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Evidently Kotick flashed a massive amount of zeros at Bungie heads and a 10 year agreement has been made. O lawd how long will it be before Bungie fall apart?

If you had actually read the article you saw in your Kotaku RSS feed, you would see that Bungie is only partnering with Activision on a per-IP basis. Currently, they are partnering for one IP.
So yeah, Bungie did learn. They saw how a crapton of funding can turn a relatively good game into the hottest thing since sliced bread, and Activision is one of the few publishers with the cash to finance a MW2 killer.
To summarize: Activision does not own Bungie. Activision just owns half the rights to one IP. So if Bungie makes Marathon 4, it might not be with Activision. if Bungie makes "GAME THEY ARE MAKING AFTER HALO", it will be funded by Activision.

nice move from activision. they practically lost the IW but got bungie. thank god it is just publishing deal so it seems activision is going handle the boring part of making a game aka arranging physical production of the game (cds manuals etc.) marketing, shipping, retail agreements.
Bungie on other hand will do what they want to do.
Situation is completely different than IW. But 10 year contract. wow. Risky maneuver. wonder why. Maybe they (activision) was desperate enough and got them very nice cut from each sale, better than EA partners.

It is also worth remembering: EA does something similar to this for Valve. Valve largely fund themselves these days, but all the retail copies (at least, last time I bought a Valve game at retail :p) are printed and distributed by EA.
Not quite the same, but it is also really not unheard of.
In fact, this sounds almost exactly like what Valve and EA have. Activision will handle all distribution (so dealing with MS, Nintendo, Sony, and probably Valve :p), Bungie will make the game and probably pay back the money they have to borrow to finance it.
Don't let the title of the article (or thread...) mislead you. That is kind of what Kotaku was going for (lots of hits).

man...
i recommend checking the bungie forums. they are freaking out and who can blame them. IW is being slaughter and ripped to shreds and they couldn't at least wait a month, just to see how everything turns out and how Activision results the bonuses issues (which will have a huge impact on bungie even if they are independent)?
I. AM. HAVING. A. BLAST!!
the whole situation is so much fun. bungie joining activision spices it even more!

Bungie have never done anything that has interested me in the slightest so it could be worse. But yes, it will be interesting to see how Activision manage to balls this one up considering the deal leaves them with no direct control over Bungie itself.

Knowing what Kot means in German, this makes some jokes like the name fits the person...

exactly.
what bungie is doing is probably exactly the same what IW did at the beginning.
The difference is that IW was 'poor' while bungie should swim in lots of money right now and just wanna concentrate on making games not on publishing. so they don't need activision. it is just more cost effective.
the 10 year contract is troublesome tough. a decade. 2020? that's awfully a lot.

Again, you realize Valve has basically the same deal with EA? They are going strong.
Or are we always assuming that the worst possible outcome will occur? If that is the case, we better go warn Bungie. They might be in a talk with Activision at this very moment! I mean, you do remember that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor during diplomatic negotiations, right? :p
Seriously, rather than run around like chickens with our heads cut off, let's wait and see. There are some good precedents, and some bad ones. When Valve made their deal with EA, EA was still the big bad wolf.
Simply put, it is very common for larger dev teams to make partnerships on per-IP basises with publishers. It doesn't mean that publisher owns them, it just means they are willing to fund things and distribute things for a slice of the pie. And honestly, Bungie are probably going to be baking a freaky huge pie. The only thing they have ever really failed at (level design) is pretty much ignored these days anyway (seriously, compare the level design of Unreal to Gears of War), so that makes them one of the best.
Hell, isn't CD Projekt currently working on getting a publisher/distributor for The Witcher 2? :p.
Don't let yourself get fooled. Kotaku put a very buzz-worthy title on there. They spun the hell out of that article before anyone ever read it. Hell, I bet half the idiots at the Bungie forums never did. But if you DO read it, it really isn't that bad.

I could never get into Halo, but the rts they made i thought was probably one of the better console rts's. It was a blast in multiplayer anyway, especially when i won and it helped to heal my deep psychological wounds of having 12 year old kids teabag me in Halo 3.
*sob*
(it's an ongoing process...)

I see here we go again, Gundato to play devil's advocate. There is a huge difference between a publishing deal (EA/Valve & CD Projekt/Atari) and a strategic partnership that has been set in stone for 10 years.
AS Lukaszthegreat said the only difference here between Bungie and IW is that IW were just starting up at the time and needed money. Activision still has it's claws in Bungie just not as deep but thats not to say that a publisher as smart as Activision will not see this as the first stepping stone on the way to a full acquisition.

Around Christmas 2011 we should see true result of the partnership. first game from bungie should be coming around then. we should hear stories if activision intervenes in the process of making the game or will try to force its own system on bungie.

Actually Valve is not a publicly owned company and is self-funded. EA only handles distribution of physical copies for which they receive part of the overall profit made from that medium.

Activision is better than Microsoft for me. Yes, Activision is evil but Micro$oft is really evil.
Edit: Hey, I didn't use BOLD but my post is bold. :P