Hanging on one wall is a framed comic strip, perhaps there as a reminder about why Bungie recently took some significant risks in ending a comfortable relationship with its former parent company, Microsoft.  The strip depicts a level of "development hell" and shows three Bungie employees, surrounded by flames and taking orders from a hideous alien, who barks, "The Demo will be completed by E3!" The panel's header reads: "Level 14: Forced to create Halo game after Halo game."  Bungie split from Microsoft in 2007, shortly after the release of "Halo 3" for the Xbox 360. Even so, the company still developed two more games for Microsoft, all "Halo" affairs. Microsoft, which acquired Bungie in 2000 to help launch its first home game console, has invested a minority stake in the new independent Bungie.  The longtime partners had "forged a deep and long-term development and publishing relationship," Bungie said in a 2007 statement. Harold Ryan, Bungie's studio head, also said in a statement then that developing for Microsoft platforms was his "primary focus."  But those agreements are mostly coming to an end. And within the next few years, Microsoft will find itself competing directly with a new game from its former golden goose.  "Bungie was a fantastic developer," said Kevin Unangst, a senior director for Microsoft Game Studios. "They built a number of great 'Halo' games for us."  With the goose gone, Microsoft is now trying to clone its golden eggs. The company has given Frank O'Connor, a former community evangelist for Bungie, the keys to the machine.  Microsoft installed O'Connor as the public face of 343 Industries, a subsidiary that takes its name from an untrustworthy character in "Halo." As the franchise development director, his job is to shepherd new "Halo" games and an endless supply of ancillary products, such as a best-selling novel, "Halo: Cryptum," and an upcoming Marvel comic-book series.  Waiting on a new 'Halo' game
Working from a new home base in a converted movie theater, the developers of Bungie are toiling away on their next video game, one that will have nothing to do with the franchise that put them on