If you are thinking Microsoft gave Bungie whatever they wanted and bent over backwards for them, that is really really wrong. It was pretty rocky even from the start. Ed Fries was pretty instrumental in making sure Microsoft didn't interfere. Believe me, they wanted to at times.

~R.I.P Stan Lee~

With MS, Bungie had creative freedom. They were going to put out a hit regardless, and so (crunch and deadlines aside), were given free reign with regards to creative expression.

This is kind of true, but it's not so cut and dry. Microsoft really didn't like Bungie for a number of reasons. If they thought they could have had someone else make Halo and have it succeed, they would have. But they believed only Bungie could do it. Bungie convinced Microsoft of this well enough through a bit of deception in hindsight, but it was ultimately the truth in my opinion.

If you are thinking Microsoft gave Bungie whatever they wanted and bent over backwards for them, that is really really wrong. It was pretty rocky even from the start. Ed Fries was pretty instrumental in making sure Microsoft didn't interfere. Believe me, they wanted to at times.

While parts of this have already been discussed here, Mr. Schreier here has apparently provided another glance behind the business curtain, this time at Blizzard. I bring it up, as I think it also gives indirect reasonings to what is being done at Bungie, as I presume the pressures being mounted on Bungie are more or less the same as Blizzard.

So many moving parts, so little time.

A lot in this article reminds me of what cheapLEY and I have discussed in our recent talks, with regards to Microsoft-owned Bungie, and Activision-serving Bungie.

With MS, Bungie had creative freedom. They were going to put out a hit regardless, and so (crunch and deadlines aside), were given free reign with regards to creative expression.

But with Activision, it's not enough to make a hit; they publish a lot of hits. What they and their shareholders demand is a mega-hit. It's growth, and an ongoing influx of profit.

Microsoft was happy with making a ton of money, but Activision wants all the money, and Destiny+Eververse aren't delivering, so Bungie needs to be held over the coals, and so this gets scrapped, that team is relocated, these resources get reallocated, this guy gets fired, so on and so forth...

It's really interesting to see this going on with one of Activision's darlings (Blizzard), and does really put a perspective on Bungie's end, as the Annual Pass is obviously a dumbing down of any ambitious content in favor of smaller, more profitable and frequent bits from Bungie without technically crossing over to full-on "pay for weapons" territory. I doubt it's gonna go over well with reviewers.

So many moving parts, so little time.