The Bungie situation somehow got worse

Yesterday, news broke that Bungie was laying off a number of employees, while also delaying its two major projects, Marathon and Destiny 2: The Final Shape. Somehow, the situation got worse in the day following, with Bungie's CEO putting out an ill-advised tweet and one well-sourced Destiny-focused reporter sharing some additional insight into the financial reasons behind why this may have happened. 

When Sony acquired Bungie for $3.7 billion last year, Bungie stated it had set aside a third of that money to retain employees, promising no lay-offs. Now a little over a year later, that situation has changed. While some have blamed Sony for the recent changes at Bungie, these recent decisions are said to have come directly from Bungie's own leadership team. After speaking with a source, Paul Tassi also reports that many employees are essentially immediately losing access to certain benefits, as they lapse at the end of each month, leaving employees in a tricky position with lay-offs coming in at the very end of October.

Perhaps the worst thing pointed out by Tassi ties back to the structure of Sony's acquisition of the company. As part of the deal, employees were promised a certain number of shares, based on remaining at the company for a certain number of years. However, if you leave or are laid off, those promised shares revert back to Bungie. This financial incentive for executives to cut out lower-level staff is the exact sort of reason that should be used to push for more unionisation in the games industry.

To cap off all of this, Bungie's CEO, Pete Parsons, someone who is bound to benefit from cost-saving measures when it comes around to bonus season, tweeted about the news, labelling it as a “sad day” for the company, adding that the employees being sent off to the unemployment line will leave an impact on the studio's games and culture “long into the future”. The tweet swiftly drew criticism, with many pointing out last year's promises to employees and the $1 billion set aside for avoiding lay-offs.

KitGuru Says: Given that Bungie shouldn't necessarily be in a situation where it has to lay off staff, many have been questioning the motives behind the move. From the looks of it, the studio is in for a rough stretch ahead, as the Destiny 2 expansion delay still needs to be publicly confirmed, and then players of the game will no doubt have complaints due to lack of meaningful seasonal content to bridge the gap to the new release date. 

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