News Layoffs hit Bungie. Marathon and Destiny 2: The Final Shape both delayed (New Report: Sony could take full control if revenue goals not met)

[thoughthaver]

the managerial class is worse than parasites. apologies go the parasites.

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

Between Sony apparently having to shelve their TLOU multiplayer game and now Destiny imploding, their big live service push seems like its in bad shape before it even got off the ground

Like, they have how many live service games planned, and things already aren't looking too great? The next couple years could be ugly for them

12 by end of FY26

 

[MisterSpo]

That new IGN report is grim reading and my heart goes out to those laid off and those struggling at Bungie. Especially infuriating that, having sold off the company, Bungie's current management are now throwing their own employees out to try and avoid the consequences of their own actions (being swallowed up by Sony).

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

The wild thing is that in the long run letting Sony take over is probably gonna be better than letting Parsons and co. run the company into the ground. It just absolutely sucks that things got to this point to begin with.

 

[Old Sorta Fan]

I won't miss Bungie as it's a far from being the company that made Pathways Into Darkness, the Marathon series, and the Halo series. I feel bad for the employees who were laid off and I hope they find a better place to work soon. I also hope that the survivors also leave and find a better place to work too.

I also hope that the studio implodes, hampering SIE's plans to flood the market with GAAS's. Or, maybe I actually want them to succeed in flooding the market with GAAS's so they can fail and knock SIE out of the market. Yes, I went there as I don't want a market player whose goal is rent seeking behavior rather than putting out compelling entertainment content.

 

[Neves]

12 by end of FY26

Actually they said that half of those have been delayed, so "only" 6 by end of FY26

Also, I remember reading somewhere that they apparently count MLB the Show as a live service, and since those are yearly would they be 3 of the 6 or are they somehow counted as just 1 release?

IMO, Sony will be fine - they have a lot of live service games in development, but they have just as many big budget singleplayer blockbuster releases, but I really question what the point of buying Bungie was (at a premium no less) if they're just going to gut the company and make it unrecognizable to what it was...

 

[HockeyBird]

If Bungie collapses, companies including Sony aren't going to suddenly shift away from live service. Fortnite Lego just had 1.5 million concurrent players. The dream of achieving something like that will have executives continue to push for live service games. They'll just say games like Destiny aren't the way to do live service or that Bungie didn't monetize properly/enough to keep the train going.

 

[Deleted member 1978]

IMO, Sony will be fine - they have a lot of live service games in development, but they have just as many big budget singleplayer blockbuster releases, but I really question what the point of buying Bungie was (at a premium no less) if they're just going to gut the company and make it unrecognizable to what it was...

The layoffs are entirely on Bungie management as explicitly stated in the IGN article:

Several people we spoke to told us that leaders had reiterated, across multiple meetings, that they couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be more layoffs, with two specifically recalling chief people officer Holly Barbacovi outright stating that layoffs were a "lever" the company would pull again.

"We know we need Final Shape to do well," one source told IGN. "And the feeling at the studio is that if it doesn't we're definitely looking at more layoffs."

Others said they were rebuffed repeatedly and discouraged from even discussing the layoffs whenever they tried to ask questions. Employees in one department recalled a post-layoffs Q&A session where a department head was asked if leadership taking salary cuts to prevent layoffs had been considered, only to respond that Bungie was "not that type of company."

I don't understand why people assume Sony is responsible if they have to come up with convoluted explanations for that to make sense.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

I feel bad for the employees who were laid off and I hope they find a better place to work soon. I also hope that the survivors also leave and find a better place to work too.

I also hope that the studio implodes, hampering SIE's plans to flood the market with GAAS's. Or, maybe I actually want them to succeed in flooding the market with GAAS's so they can fail and knock SIE out of the market. Yes, I went there as I don't want a market player whose goal is rent seeking behavior rather than putting out compelling entertainment content.

This is not subtle at all...

 

[Neves]

The layoffs are entirely on Bungie management as explicitly stated in the IGN article:

I don't understand why people assume Sony is responsible if they have to come up with convoluted explanations for that to make sense.

The layoffs are happening because Destiny isn't performing well enough, and I was under the impression that the extremely high expectations they have came from Sony, but if that's not the case then you would think Sony would step in considering they spend like a billion dollars just to keep some employees when they bought Bungie. I guess this is what the "takeover" mentioned in the article is about, but if current leadership is that bad I don't see why this is presented as a negative like it is.

