Latest: The always helpful @hoeglaw has provided a really great dive into what we originally found, and where we went wrong with our assumptions.
Really recommend giving this a watch.
Update: Pete Parsons has again said that the acquisition rumours are false, in response to a tweet from Game Rant earlier today.
So while just a theory, it seems pretty clear that Bungie aren’t getting acquired any time soon.
Original Article:
I know, it wasn’t actually that long ago, but to be fair – a lot has happened since then.
Originally discussed on the GamesBeat podcast, Venturebeat’s Jeff Grubb advised that he had heard Microsoft and Bungie had been in ‘discussions’ regarding acquisition.
This obviously exploded onto the internet, and was further corroborated by Eurogamers Tom Phillips, with Eurogamers own sources apparently confirming the rumours.
Well known Twitter user Nibel posted the rumour and actually got a response back from Pete Parsons (current CEO of Bungie), emphatically denying the rumour although without any further statement or detail provided.
And so the rumour faded away – more or less.
Until today.
Following a discovery by an XboxEra community member and further investigation by our own Nick “Shpeshal Ed” Baker, it seems there is more to this than initially thought.
When a US based company gets acquired, it seems an officer role is added under the title “Corporation Service Company, agent”, as seen on opencorporates.com.
From what we can tell, they become an agent for service of process:
An agent for service of process is a trusted individual or third-party, registered in the same state where an entity is established, who is authorized to receive service of process on behalf of your corporation or LLC.
https://www.cscglobal.com/service/cls/service-of-process/
Here’s Undead Labs with the same role.
What about Obsidian?
And inXile? DoubleFine?
Same story for when Insomniac Games got acquired by Sony:
Remember Zenimax? I think they’ve been in the news recently. Admittedly though, the dates don’t seem quite right, but it’s there nonetheless.
Okay, so what’s all this got to do with Bungie?
Well…
Now we’re no lawyers, but it strikes us as a bit of a coincidence.
All of these were filed under the category type ‘credit, KYC – this is defined as follows:
KYC – Events that enable the verification of the identity of a company and allow assessment of potential risks of illegal intentions for the business relationship. Company events within in this category might support a risk review of a counterparty.
https://opencorporates.com/legal/glossary#event-category
Now we’re an independent site with few resources compared to the big media sites out there to get all of this fully investigated, so perhaps some smarter folks than us can tell us if we’re misinterpreting the data here, and we’re happy to admit we could be wrong.
What do you think? Is this a case of us not understanding standard procedure and there’s nothing here? Or do you think where there is smoke – there is fire?
Let us know in the comments below.
:v
So, what about when Bungie was with Activision? I seem to remember that Bungie signed a ten-year deal with Activision in 2010…
sony not activision
Don’t make a girl a promise if you know you can’t keep it, I dare you papa phil.
Great article, but Bungie could be acquire by Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Tencent or even Sony.
Their relationship with sony kind of went sour because of Activision.
Plus, if they just strike a deal like Mojang did, with their games still being multiplatform, it would be quite profitable.
I think it could Tencent. It invested a lot of money in Bungie when it separated from Activision. Plus, Bungie going to MS doesn’t make sense. Halo and Destiny would just compete with each other, which means one of those games doesn’t see as much attention. Destiny would be that game. Bungie would probably go back to Halo. Bungie separating from Activision meant they didn’t want to be under anyone. They want total control over what they do and what they put out.
That being said I could see Sony buying them if Bungie really wanted to be under another company. Sony would have its version of Halo. Plus, Sony has spent a lot of money on Destiny for timed content.
Did u check other companies. Like Sega
Thats not real at why would a company go back to where it started you gotta be stupid or greedy to go back to Microsoft
Both are different from when they departed.
Or going back to were your most successful games you ever made as a company happened
Not hard for the tweet to be true if there was only one set of talks and a deal was reached (to be announced after Beyond Light).
That’s just the day Bungie made the deal to go onto gamepass
That’s just the date Bungie made the deal to be added to game pass
So… where’s the evidence that Microsoft would be the one acquiring them? The first rumor that was directly denied doesn’t count. “The companies are different now” lmao
Is it just me or did the thing Pete said was false that the deal kept falling through? The tweet says the rumor was that they were in talks but Bungie wanted to much. So Pete saying that was false doesn’t necessarily mean the acquisition rumor is false maybe just that the reason no deal has been made is false?
What the tweet could also mean is that the acquisition didn’t fall through. There are several things that “This is false” could mean. One of those options is that the acquisition didn’t fall through, but in fact was signed and agreed upon.
Ugh, you must be one of those alarmist, I cannot call you a journalist.
Pete Parsons has already said on Twitter in the most strongest way, that the Microsoft purchase rumours are not true and Bunjie is not up for sale and/or acquisition.
He replied to a Tweet stating that acquisition talks fell through because Bungie would be too expensive. To that he responded “This is false.” It could be that the too expensive part is false, but the acquisition part can still be true.
Make of that what you will.
ps: Pete Parsons owns Bunjie.
Pete is the CEO (chief executive officer), not owner. Bungie has multiple stake holders.
https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/5539684
https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/2353224
Also, you should know that Chinese video game conglomerate NetEase had invested $100 million into Bungie in 2018, in exchange for a minority stake in the company and a seat on the company’s board of directors.
I’m a lawyer. Literally every corporation has one of these services under contract. This is meaningless.
You should have at least asked reddit before you posted this.
Corporation Services Company is a business that merely accepts legal documents for businesses. This is mostly to keep process servers or sheriff deputies from coming to the actual business and serving them. This could be a case where the board decided to change to CSC instead of an on-site officer.
The fact this “Corporation Service Company” appears under the company events of Bungie and all the others doesn’t tell much, actually. Nor does the fact that a “agent for service of process” was appointed, either.
The appointment of this “agent for service of process” is required not only when a company gets acquired, but for pretty much the entire lifespan of the business. It’s just a person who acts as a legal representative, and is responsible for making sure companies are properly notified of lawsuits filed against them. Also, it doesn’t mean that any of these companies were actually sued; the person just needs to be there, regardless.
This “Corporation Service Company” that appears all over the place just happens to be one that offers this “agent for service of process” for these studios. If you keep searching, you’ll probably find this “addition of Corporation Service Company, agent” under a whole bunch of other companies’ events and, really, it couldn’t be more generic.
In fact, I did just that and searched for “officers” named “Corporation Service Company” at OpenCorporate and got a whopping 1,776,242 results. There you have it.
So, to sum it up, sorry, but you can’t draw a conclusion that Bungie (or any other company) is getting acquired just because such a generic event appeared under their records.