New massive Bungie layoff: 220 employees terminated
Destiny 2 and Marathon developer Bungie has announced new restructuring plans, with the Bungie layoff affecting 17% of its workforce.
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Pete Parsons, CEO of Bungie Software Products Corporation, announced on the official Bungie website that the company is going through changes. He stated that 220 employees will be leaving, constituting about 17% of Bungie’s workforce. Parsons explained that this decision was due to higher development costs and economic challenges.
Bungie layoff threatens the company’s existence
This is not the first Bungie layoff, as the company already laid off 100 employees last year. These layoffs may cause delays in Bungie’s current projects: Destiny 2 and Marathon. The Destiny 2 team however claims that they will not face any problems with the schedules.
Parsons revealed that the layoff impacted employees at various levels. Senior narrative designer for Destiny 2, Robert Brooks, and narrative lead for The Final Shape expansion, Kwan Perng, are among the hundreds affected.
They and many others have expressed their feelings on social media:
You can see how those affected by the layoff react to the news. Some of them learned about this decision not from the company but from friends and family as the news spread on social media.
Bungie is also integrating 155 people into Sony Interactive Entertainment, reducing its workforce to 850 employees from 1300 before the first layoff. Given that it has happened twice already, there are no guarantees that the company won’t reduce its numbers again.
Why did the Bungie layoff happen again?
Parsons claims that the company had ambitions far beyond what was feasible. In the official statement, he explains that Bungie was rapidly expanding while relying mainly on its two major projects for revenue. The other projects also required investment, but the company was already stretched thin.
He also was worried about the quality of Destiny and Marathon content. He said that the company was struggling financially to support the main games.
These layoffs aim to terminate some of the most costly projects Bungie was working on to focus on their main titles. However, this reasoning is questionable. According to a report by Newzo, Destiny 2 ranked fifth in revenue generation for June 2024, outperforming major titles like Valorant, Diablo IV, GTA V, and Roblox.
This statement from Parsons specifically is being called hypocritical. While the company has struggled to make a profit Pete Parsons has purchased over 20 cars in auctions. The estimated worth of those cars is around $2.6 million. Those purchases started after Sony made a deal with Bungie. He also bought cars during the first layoff. We know this information from his personal account on Online Auction Website Bring a Trailer. This is only what we know from this website, he might own more cars that he bought outside of this platform.
It makes people question if the company is struggling, or if the money is getting invested into Parsons’s automobile collection.
The community doesn’t seem very shocked by the layoff itself, as this has happened before and the company hasn’t changed much in its operations since. However, the scale of this layoff is what truly surprises people.
Some people call for Pete Parsons to be fired, with backlash primarily focused on his decisions as CEO. His image was further damaged when his Twitter account went private after releasing the official statement. Although he later made his account public again, it shows he anticipated the community’s negative reaction.
Sony’s possible involvement
In discussions about Bungie’s future, we can’t ignore the deal made with Sony. After the first layoffs, anonymous sources from the company discussed the current relationship between Sony and Bungie. Bungie must meet certain financial standards to remain independent from Sony’s complete control.
Sony, also being a controversial company, appears to be very keen on fully integrating Bungie. They are helping Bungie incorporate 155 employees into its various departments. And they are also forming a new studio with Bungie to work on an unnamed action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe.
It is rumored that Hermen Hulst, the CEO of PlayStation Studios, now runs Bungie and is steering it towards full integration with Sony. Layoffs are the first step in this plan.
Conclusion
As it currently stands, it’s a major hit to Bungie’s production capabilities. The trust between the company and the fanbase will also definitely suffer. For now, it looks like Sony is slowly integrating Bungie, and more layoffs may occur. However, this could also be a turning point for the company, allowing it to start fresh.
Comments
Thats lame asf !!