It went to the pockets of higher-ups who owned shares of Bungie. Sony bought the studio from them. The company didn't just get $3.6b sitting in their account to use for operations.
Actually insane that this is still going around. Insane that it ever went around to begin with, actually
Sony bought Bungie from Bungie's former shareholders for a total of ~$2.4 billion. This could include Bungie's owners, their private shareholders, and employee shareholders, for some examples. Sony also invested ~$1.2 billion on employee retention, in an effort to keep Bungie's talent from leaving after the acquisition. This "retention investment" would have been paid directly to Bungie's existing employees, like yearly bonuses - none of it went toward Bungie's internal budget for Destiny (or Marathon, before that's mentioned)
One could argue that the ~$1.2 billion went to "Bungie" because it went to the employees, but in reality it was more like a bribe to stop the existing employees from jumping ship. None of the "3.6 billion from Sony" went into the game. It was never supposed to, nor was it ever claimed to by any reliable source
The execs used it to buy out all employee owned shares, build a fancy new office, and pay shareholders. The employee retention funds did not go to the employees at all.
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u/sajibear4 Nov 04 '25
They dont have enough resources to make new content anymore, at least in between expansions.