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Bungie is eliminating ~415 roles, Hermen Hulst runs Bungie [~32% of the total workforce: 220 laid off, 155 moved to SIE, ~40 to a new studio]
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Just in time for the quarterly results, what a shame. This shoot first(acquire) and ask questions later(wait, you arent actually making money?) approach from certain publihsers really need to stop. Just too much collateral damage involved once they actually figure out, what they bought and how to use the new studio.
It's a shame that the core workforce is being downsized so much when the issues with Bungie largely seem to stem from mismanagement. I'm not sure how Pete Parsons still has a job.
Seems pretty likely that this is the takeover that the previous layoffs were supposed to stave off so Pete Parsons probably has a diminished role going forward. Bungie will basically be the Destiny/Marathon studio now and any original property was spunoff into a Playstation Studios studio. The amount of layoffs will probably crush Bungie's ambition for either of their two games too.
Responsibility starts at the bottom I guess.
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I guess The Final Shape didn't save them after all. Even after all the layoffs they made to try and keep themselves sustainable not too long before.
If anyone needs any more reason as to why workers are unionizing, it's stuff like this.
I hope the 220 workers can land on their feet, but man, Bungie can't stop shotting themselves in the foot with bad PR.
Bungie is dead, long live Bungie!
Here is @Minthara on Era about what it’s like working in the industry
Unionizing very much needs to happen, meanwhile Pete needs to get shown the door. I doubt TFS would have saved them just due to whatever Sony was expecting. Knowing these companies something rather high & ridiculous.
I don't even know what to say about Bungie's senior leadership remaining in post while Sony engages in a 2nd mass layoff while also carving out their own studio of Bungie staff to wiggle out of Bungie's "independence" and any prior commitment to multiplatform. The management has completely failed on all fronts.
As for Sony, even casual observers knew about Bungie's management issues, so I would love to see the audit they did of Bungie's business. The idea that Bungie could have provided some particular insight into GAAS development beyond Sony's own studios is laughable - Destiny 1 was infamous for content production issues caused by Bungie's own tools. As is the idea that you would need to buy an entire studio for this knowledge, rather than conducting basic research.
The whole acquisition was a case of thoughtlessly throwing money at a buzzword to demonstrate to investors that you're chasing the current trend.
As for Sony, even casual observers knew about Bungie's management issues, so I would love to see the audit they did of Bungie's business. The idea that Bungie could have provided some particular insight into GAAS development beyond Sony's own studios is laughable - Destiny 1 was infamous for content production issues caused by Bungie's own tools. As is the idea that you would need to buy an entire studio for this knowledge, rather than conducting basic research.
The whole acquisition was a case of thoughtlessly throwing money at a buzzword to demonstrate to investors that you're chasing the current trend.
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Sony is getting humiliated by Bungie management. It seems like Sony set in a financial requirement for Bungie to stay independent but did not guard against what Bungie execs could do to meet that requirement.
Hence, Bungie execs will continue to layoff the workforce till they meet that independence metric. Its something Sony should have foreseen and comes across as either amateurish or they were desperate at the time.
Till we see Bungie execs being layed off, I think legally Bungie is still in control (though they will now play nice with Sony to avoid legal disputes).
What a mess of an acquisition.
Hence, Bungie execs will continue to layoff the workforce till they meet that independence metric. Its something Sony should have foreseen and comes across as either amateurish or they were desperate at the time.
Till we see Bungie execs being layed off, I think legally Bungie is still in control (though they will now play nice with Sony to avoid legal disputes).
What a mess of an acquisition.
That isn't what people like Jeff Grubb are reporting, and doesn't make sense with the facts as we know them.
Roles within Bungie being merged into SIE or even being spun off into new studios under SIE isn't something Bungie execs can do.
A 1/3 of Bungie either gutted (220)/ assimilated (155) into SIE, in addition to spinning off even more employees (75) for a new PS Studio project?
Outside of Helldivers 2, Playstation's GAAS push has been a catastrophe. Half a dozen or so live service games cancelled, and now Bungie, an expensive key part of that initiative, who's opinions incidentally was used mainly due from their GAAS experience directly lead to the cancellation of The Last of Us 2 Standalone Multiplayer, has been seriously neutered.
Round of applause for Jim Ryan, and Bungie leadership.
Outside of Helldivers 2, Playstation's GAAS push has been a catastrophe. Half a dozen or so live service games cancelled, and now Bungie, an expensive key part of that initiative, who's opinions incidentally was used mainly due from their GAAS experience directly lead to the cancellation of The Last of Us 2 Standalone Multiplayer, has been seriously neutered.
Round of applause for Jim Ryan, and Bungie leadership.
Looks like Sony have complete control now. 1300 to 850 employees. 8 months ago they laid off 10% of employees. Bungie was 1400-1500 people studio.
Even 850 is huge number and Bungie will have to hit out of the park with Marathon. Its also pretty clear from article that they no longer work as independent company but just like another SIE studio. So hundreds of redundant jobs were cut off or moved to SIE. 850 is now pretty much all game devs now.
