author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
Bungie Lays Off 220 Employees and Forges Stronger Partnership with Sony. „We Were Overly Ambitious, Our Financial Safety Margins Were Subsequently Exceeded”
There have been more major layoffs at the Bungie studio. The downsized team is expected to work even more closely with Sony and focus only on the development of Destiny 2 and Marathon.
It must be admitted that recent times haven't been the best for the studio Bungie. The team made a great effort to deliver the best new content to Destiny 2 but encountered numerous internal issues. At the end of last year, we learned that about 8% of the entire team was laid off, and today we received further information about job cuts.
Further layoffs at Bungie
Bungie's CEO, Pete Parsons, published quite a long message about his team's difficult situation. 220 people had to bid farewell to their jobs at the company, accounting for 17% of the total workforce.
According to the studio's CEO, individuals in various positions, including those in higher-level management, have lost their jobs. Parsons laments the consequences of the ongoing major changes and assures that the affected employees will receive proper support in the form of severance pay, bonuses, and health insurance.
The Bungie head also explained why such a difficult situation arose within the team.
- In recent years, the studio focused on developing several new projects at once, which quickly exhausted its employees. This system was no longer feasible to maintain, considering the high demand for online shooters like Destiny 2 and Marathon (the latter hasn't yet been released on the market).
- This "rapid expansion" proved to be disastrous, as it led to an "economic slowdown" in the company, as well as resulted in the low quality of the Lightfall expansion for Destiny 2 (at least that's how Parsons explains it).
- For these reasons, Bungie will now focus solely on the development of the second Destiny and Marathon.
[...] after exhausting all other mitigation options, this has become a necessary decision to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable financials. [...] We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red. After this new trajectory became clear, we knew we had to change our course and speed [...]. As a result, today we must say goodbye to incredible talent, colleagues, and friends -- wrote Pete Parsons.
Strengthening collaboration with Sony
Layoffs are just one part of the current restructuring taking place at Bungie. The CEO of the study claims that the team will now strengthen its relationship with Sony Interactive Entertainment, which purchased the company in 2022. In the connection with this, in the coming months, 155 people working at Bungie will be moving to Sony. This will make up approximately 12% of the composition of the initial crew.
Pete Parsons openly admits that the transfer of employees will help "save many talents" that would also have been laid off. It appears that Bungie's financial situation is so serious that not only 220 positions will be reduced, but 375 - although officially this is being referred to as transitioning under Sony's wing.
Additionally, Parsons' studio is currently working closely with PlayStation Studios to save at least one of Bungie's new action games, which are to be set in a new universe combining science fiction and fantasy. This will result in the creation of an additional team within PlayStation Studios.
Changes for the worse
The current situation at Bungie is even more disappointing considering that the last expansion for Destiny 2, The Final Shape, wasn't a total disaster. On the contrary - fans of the free shooter greatly appreciated this closure of the story, despite initial problems with server stability, which the developers quickly fixed. Recently, it appeared that game development was finally moving in the right direction after sharing the planned changes in the distribution of new content.
Unfortunately, even a great release of the expansion and a high interest from players couldn't help Bungie. We have known for quite some time that the studio has financial problems and significantly lower revenues than planned. Moreover, the atmosphere within the team was bad, mainly due to disturbing changes related to cooperation with Sony. It's difficult to believe that morale at Bungie will improve and employees will start speaking positively about their Japanese owner after more layoffs.
