Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company located in Bellevue, Washington. It is owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was started in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later invited programmer Jason Jones to join after publishing Jones's game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete. Bungie was first based in Chicago, Illinois, and focused on creating games for Macintosh computers during its early years. It developed two successful game series called Marathon and Myth. A separate studio, Bungie West, created the game Oni, which was released in 2001 and owned by Take-Two Interactive, which held a 19.9% share in the company at that time.

In 2000, Microsoft bought Bungie. A game project called Halo: Combat Evolved was changed to become a launch game for Microsoft's Xbox console. Halo became the Xbox's most popular game, selling millions of copies and leading to the creation of the Halo game series. On October 5, 2007, Bungie announced it had separated from Microsoft and became an independent, privately owned company called Bungie LLC. Microsoft kept the rights to the Halo franchise. In April 2010, Bungie signed a ten-year agreement with Activision to publish its games. The first game released under this deal was the 2014 first-person shooter Destiny, followed by Destiny 2 in 2017. In January 2019, Bungie ended its partnership with Activision and began publishing Destiny games itself.

Sony Interactive Entertainment completed its purchase of Bungie in July 2022. Bungie continues to operate as a studio that creates games for multiple platforms and publishes its own games.

Bungie also runs Bungie.net, the company's website. This site includes information about the company, discussion forums, and tools to track game statistics. It is used to sell merchandise related to Bungie, as well as to manage other projects, such as Bungie Aerospace, a nonprofit group called The Bungie Foundation, a podcast, and online articles about video games.

History

In the early 1990s, Alex Seropian was studying mathematics at the University of Chicago because the university did not offer undergraduate degrees in computer science. Before graduating, Seropian lived at home, and his father encouraged him to get a job. This led Seropian to start his own game company instead.

Seropian’s first video game was a copy of Pong, a classic game from the 1970s. He named his game Gnop!, which is Pong spelled backward. The game was created in 1990, about a year before Bungie’s official founding. It was released under the Bungie name and is considered Bungie’s first game. Seropian gave the game away for free but sold the game’s source code for $15. Gnop! later appeared in several collections of early Bungie games, such as the Marathon Trilogy Box Set and the Mac Action Sack.

Seropian officially started Bungie Software Products Corporation in May 1991 to publish Operation: Desert Storm. He gathered money from friends and family, and he made the game boxes and wrote the disks himself. Operation: Desert Storm sold 2,500 copies, and Seropian looked for another game to publish.

Seropian met Jason Jones in an artificial intelligence class at the University of Chicago. Jones was a programmer who was updating a game he created, called Minotaur, to work on Macintosh computers. Jones said, “I didn’t really know Alex in the class. I think he thought I was rude because I had a fancy computer.” Seropian and Jones worked together to release Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete in 1992. Jones handled the coding, while Seropian managed the design and promotion. The game used internet modems and AppleTalk connections, which were uncommon at the time, and sold about 2,500 copies. It gained a loyal fan base. Both Seropian and Jones are considered co-founders of Bungie.

The team focused on Macintosh computers instead of Windows-based computers because the Mac market was more open, and Jones was familiar with the platform. Jones handled most of the creative and technical work, while Seropian focused on business and marketing. Jones said, “What I liked about Alex was that he never wasted any money.” With no money to hire others, Seropian and Jones made the game boxes by hand in his apartment. Although they had little money and Seropian’s wife supported him financially, the success of Minotaur gave them enough funds to work on another project.

Inspired by the game Wolfenstein 3D, Jones created a 3D game engine for the Mac. Bungie’s next project was meant to be a 3D version of Minotaur, but the team decided that Minotaur’s gameplay style did not work well in 3D. Instead, they created a new story for a first-person shooter game called Pathways into Darkness, released in 1993. Jones coded the game, and his friend Colin Brent designed the artwork. The game was critically and commercially successful, winning awards such as Inside Mac Games’ “Adventure Game of the Year” and Macworld’s “Best Role-Playing Game.”

Pathways into Darkness exceeded sales expectations and became Bungie’s first major commercial success. Bungie moved from a one-bedroom apartment to a studio in Chicago’s South Side on South Halsted Street. In May 1994, Doug Zartman joined Bungie as their first full-time employee to support Pathways but later became their public relations person. Zartman helped shape Bungie’s playful and irreverent style. Bungie’s composer, Martin O’Donnell, described the studio’s location—a former girls’ school next to a crack house—as smelling like “a frat house after a really long weekend,” similar to the setting in the Silent Hill horror games.

Bungie’s next project began as a sequel to Pathways into Darkness but evolved into a futuristic first-person shooter called Marathon. Pathways had taught Bungie the importance of storytelling in games, and Marathon included computer terminals where players could explore the game’s fiction. The studio became known as a typical small game company, with employees eating a lot of pizza and drinking a lot of Coke while working long hours.

