Oni: Difference between revisions

Possible additional factors were the introduction of a PS2 port to be released in tandem with Oni for Windows/Mac, part of a deal struck with Take-Two Interactive (T2) in August of 1999, and the acquisition of Bungie by Microsoft, which was announced in June of 2000. It is also possible that the acquisition of the Oni IP by Take Two in 2000 interfered with plans for a more timely release. The details of the MS/T2 situation are explained in the "Post-release" section below.

As Oni finally neared completion, Bungie resumed their advertising, now partnered with Take Two, who were in the process of taking over the Oni [[wikipedia:Intellectual_property|IP]] as Bungie prepared to join Microsoft (see "Post-release" section below). Promotional artwork was produced by [[Lorraine|Lorraine Reyes McLees]] and a four-issue comic book was produced under T2's supervision and published by Dark Horse. T2's PR efforts, however, seem to have been focused mainly on the PS2 version of the game.

Finally, Bungie did not hold to their usual practice of releasing level-building tools for their games, since a professional and costly CAD program was used to produce Oni's levels<ref>[http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=2321 OCF post by Matt Soell, "Re: general questions...."].</ref>. As Oni's release neared, it was pointed out by Matt Soell, Bungie's PR person, that since Bungie no longer owned the game, they were unable to release whatever supplementary tools had been developed. Early statements about releasing the file formats were probably also impossible to follow through on once ownership had transferred to Take Two. This factor, coupled with the lack of multiplayer, meant that Oni's full potential was not obvious.

It is believed that Bungie began suffering from a shortage of cash around 1998 when the Myth II uninstaller bug was discovered and cost them at least $1 million to correct<ref>See Bungie's 20th Anniversary documentary, ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtG6--4r_qk O Brave New World]'', 6 minute mark.</ref>. This might have been difficult to absorb for a studio not accustomed to a disciplined release schedule. The next game to release after Myth II was to be Oni in 1999, but as Oni's release date began to slide more and more, it became clear that Bungie had underestimated the time required to finish the game by more than usual. In the meantime, Bungie was bankrolling two studios instead of one. Thus, the decision was made to partner with Take Two Interactive; on August 13, 1999, it was announced that Take Two had acquired 19.9% of Bungie's shares in exchange for (1) payments to Bungie of $4 million now and $1 million the next year, (2) the North America publishing rights to Oni, Myth, and two additional future titles for the PC, and (3) publishing rights for a PlayStation 2 port of Oni (and console versions of future, unannounced Bungie games)<ref>[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946581/0000891554-00-000145.txt SEC 10-K filing for Take Two Interactive, 10/31/99].</ref>.

This deal didn't seem to change business much for Bungie, but considerably more shocking news was revealed on June 19, 2000, when Bungie announced its acquisition by Microsoft. It turned out that Bungie's monetary woes had not been solved by T2's influx of cash, and so MacSoft founder Peter Tamte had been hired by Bungie to find a buyer for the company. Bungie worked out the following deal with Take Two in order to be free to join Microsoft: T2 sold its 19.9% stake of Bungie to MS for its original purchase price of $5 million; T2 then traded its publishing rights for Halo back to Bungie for (1) $4 million in cash, (2) a license to use the Halo engine to make two future titles, and (3) for full "right, title and interest" to the Myth franchise and Oni. T2 valued the IP acquisition of Oni at $2.8 million, and the Myth IP and Halo engine license at $1.5 million each.<ref>[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/946581/000112528202003845/b320556.htm SEC 10-K filing for Take Two Interactive, 10/31/02].</ref><ref>The sale of Bungie to Microsoft has an interesting historical footnote: according to Ed Fries, who was VP of game publishing at Microsoft, Steve Jobs angrily called Steve Ballmer immediately after the Bungie acquisition was announced; sources within Bungie state that Apple themselves had been close to offering to buy Bungie at the time. In order to appease Apple (a business partner of Microsoft) over the loss of a major Mac game developer, a new company was formed to port Windows games to the Mac, named Destineer, and headed up by none other than Peter Tamte of Bungie. Destineer would go on to port Halo to the Mac in 2003. ([http://www.develop-online.net/news/36173/Steve-Jobs-raged-at-Microsoft-over-game-studio-sale], [http://www.develop-online.net/news/36183/Ex-Bungie-dev-Apple-got-close-to-buying-us], [http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=173])</ref>

Clearly Take Two expected big things from Oni (see their valuation of Oni above, as well as their promotional efforts under the "Hype" section). They had assigned Rockstar Toronto to work on a PS2 port of Oni around the end of 1999, and released it alongside the Windows and Mac versions of Oni; however, the port was considered to be an inferior version of the game due to technical limitations and control issues.

While Bungie merged into Microsoft, and Take Two was assuming command of the Oni IP, Mac users were in their own delicate position: transitioning to Mac OS X. Having been in development years before OS X released, the original build of the Oni application was a Carbon app, meaning it was written primarily for Mac OS 9 with only basic OS X compatibility. Unfortunately the Carbon build was not without issues when running in OS X.