skimming that contract, activision has first right of negotiation on any future destiny content. is that normal for a a partnership like this?
yeah, when they've funded the IP from scratch but are agreeing not to own the IP this is highly traditional, that's why you get a lot of IP kludges both not only in gaming but very often in Hollywood
a lot of those film sequels/reboots you hear about being worked on that suddenly disappear for a decade or more are often due to this kind of situation, a studio will use its right of first refusal to "acquire" the film, then can it because even though they've been burned on the IP, they don't want anyone else to have it...Spider-Man was this way until Sony grabbed it and sorta is this way again regarding his MCU appearances, Ghost Rider I believe exists in this nebulous situation where the owner would never again want to make those after the Nic Cage films, but they don't want them to revert to Marvel either out of fear that it might work out for them
gaming is a bit different because a large segment of gamers in general are so well tuned in to the developers versus merely the franchises, you get some of that with actors/directors in films, but it's far more niche, way more people know about BUNGIE or BIOWARE or VOLITION or whoever that they have a bit more leverage than directors often do (just look at everything del Toro attempts to make)
one other way gaming is unique is a situation like where Sierra gets bought by somebody and then goes defunct, or Interplay where the whole company goes defunct except for a file cabinet full of IPs somewhere...Hollywood has much more of a system in place to "free" these rights back up whereas gaming is more likely to just go "okay, it's a SPIRITUAL SEQUEL"
in this case, Activision probably does not want Bungie taking
Destiny to EA or Ubisoft, but if Bungie goes back to Microsoft or tries something with THQ Nordic or other smaller publisher, Activision may just ask for a small cut of royalties to end the first right of refusal
all of this is without me rechecking the contract to see if that right expires with the agreement, often it's written to be perpetual