After showing Marathon at the Macworld Expo, Bungie received a lot of interest and orders for the game. The game was not completed until December 14, 1994. Jones and some employees spent a day in a warehouse assembling boxes to fulfill some orders before Christmas. Marathon was a critical and commercial success and is considered an important but lesser-known part of gaming history. It was the Mac version of games like Doom and System Shock, which were only available on DOS computers. The high demand for Marathon forced Bungie to hire another company to handle the thousands of orders. Marathon also brought Bungie attention from media outside the Mac gaming community.

The success of Marathon led to a sequel, Marathon 2: Durandal. The series introduced features like cooperative mode, which later appeared in other Bungie games. Marathon 2 was released on November 24, 1995, and sold more copies than its predecessor. When Bungie announced plans to port the game to Windows 95, many Mac players felt upset, and Bungie received many negative messages. Seropian believed expanding into new markets was important, even though he was unhappy with the terms of the deals. Marathon was released on Windows 95 in September 1996. Marathon Infinity followed in 1997.

After Marathon, Bungie shifted focus to release a strategy game called Myth: The Fallen Lords. Unlike other strategy games that focused on gathering resources, Myth emphasized managing units in battle. The Myth games won awards and built a large online community. Myth: The Fallen Lords was the first Bungie game released on both Mac and Windows platforms.

The success of Myth allowed Bungie to move offices in Chicago and open a branch in San Jose, California, called Bungie West, in 1997. Bungie West’s only game was Oni, an action game for Mac, PC, and PlayStation 2.

In 1999, Bungie announced Halo: Combat Evolved, a game originally planned for Windows and Macintosh. Halo’s public introduction happened during Apple’s keynote speech at the Macworld Expo 1999, led by Steve Jobs.

On June 19, 2000, on the ninth anniversary of Bungie’s founding, Microsoft announced it had acquired Bungie, making it part of Microsoft’s Game Division. Halo would be developed as an exclusive first-person shooter for the Xbox. Reasons for accepting Microsoft’s offer varied. Jones said, “I don’t remember the details exactly, but we had been talking to companies for years. The chance to work on

Bungie.net

Bungie.net is the main website where Bungie employees and fans of Bungie's games can interact. When Microsoft bought Bungie, the website was considered to compete with Microsoft's Xbox.com. However, managing the community became more important than competition. The site has been redesigned many times.

During Bungie's work on the Halo game series, the website tracked statistics for each game played. This included details about each player's performance and maps showing where players scored kills, called "heatmaps." On January 31, 2012, Bungie announced that starting March 31, 2012, the website would no longer update Halo game statistics, manage player records, host new fan-created Halo content, or operate Halo's "Bungie Pro" service. By March 31, 2012, all Halo data was transferred to 343 Industries. Today, Bungie.net tracks player statistics for its game Destiny. It also manages player accounts and acts as a way for Bungie to share information with fans.

In the past, Bungie allowed fans to gather and discuss games on its website, and shared news and images. However, it did not focus much on sharing details about how the company and its employees worked. To connect better with fans, Bungie invited well-known and respected members of the fan community, such as writers Luke Smith and Eric Osborne, to help with communication.

Bungie also offers an iOS and Google Play app that provides news, helps manage game items, and connects players to groups for its game Destiny.

Culture

Martin O'Donnell said Bungie's workplace culture is "a little funny and not too serious, and not focused on being a big company or following strict rules." Artist Shi Kai Wang said when he visited Bungie for an interview, he realized he was dressed more formally than the team, and he knew he wanted to work there. Frank O'Connor, who manages content and hosts podcasts at Bungie, joked that at a GameStop conference, the Bungie team was told to wear business casual clothing, but O'Connor said, "We don't do business casual."

This creative and informal culture interested Microsoft when it considered buying Bungie. However, game designer Jordan Weisman said Microsoft nearly damaged Bungie's creative style, similar to how it affected another company called FASA Studio. Studio head Harold Ryan explained that even after Microsoft bought Bungie, the team remained independent.

In 2007, Microsoft moved Bungie's office to Kirkland, Washington, and the company restarted as Bungie, Inc. Despite this, financial analyst Roger Ehrenberg said the partnership between Bungie and Microsoft was likely to fail because of their different styles. Bungie also said it was tired of working on the Halo game series instead of creating new ideas. A magazine called Edge described Bungie employees as "funny and very loyal; always ready to criticize themselves and their work; excited about the company's successes, no matter how small; and often hired from the company's fan group."

Bungie's workplace is very informal, and employees of all experience levels are encouraged to share ideas and challenge each other about important parts of game design. Employees can openly criticize their own games and each other. To build teamwork and friendly competition, Bungie holds events like the "Bungie Pentathlon," where teams play games such as Halo, Pictionary, Dance Dance Revolution, and Rock Band. Bungie also played against professional eSports teams and other game studios in Halo during events called "Humpdays," and the results were shared online.

