most of M3's complaints).

[Myrd]

I suppose Bungie still owning Marathon does explain why it was released last year. I though M$ owned Marathon.

You're confused. Bungie as a company does not exist anymore, it is simply a division of Microsoft. Therefore, Bungie is Microsoft. When they were acquired, they open sourced the code for Marathon (which now lives on in the Aleph One project), but not the tag files the engine needs to run.

From rumours, I hear the recent trilogy re-release happened thus: Someone posted the open source engine w/ the files on a site. Microsoft wanted it to be taken down, but a sympathetic Bungie employee asked that the Microsoft Legal Department first take a look at it, so that they decide whether it should be taken down. And the MS legal department basically ignored the request, and didn't respond so its still up. At least that's the story I got from some 3rd party.

[Cobalt 7]

Alright, It seems there are a million different bits of conflicting info here...Even I'm confused.


I thought that after the Myth 2 Bug Debacle Bungie had to sell part of the company to Take 2 in order to handle the losses? Then when it came time to be bought by Microsoft, Take 2 was given it's sum of Money, and got to keep the intellectual property Bungie had developed during that time.

Marathon, being developed before becoming involved with Take 2, and Halo being a distinct Bungie property at the moment (or since Microsoft bought Bungie for Halo maybe they bought the License) did not fall into the range of this deal.

You also have to consider when this deal was made. The Myth series continued to be going strong, and Oni had just come out. I'm sure Take 2 felt that they were worth more than Microsoft was willing to pay.

But then again this is all rampant speculation (and I think a little bit from G4's show Icons.)

[:) Da Cid (: McCl]

Marathon was their first big game, thus they didn't want to get rid of it.

I do think the releasing of it as freeware was Bungie's idea, and I don't really see why Microsoft would refuse. Bungie could still make another Marathon game and get money, so Microsoft really has no concerns.

-TGP-

[vinylrake]

I thought that after the Myth 2 Bug Debacle Bungie had to sell part of the company to Take 2 in order to handle the losses? Then when it came time to be bought by Microsoft, Take 2 was given it's sum of Money, and got to keep the intellectual property Bungie had developed during that time.

I never heard of any lawsuits or anything, what Myth 2 Bug debacle are you referring to that Bungie would have needed many millions to deal with?

The sequence of events was:

1999-08-12: TakeTwo purchases a 19.9% stake in Bungie and in returns gets EXCLUSIVE rights to distribute four Bungie games in North America including Oni, and HALO - which was under the development at the time!!!
TakeTwo did NOT get rights to distribute any older games - e.g. Marathon or Myth.

2000-06-18: Microsoft purchases Bungie AND TakeTwo's 19.9% stake of Bungie. In Exchange TakeTwo got OWNERSHIP of one of Bungie's Two upcoming games (ONI) _and_ the rights to both Myth Games (and the franchise itself). It appears TakeTwo traded their distribution rights to 4 as yet untested games (e.g. HALO, ONI and two unnamed (unreleased/undeveloped?) games) for OWNERSHIP of the ready to release Oni and the two tried and true best selling Myth games.

You also have to consider when this deal was made. The Myth series continued to be going strong, and Oni had just come out. I'm sure Take 2 felt that they were worth more than Microsoft was willing to pay.

But then again this is all rampant speculation (and I think a little bit from G4's show Icons.)

Oni hadn't been released yet when TakeTwo bought part of Bungie. When Oni's release date was announced it was announced that a subsidiary of TakeTwo would be handling the distribution.


http://pc.ign.com/articles/069/069525p1.html

[AblitERateOR]

I thought that after the Myth 2 Bug Debacle Bungie had to sell part of the company to Take 2 in order to handle the losses? Then when it came time to be bought by Microsoft, Take 2 was given it's sum of Money, and got to keep the intellectual property Bungie had developed during that time.

I never heard of any lawsuits or anything, what Myth 2 Bug debacle are you referring to that Bungie would have needed many millions to deal with?

Well... to quote the bungie.net history page...:

Worst. Bug. Ever
Now you've seen some nasty video game bugs in your time, right? Like bits of 3D geometry that pass through each other in FPS games, or games that crash just in the middle of your save – ooh that stinks! You've seen games that drop frames when anything bigger than a Space Invader shows up, but Bungie had one that could beat 'em all. It was a doozy. How about a bug that erased your entire hard drive, and wiped it cleaner than Ghandi's driving record?
It was discovered by a very nice young lady in a Japanese office as she worked on the Asian versions of Myth – just as she was trying out the final build. She attempted to uninstall it from the main root folder of her hard drive – not brilliant, but pretty common practice – and perfectly fine for most games. The game proceeded to eat her hard drive like a fresh Bento Box.
Luckily (if the word luck can be applied to this horror) the game hadn't actually been shipped to stores yet. It had however been burned, printed and boxed. It was ready to ship. Bungie employees had to actually go the factory, tear off the shrink wrap and replace bad disks with good. It cost the company roughly the profits the game earned, to swap out the faulty disks. But you know, rather that than a class action lawsuit…

[The Elfoid]

[TheHelmet]

Wow, haven't read Penny Arcade in ages..

I'm gonna go there right now

[Lugas]

Worst. Bug. Ever

Quite true. Did that bug affect Windows or OS 7+ or both?