Even 850 is huge number and Bungie will have to hit out of the park with Marathon. Its also pretty clear from article that they no longer work as independent company but just like another SIE studio. So hundreds of redundant jobs were cut off or moved to SIE. 850 is now pretty much all game devs now.
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At least Pete Parsons is spending is money well: https://bringatrailer.com/member/bngpparsons/
This timeline just sucks.
From what I understand this ''independence'' brought Bungie to this state and if it wasn't Sony, Bungie wouldn't exist right now or the layoffs would be way worse.
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Where are you getting that from?
From the community and other forums. They were already doing bad before acquisition.
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Do you have any examples? Was this from credible sources like Jason or just forum posters guessing?
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Bungie's community is filled with people who know a little bit (because part of Bungie's community management has long included the flattery of some segment of the youtubers/streamers with info about upcoming updates - not unusual) and then those people either pretend or lead themselves to believe these little bits they know actually means they're experts on the inner workings of Bungie.
Lots of people who went a Community Summit™ once and think that means they're Jason Schreier.
Lots of people who went a Community Summit™ once and think that means they're Jason Schreier.
Oh it is by design. No matter what heads of studios and publishers say, they have 0 issue doing this because the few times it works out justifies the many times it does not.
The same way I saw 0 value in ABK going to MS, I see 0 value in Bungie being under Sony.
As long as giant companies that can absorb losses but have no tolerance for turbulent times own you, they will just do whatever yields the most immediate increase in revenue. Even if it is a super shitty unethical thing to do.
You don't always need Jason or other ''insiders'' and not always forum posters are guessing. The following are actual facts that can be extracted from a number of sources such as long time Bungie fans, good informed forum posters, insiders like Jason and Grubb and last by simple reading the news in the last years.
- Bungie had been staffing up aggressively to self publish 3-4 new IPs
- Had various talks with companies but all backed out for an acquisition
- Destiny starts losing momentum
- Sony acquires them
- Destiny 2 is in rough state and all their projects are facing delays
- Layoffs in October that were not decided by Sony as part of the independency
- D2 Final Shape apparently isn't doing well despite good reception
- More layoffs today
Plus, we have many Bungie workers right now who are blaming Peter Parsons (CEO of Bungie) on twitter, not Sony, because they didn't have anything to do with the layoffs. The same employees are also reporting the bungie problems over the years in their feed
Bungie really just over extended themselves. Market is starting to realise that whilst service games can be cash cows, they rely on sequel like expansions and if those don’t meet quality the players expect the whole product suffers. They really are not that different from traditional media - the boom and bust remains the same. Issue is these studios don’t down tools on the last game to focus on the next; they have to do both.
Destiny came out 2014. Destiny 2 2017. Then just expansions not always received well. As competition has increased in this space I don’t see what Bungie has really done to shore up its user base. Arguably they doubled down on quite a specific player base.
I assume Sony offered redundancy or relocation for some employees which is why they have kept 75.
Bungie is pretty fucked. They need to get away from Destiny 2 whilst continuing maintenance over it. Sony should split it into a legacy group and get everyone onto the next game.
Sony does have an issue with rolling layoffs though. It’s not great management.
Destiny came out 2014. Destiny 2 2017. Then just expansions not always received well. As competition has increased in this space I don’t see what Bungie has really done to shore up its user base. Arguably they doubled down on quite a specific player base.
I assume Sony offered redundancy or relocation for some employees which is why they have kept 75.
Bungie is pretty fucked. They need to get away from Destiny 2 whilst continuing maintenance over it. Sony should split it into a legacy group and get everyone onto the next game.
Sony does have an issue with rolling layoffs though. It’s not great management.
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Then go ahead and provide facts for them.
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How much did they staff up before acquisition?
What companies were in talks and backed out?
Does steam DB or similar trackers show a slowdown pre acquisition?
If you want to assert these facts then by all means back them up
I did but you didn't want to see it. Unless you want a source for the fact that Sony acquired them too. I can't provide a source that they staffed up before acquisition because the links for job positions don't exist anymore but even if you didn't watch closely the hiring page for Bungie over the years, you don't need a big brain to understand that you can't sustain a game like Destiny and develop 4 other IPs at the same time without hiring a big number of people. But the important thing here is that people lost their job and despite the fact I provided a tweet from a fired employ blaming the Bungie leadership you deliberately chose to ignore that and you single handed picked the facts that you thought you could corner me. Well you didn't and you only proved that I touched your nerve by saying that ''Bungie wouldn't exist if Sony hadn't bought them''.
- ~3yrs pre-acquisition Bungie was estimated to be ~600-800 employees At the time of their acquisition it was estimated they were at 1000 employees. The first round of layoffs was 8% (~100 jobs out of ~1200) & went back to 1350 by November of the same year. ‘24 Jan they confirmed to Forbes about having 1350 employees w/o including contractors or Sony.