 

[Deleted member 1978]

The layoffs are happening because Destiny isn't performing well enough, and I was under the impression that the extremely high expectations they have came from Sony, but if that's not the case then you would think Sony would step in considering they spend like a billion dollars just to keep some employees when they bought Bungie. I guess this is what the "takeover" mentioned in the article is about, but if current leadership is that bad I don't see why this is presented as a negative like it is.

Bungie still has majority control over their own board of directors, which means that they still dictate how their company operates. From IGN again:

As it currently stands, Bungie is (on paper) a fully independent subsidiary of Sony. But its board of directors has been divided since the takeover in July of 2022. Among its current members are PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst, Sony senior VP Eric Lempel, Bungie co-founder Jason Jones, Bungie CTO Luis Villegas, and Bungie CEO Pete Parsons. The board as a whole is split between Sony and Bungie representatives, with Parsons serving as a tiebreaker vote.

While the exact details of Sony's deal to acquire Bungie remain unknown to the public or employees, sources say they were told by leaders that the current split board structure is contingent on Bungie meeting certain financial goals. If Bungie falls short of its revenue goals by too great an amount, Sony is allowed to dissolve the existing board and take full control of the company. And with Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape delayed into the next fiscal year and Bungie still investing heavily on Marathon, many employees understand that Bungie is struggling to meet the necessary targets to keep its last vestige of freedom. Such a takeover wouldn't necessarily be shocking given its 2022 acquisition, but it would nevertheless be a stunning development for a company that has historically prided itself on its independence.

The report strongly suggests that the ones advocating for Bungie's continued independence are Bungie's upper management - i.e.: the people who would lose their positions (and most likely their jobs) if Sony took over operations. Unfortunately, these people are entirely willing to throw everyone else under the bus to keep what they have.

 

[Neves]

Bungie still has majority control over their own board of directors, which means that they still dictate how their company operates. From IGN again:


The report strongly suggests that the ones advocating for Bungie's continued independence are Bungie's upper management - i.e.: the people who would lose their positions (and most likely their jobs) if Sony took over operations. Unfortunately, these people are entirely willing to throw everyone else under the bus to keep what they have.

In that case, like I said, I don't understand why the takeover by Sony is portrayed as a negative as it seems like it's the preferable option?

 

[Deleted member 1978]

In that case, like I said, I don't understand why the takeover by Sony is portrayed as a negative as it seems like it's the preferable option?

News headlines tend to be sensationalized and generally do not accurately reflect the actual content of the article. The article itself doesn't portray the possibility of a Sony takeover as a negative for the lower-level employees, and instead takes a neutral stance on the matter.

 

[HockeyBird]

Bungie leadership wants to stay autonomous. That was a major sticking point in the deal in the Sony buyout. We previously didn't know how the Sony-Bungie relationship operated. We now know that the board is split between 3 Bungie members and 2 Sony members. We also didn't know that Sony could take full control Bungie didn't meet certain financial goals.

Sony taking over is presented as bad in the article because it is. It means the financials for Bungie are so bad that full control is now an option. Remaining independent with the ability work on titles without outside influences has been something the company has been striving for for years. Sony taking full control would end that dream for good. Maybe things would improve for employees but it would still mark the end for a studio that prides itself on its independence. That's a major turn of events from just a few months ago.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

The article doesn't really absolve Sony/PlayStation of any kind of wrongdoing or responsibility here when they have two people on the board of directors, set the revenue targets that Bungie has to hit and just laid off several people themselves a few weeks ago. Ultimately, they don't really care what happens to these employees. I've seen a lot of people try to pretend like Sony's hands are tied here which is really weird.

 

[Lugia667]

If Bungie collapses, companies including Sony aren't going to suddenly shift away from live service. Fortnite Lego just had 1.5 million concurrent players. The dream of achieving something like that will have executives continue to push for live service games. They'll just say games like Destiny aren't the way to do live service or that Bungie didn't monetize properly/enough to keep the train going.

no one who thinks they will be the next fortnite will be

 

[Deleted member 1978]

I don't believe that sacrificing employees (especially those that had been around for a long time) is an acceptable tradeoff for retaining autonomy. These layoffs not only hurt morale, but they also lost a lot of institutional knowledge and experience that will be absolutely essential for the company to recover.

I doubt that Sony's thrilled about paying several billion dollars for a hollowed out shell that just lost a major part of what made them valuable in the first place, and would rather have retained that talent if possible.

 

[Old Sorta Fan]

This is not subtle at all...

I've worked in bad workplaces before. I've experienced and survived apathetic and abusive management, favoritism, low pay, no hope for advancement, managers trying to sabotage subordinates, managers trying to stress out subordinates such that it affects their health, lack of oversight, senior management looking the other way, etc. Those kind of managers don't deserve subordinates. Those kind of companies don't deserve staff to produce the product. They deserve to go out of business.