Bungie employees and fans, known as the "Seventh Column," have worked together to support charity and other causes. After Hurricane Katrina, Bungie donated money from special T-shirts to the American Red Cross. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Bungie sold "Be a Hero" T-shirts and gave money to the Red Cross for every Halo 3 or ODST player who wore a special emblem on Xbox Live. Other charity work included selling a painting by O'Connor, auctioning a Halo 2 soda machine from Bungie's office, and helping with Child's Play charity events. In 2011, Bungie created a nonprofit organization called the Bungie Foundation.

In December 2021, IGN reported that some former and current Bungie employees said the workplace had issues with a culture that favored men and long working hours that were unfair to women since around 2011. However, the company said it had been working to improve these problems and had let go of most people mentioned in the report. Parsons, a leader at Bungie, said the company was committed to improving the workplace and apologized to anyone who had not felt safe, fair, or treated professionally at Bungie. He also mentioned efforts to reduce a "rockstar" attitude that might exist at the studio.

Games developed

Bungie has created its own game engine. The engine was first called the Blam Engine and was used for the Halo games. Later, it was changed a lot and renamed the Tiger Engine for the Destiny game.

Legal issues

In 2021, Bungie filed a lawsuit against AimJunkies, a company owned by Phoenix Digital, for selling software that allowed cheating in the game Destiny 2. Bungie claimed AimJunkies violated copyright laws, broke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and sold software that broke the DMCA. The initial claims were dismissed, but a revised lawsuit allowed the case to continue. AimJunkies tried to sue Bungie, claiming Bungie had hacked into the computer of the person who created the cheating software. These claims were dismissed in 2022. During the trial, Judge Thomas Samuel Zilly ruled that Bungie did not have enough evidence to support the DMCA and trafficking claims, sending those issues to arbitration. In arbitration, Bungie was awarded $4.3 million in damages. The copyright claims went to a jury trial, which ruled in favor of Bungie in May 2024. Although Bungie received about $63,000, the case was considered important because it was the first time a jury ruled on a lawsuit involving cheating software in a video game. AimJunkies said it would appeal both the arbitration and trial decisions.

In October 2024, Kelsey Martineau sued Bungie in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, claiming that the "Red War" story from Destiny 2’s launch was taken from a work he wrote on WordPress in 2013 and 2014. Bungie removed the "Red War" content and tried to prove it was different from Martineau’s work by submitting YouTube videos and pages from a Destiny fan wiki. Judge Susie Morgan ruled in May 2025 that these materials could not be used to support Bungie’s argument, allowing the case to continue. By November 2025, both parties agreed to a settlement with terms that were not made public.

There have been four known cases where independent artists discovered their work used by Bungie in its games without permission or knowledge.

• In 2021, a Destiny 2 cutscene included artwork created by online artist Mal E in 2020. Bungie contacted Mal E, confirmed permission, and credited the artist in the game.
• In 2023, artist Julian Faylona found that an image in a Destiny 2 cutscene closely resembled artwork they had created in 2020. Bungie stated the cutscene was made by one of its support studios and worked to properly compensate Faylona.
• When Bungie partnered with Nerf to release a Nerf Ace of Spades gun based on the weapon used by the character Cayde-6, artist Tofu_Rabbit noticed that the Nerf design used similar art elements from their 2015 work, including color changes and details like smudges and scratches. Bungie confirmed the design was made by Nerf and worked to credit Tofu_Rabbit and provide compensation.
• In May 2025, artist Antireal found that artwork she created in 2017 was used in the 2025 game Marathon after its first open beta. Bungie investigated, confirmed a former art developer had used the artwork without permission, and promised to work with Antireal to correct the issue and evaluate all art assets in Marathon for originality.

Related companies

Many employees from Bungie have left the company to start their own game studios. Double Aught was a company that did not last long and was made up of former Bungie team members. It was started by Greg Kirkpatrick. Seropian left Bungie to start Wideload Games, which created the game Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse. Later, he co-founded Industrial Toys. Other companies include Giant Bite, started by Hamilton Chu, who was a producer on Halo and Oni, and Michael Evans, who was the project lead on Oni. Another company is Certain Affinity, started by Max Hoberman, who led the design of multiplayer features for Halo 2 and Halo 3. Certain Affinity’s team included former Bungie employees David Bowman and Chad Armstrong, who later returned to Bungie. The studio worked with Bungie to release the last two downloadable maps for Halo 2 and the downloadable Defiant Map Pack for Halo: Reach. 343 Industries, a game studio started by Microsoft to take care of the Halo series after the release of Halo: Reach, includes a few former Bungie employees, such as Frank O’Connor. In 2015, longtime Bungie employee Martin O’Donnell started a new game studio called Highwire Games. In 2016, former Bungie CEO and studio head Harold Ryan started a new game studio called ProbablyMonsters.