- We don’t have any concrete information other than hearsay that MS was another offer.
- Pre-Acquisition Destiny was very up & down much like now; however ‘21 was the best year for Destiny.
I definitely agree. Though tbh, I'd extend this and say the vast majority of acquisitions over the last 5ish years of gaming have been bad buys. On the Sony side the only one I see as making sense was Insomniac.
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Of course they can, but it would be in agreement with Sony.
We know Sony can only take control if they do not meet a certain financial criteria. Getting board control from the inside is another way.
My speculation is right now Bungie are going to listen to Sony due to being in such a precarious position, however legally they still have control per the acquisition contract.
"to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development."
It doesn't look like it. Probably PS or PS/PC if it will be live-service.
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You provided a list of assertions with no facts yes. And for pre-production you don't need a big staff. And given the timeline of devoplment and release I doubt very much that staff bloat was happening to a large extent pre aquisition, but again you can prove me wrong! You made the claim!
No shit the staff effected are going to blame their immediate boss/ceo. I'm not sure why you are trying to say that one tweet blaming the bungie CEO means that your statement of "Bungie wouldn't exist without Sony" is valid. And I didn't reply to it before because it has nothing to do with your original assertion. Stick to the facts please.
Can we not get so pointed? I understand disagreeing but let’s try to cool off the rest.
I think you're being willfully naive if you think Bungie management can cut a third of their workforce and the only involvement SIE management has is to be the good guy saving a portion of jobs. Especially when Sony themselves have been no stranger to layoffs the past few years.
It's also hard for me to believe Sony would be stupid enough to have Bungie under minimum financial obligations to stay independent and those obligations wouldn't have provisions for "destroying 30% of the jobs in the organization to meet a profit target". Or that they would be based purely on a profit target or margin without minimum expectations of revenue and retention.
Maybe SIE are idiots (this acquisition certainly was) but this is SUPER obvious covering of your ass.
This is also maybe another chance for me to tell people that most M&A fails to create any value and people should stop assuming it is actually good in most cases. Insomniac or Next Level? Sure, those actually make sense. ABK, Bungie, etc? Absolute trash buys that only work to hurt employees.
Not even my distaste of consolidation by itself, but mathematically over and over it is shown most acquisitions don't lead to 2 + 2 = 5. They at best end as 2 + 2 = 4 or much worse 2 + 2 = 3
Providing more context from @Idas on Era. I forgot that we do have concrete information for MS about wanting to require them due to the ABK case. They estimated Bungie to be ~500 in ‘21.
Further digging finds that they were at 826 at the time of acquisition. My best guess is to keep up with Destiny content they aggressively expanded at some point after leaving ABK.
Regardless I do think there was some bloat pre-acquisition however it only truly got worse a little bit before the acquisition all the way up till now.
They were idiots for getting Bungie, a studio that was facing a lot of problems, for that huge amount.
They were also idiots for let them so much freedom without the proper management, sadly that was part of the agreement.
But it’s interesting to see some current and ex Bungie Employees roasting the studio’s management and saying is not Sony’s fault, but I guess we’ll never know the true story behind it and it was necessary that Hermen took over them.
Housemarque and Insomniac have been great acquisitions for Sony in the last 5 years or so, Firewalk and Bungie, not so much.
My position is, if you pay $3.7 billion for a company, you're directly responsible for their outcomes. To pay that money then let the terms be this clusterfuck that you can't control . . . you're hugely responsible for it.
Bungie management is horrible. But many seemingly got the bag of money. They aren't stressing about any of this. Why would they?
Wow, I didn't know Bungie was struggling that much. And to think they were the MVP's of the early Xbox era.
Live service is not the promised land we once thought. Still, they employed THAT many people? no wonder this was coming, that's a huge fucking studio living of Destiny 2 scraps and Marathon potential.
Live service is not the promised land we once thought. Still, they employed THAT many people? no wonder this was coming, that's a huge fucking studio living of Destiny 2 scraps and Marathon potential.
I would also add that SIE execs have at least 2/5 of the seats on the board of directors for Bungie. I say at least because as of December last year the board was the following:
and since then Luis Villegas moved from Bungie to SIE:
Luis Villegas on LinkedIn: I am super excited to announce that I have taken a role at PlayStation as… | 278 comments
I am super excited to announce that I have taken a role at PlayStation as the Head of Technology, Creative, and Services. In my new role I will be… | 278 comments on LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com
So I'm not sure we know the actual make up of the board at this point(?)
Either way whilst the cause of the layoffs is mismanagement from Bungie leadership, I don't think the multibillion dollar parent company can completely wash their hands of it.
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Sony buying Bungie for their live service expertise proved to be a bad move. From the start you could see that Destiny was a game that succeeded despite its live service aspects, not because of them, but thats only really apparent in hindsight I guess.
I always read that independence talk during the acquisition as something conditional of them performing as expected and that Sony would sweep in as soon as something was amiss.