Today was announced the death of an independent company. Bungie Corp was bought by Microsoft, who seems intent of making them an independent subsidiary making games for their new game console, the Xbox. Halo will certainly be ported to the Xbox, while Myth and Oni have been sold to Take-Two Interactive in return for their 19% share of Bungie.

What does this mean for people? Certainly, we won't see Halo ported to any competing game consoles, such as Playstation -- at least not until Xbox either establishes itself or fails in the marketplace. Mac versions of Halo and future Bungie products may or may not be made. Microsoft hasn't stopped its game writers from developing for the Mac.

The biggest thing I think will be a certain loss of innovation. When you work for a big company there are certain products that just won't be made. I think there is more of a focus on the bottom line than on expanding frontiers, especially when expanding frontiers doesn't help any of the other product lines.

What I really don't like was the fact that this deal was done by choice. Bungie is privately owned, the two owners didn't have to sell out. To me that seems a bit of a betrayal, as I've always admired Bungie for putting out some of the great Mac games. I suppose they have their own good reasons for doing this, but it is personally disappointing.

On another "big company buying little company" note, Wizards of the Coast has signed a letter of intent to buy Last Unicorn Games, publishers of a line of Star Trek and Dune role-playing games. I think WotC is only doing this to get the Star Trek license, as they already have the Star Wars license.

I'm not too sure what they're going to do with the current Star Trek RPG. Although it's won some gaming awards and seems to be well-respected, I would think that WotC would want to publish a Star Trek RPG under their own rules system, some sort of Alternity derivative, although that's pure speculation.

Maybe I'm just being too negative. Certainly, I would have been happier if these companies had been bought out by other companies I like, even if that would mean great changes. For Bungie, I don't know any good game companies that could afford to buy them. For Last Unicorn Games, it's much the same, although it would be nice if it had been FASA or Steve Jackson Games. But WotC is the only big RPG company out there, other game companies don't make their money from RPGs.

On the bright side, there is an opportunity for these small companies. Now they have a big company to help finance them, especially with marketing and selling their products to distributors. It's easier to get more resources if your products warrant it. It's mostly more infrastructure support, which is what most small companies lack.

Gosh, I would like to see LUG actually put out more Star Trek supplements. Especially adventure modules like volumes 2 and 3 of the Neutral Zone Campaign. Better and more organized web site and support would also be nice. The material quality of their products is top notch, and hopefully that won't be sacrificed. More support from the big RPG industry gorilla might mean more sales, and maybe better pay for some deserving designers.

People don't like to see a company they like being purchased by a company they don't care for. And people naturally assume the worst. But that is what seems to happen. Companies rarely buy other companies for the total package, they just want a few things. And yet keeping what they want and changing the rest usually ends up making the products "worse" to the consumer. Only time will tell if this will be the case for Bungie and Last Unicorn Games.