Larger companies that buy such kakistocratic companies and either look the other way or make it worse (looks like SIE is doing a bit of both) also deserve to lose market share. Larger companies that do such things as part of a rent seeking strategy deserve to lose all their customers.

No, I'm not being subtle. I have life experience working at a horrible workplace and it guides my opinion of these Bungie layoffs and how SIE is threatening to take control of Bungie 100% and using that threat as a cudgel. Contrast that to how Nintendo cleaned up Retro Studios back when it acquired them.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

I've worked in bad workplaces before. I've experienced and survived apathetic and abusive management, favoritism, low pay, no hope for advancement, managers trying to sabotage subordinates, managers trying to stress out subordinates such that it affects their health, lack of oversight, senior management looking the other way, etc. Those kind of managers don't deserve subordinates. Those kind of companies don't deserve staff to produce the product. They deserve to go out of business.

Larger companies that buy such kakistocratic companies and either look the other way or make it worse (looks like SIE is doing a bit of both) also deserve to lose market share. Larger companies that do such things as part of a rent seeking strategy deserve to lose all their customers.

No, I'm not being subtle. I have life experience working at a horrible workplace and it guides my opinion of these Bungie layoffs and how SIE is threatening to take control of Bungie 100% and using that threat as a cudgel. Contrast that to how Nintendo cleaned up Retro Studios back when it acquired them.

Fair enough, but it really just sounds like you want the company to be gutted because you don't like Sony, and I think you're kind of spinning it to have a post-hoc justification. But the justification isn't entirely wrong, so it's whatever.

I just think there's a way for Bungie's employees to have better management, without ... everyone in the company losing their job? It just strikes me as weird to pretend to care about workers, but then also lowkey hope they all lose their jobs as the company sinks. Feels like that's a jump when the work place could be salvageable and in reality everyone losing their job would probably be one of the worst outcomes imaginable.

 

[HockeyBird]

The article doesn't really absolve Sony/PlayStation of any kind of wrongdoing or responsibility here when they have two people on the board of directors, set the revenue targets that Bungie has to hit and just laid off several people themselves a few weeks ago. Ultimately, they don't really care what happens to these employees. I've seen a lot of people try to pretend like Sony's hands are tied here which is really weird.

There maybe some legal reasons in the background that can prevent Sony from intervening directly (like breaking contractual autonomy agreements that can get them sued) but like you said, there's no reason to believe that Sony would be handling things different from Bungie management. Sony has laid people off and raised prices on services which have been pain points for the Destiny community already. As bad as Pete Hines is, Sony executives may be even more detached from the needs of the employees and players.

 

[Old Sorta Fan]

Fair enough, but it really just sounds like you want the company to be gutted because you don't like Sony, and I think you're kind of spinning it to have a post-hoc justification. But the justification isn't entirely wrong, so it's whatever.

Both?

As in I both dislike SIE and also justify my previous comment.

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

Actually they said that half of those have been delayed, so "only" 6 by end of FY26

Also, I remember reading somewhere that they apparently count MLB the Show as a live service, and since those are yearly would they be 3 of the 6 or are they somehow counted as just 1 release?

IMO, Sony will be fine - they have a lot of live service games in development, but they have just as many big budget singleplayer blockbuster releases, but I really question what the point of buying Bungie was (at a premium no less) if they're just going to gut the company and make it unrecognizable to what it was...

The initial number was 12 but they had to revise due to being unable to cash checks their mouths made. Investors have not been entirely pleased so far with the initiative.

MLB the Show is a live service due to “Diamond Dynasty” which functions like “FIFA Ultimate Team”. Thus it would likely count as only 1 as seen in their report.

The whole point of acquiring Bungie was twofold:

• Leverage their expertise in making a successful GAAS for their own initiative & multi-platform dev
• Retain the talent for said successful GAAS

The problem here is that Bungie management is a disaster class who are doing everything they can to not trigger whatever clause they have with Sony which would cause them to lose their independence.

 

[HockeyBird]

Bungie Replaces Marathon Director Amid Leadership Shakeup, Fears of Layoffs - IGN

Amid ongoing anxiety within Bungie following layoffs last year, the studio is now preparing for another shakeup, this time on Marathon.

www.ign.com

Marathon got a new game director 9 months ago and there are fears that there will be more layoffs after The Final Shape ships. People are expecting leadership to bail in drove comes 2026 when the final payouts from the Sony buyout hit and in the mean time, they are pushing to get Marathon out the door before then.