Destiny
Bungie announced yesterday it would lay off 220 employees, 17% of the company, move 155 to roles within Sony Interactive Entertainment and take ~40 or so and create a new sub-studio under Sony for a new game.
It’s a decimation of the company which comes after 100+ layoffs late last year. The reaction was sorrow, but also unbridled rage mainly directed at Bungie leadership, namely Bungie CEO Pete Parsons where it was dug up that he allegedly has spent $2.5 million on classic cars since the Sony deal according to an online auction website.
The message announcing the layoffs, written by Parsons himself, says that 850 people are still working on Destiny and Marathon, and depending on the Marathon team size, that’s likely around half the number of people working on Destiny, the live service game that demands constant additions, compared to a couple years ago.
The move has drawn widespread rage from essentially all observers, and those directly in the line of fire. While it’s true that many video game publishers and developers have had layoffs, Bungie has now fired essentially a quarter of the company within the last year, and it seems like a unique situation of mismanagement for which no one responsible is…being held responsible.
There are likely many different decisions that led to this point, but something even the Parsons message acknowledged was that Bungie was spread too thin, creating the largest volume of Destiny content the game has seen while simultaneously spooling up Marathon for a 2025 release. Then, a number of other incubated projects on top of all that. It was too much, as leadership wanted Bungie to be Blizzard or BioWare with a number of huge, high profile series running simultaneously, but clearly there was no plan in place to actually make that work. Those companies also did not have live services like Destiny to constantly manage.
Former employees have blasted Parsons, with former social media lead Griffin Bennett calling on him to step down:
“C-Suite taking accountability for any of this or still just “withholding bonuses” and it’ll be “settled in-house”? Poor leadership has crushed one of the greatest developers of all time. Retire, Pete.”
It also drew lengthy condemnation from former community manager Liana Ruppert, who has been vocal about her and her coworkers’ mistreatment since the last round of layoffs. She directed this at Parsons:
“You are a liar, a thief, and so many things we can’t discuss publicly. STEP DOWN and WITHOUT the giant Sony payout. This isn’t on Sony, this is squarely on the failure of leadership. Plain and simple.”
Even current community manager DMG, who recently returned to the company, did not hold back about the situation:
“Inexcusable. Industry leading talent being lost, yet again. Accountability falling upon the workers who have pushed the needle to deliver for our community time and time again.”
All of this is doubly frustrating given that there was no recent large-scale “failure” that can be blamed for this. Bungie worked tirelessly to release The Final Shape, which ended up being its best expansion to date and delivered on every front. But the reality appears to be that this course was always set, and there was no reasonable level of performance The Final Shape could hit to avert this, even if that’s what employees were told.
The Final Shape
The future of Bungie and its franchises are unclear. There is a growing sense that what remains of Bungie is slowly being absorbed into Sony, and after these repeated leadership failures, SIE’s Herman Hulst may become a more heavy hand, according to insider Jeff Grubb. That’s already starting with the dissolution of 155 roles into Sony, and a new studio going up under its banner. It’s hard not to see that accelerating from here.
There are hundreds of talented devs working hard at Bungie still, but imagine the environment when 25-35% of your colleagues are now gone in under the last year, and your best-ever work led to your largest-ever slate of layoffs. Unconscionable.
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