More than one time in the past, fans of Bungie have implored the company to step in and rescue a game title or company in financial trouble. Bungie's Matt Soell was kind enough to reply in our forum to one such plea regarding Looking Glass:

We don't make a practice of buying games when the companies making them go out of business or cancel the project. We've got our hands full with our own release schedule; if we tried to pick up someone else's project without having the resources to do it right, utter chaos would result. There are a lot of fans of the Thief and System Shock games here at Bungie. It's sad to see them go.

So there you have it. After all, you wouldn't want to see Thief 2 saved at, say, the cost of delaying Halo, would you?