Sony’s Bungie Layoffs Because Game Delays

aceattorney said:
Gamers who are taking this way too personally is cringey.
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I get that they need to do what is best for their profitability, but is massive cuts going to help long term?

These companies love to slash payroll to make a quarter look way better, but long term, it just puts them in a worse hole.

The delay in the DLC means that next season needs to go from 3 months to 9 months. I mean, ok, delays happen, but is cutting people supposed to make us confident that they will hit the new date?

Their goal is to maximize sharholder value, but is adding a ton of uncertainty a way to do that?

When the Bungie deal went through, they were assured no layoffs and no major restructuring. As a customer, is that supposed to make me feel confident in the direction the game/company is going?

Of course they fired all their public facing people who might actually answer some of these concerns, which is super telling.

It looks to me like Sony wanted to invest heavily in live service (something very different from what they are good at) and so far, have failed miserably.
 
Sony lays off workers:

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Microsoft lays off workers:

angry captain hook GIF
 
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Kerosene31 said:
I get that they need to do what is best for their profitability, but is massive cuts going to help long term?

These companies love to slash payroll to make a quarter look way better, but long term, it just puts them in a worse hole.

The delay in the DLC means that next season needs to go from 3 months to 9 months. I mean, ok, delays happen, but is cutting people supposed to make us confident that they will hit the new date?

Their goal is to maximize sharholder value, but is adding a ton of uncertainty a way to do that?

When the Bungie deal went through, they were assured no layoffs and no major restructuring. As a customer, is that supposed to make me feel confident in the direction the game/company is going?

Of course they fired all their public facing people who might actually answer some of these concerns, which is super telling.

It looks to me like Sony wanted to invest heavily in live service (something very different from what they are good at) and so far, have failed miserably.
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Let's be honest. Most of the public has no clue as to what is happening with any business' corporate structure or financial status.

Side note: social media managers are perhaps the most easily replaceable personnel. Turnover in that segment of the corporate structure is quite high for a reason.
 
aceattorney said:
Let's be honest. Most of the public has no clue as to what is happening with any business' corporate structure or financial status.
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We can see the results. This is one of the many myths that big business pushes. They are smart, and just trust them. Lots of businesses are very successful, but many others aren't, especially in gaming.

Sony has been pushing live service hard since buying Bungie. They talked about adding how many live service games in the coming couple of years? Seems like they bet on live service and bet wrong.

Time will tell, but the results will speak for themselves. As more info comes out, they are gutting things like QA too. I fail to see how this makes a good game, but if they prove me wrong, great.

aceattorney said:
Side note: social media managers are perhaps the most easily replaceable personnel. Turnover in that segment of the corporate structure is quite high for a reason.
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So, are they replacing them? Or at least a few of them? They have a new season launching soon and this is a live service game with lots of daily players.

It is one thing when a big single player game launches and the studios cut after. They've pre-sold us next season already, and many have already preordered the next big DLC.

Communication is a big part of these kinds of games. People are already cancelling preorders based on the complete lack of info right now. Some of that was going to happen with the delay, but they are doing nothing to stop the slide. If I were a stockholder, I'd be very concerned right now.
 
DriedMangoes said:
Independent and autonomous operation , no? Sony has some say probably too.
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Sony acquired and owns Bungie. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that all these people were let go? Visual arts teams from multiple in-house developers, ceos, all now?

It’s possible Sony had no say, but I’m gonna go with they did say.
 
Kvally said:
Sony acquired and owns Bungie. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that all these people were let go? Visual arts teams from multiple in-house developers, ceos, all now?

It’s possible Sony had no say, but I’m gonna go with they did say.
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Just going by the journalist reports . I have no skin in the matter either way. Whether it be Sony or Bungie , the entire world is trimming their fat so I don't know what is going on behind the doors but I would imagine it's something corporate related. The numbers are probably the ultimate factor in these decisions, and it sounds like Bungie set their expectations too high considering Destiny 2 still leads in popular engagement this year as per Circana analyst.
 
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They even let the people who do the music go. Not just the main person, but the 2nd person as well. The people behind the music that is some of the most iconic in gaming.

Sony played $3.6 billion for Bungie. I'm gonna guess they aren't just sitting back watching what their huge investment is doing. Sorry, but major corporations do not make an investment like that and just sit on the sidelines.

The best quote I saw was, "It is Bungie's management fault either way, since they let the sale go through".

What kills me with things like this - you're firing people because the company under-performed badly. So, why does none of that apply to upper management? I haven't heard a thing about management, and the Bungie head is still in place. My guess is they'll eventually find someone big to quit when all this keeps blowing up, because this news just gets worse and worse each time.

One thing that popped in my head is how 2023 being such a big year for gaming might have been a nail in the Destiny coffin. For the past many years, I played Destiny, because simply a lot of other good games didn't fill my time. This year? I've played less D2 than in a long time, and I still have a backlog of GOTY contenders.

There's no doubt player count is falling. I glanced last night and New World had more players than D2 on Steam (granted it is the end of a season in D2).

The other important point is that the whole Lightfall DLC was not going to exist. It was basically added to give them an extra year for Final Shape, so in a way, Final Shape has been delayed 2 years.

As someone who's played this game from D1 launch back in the day, where is the communication? (that team got sh**-canned). What lies ahead for this game? People have legit questions and there's zero communication out.
 
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Kerosene31 said:
They even let the people who do the music go. Not just the main person, but the 2nd person as well. The people behind the music that is some of the most iconic in gaming.

Sony played $3.6 billion for Bungie. I'm gonna guess they aren't just sitting back watching what their huge investment is doing. Sorry, but major corporations do not make an investment like that and just sit on the sidelines.

The best quote I saw was, "It is Bungie's management fault either way, since they let the sale go through".

What kills me with things like this - you're firing people because the company under-performed badly. So, why does none of that apply to upper management? I haven't heard a thing about management, and the Bungie head is still in place. My guess is they'll eventually find someone big to quit when all this keeps blowing up, because this news just gets worse and worse each time.

One thing that popped in my head is how 2023 being such a big year for gaming might have been a nail in the Destiny coffin. For the past many years, I played Destiny, because simply a lot of other good games didn't fill my time. This year? I've played less D2 than in a long time, and I still have a backlog of GOTY contenders.

There's no doubt player count is falling. I glanced last night and New World had more players than D2 on Steam (granted it is the end of a season in D2).

The other important point is that the whole Lightfall DLC was not going to exist. It was basically added to give them an extra year for Final Shape, so in a way, Final Shape has been delayed 2 years.

As someone who's played this game from D1 launch back in the day, where is the communication? (that team got sh**-canned). What lies ahead for this game? People have legit questions and there's zero communication out.
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From what I seen, might be like bit of a conspiracy theory, but with Sony trimming away to save money, the fired some from Bungie because they won’t have to pay them the extra bonuses that were used to keep them from leaving after the purchase of Bungie. Apparently the contract something along the lines of you’ll pay you this extra set amount of money for the next ten years as long as you stay with the company, but if your fired we keep it….sorry, I forget the exact details

IMG_0507.jpeg
 
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karmakid said:
From what I seen, might be like bit of a conspiracy theory, but with Sony trimming away to save money, the fired some from Bungie because they won’t have to pay them the extra bonuses that were used to keep them from leaving after the purchase of Bungie. Apparently the contract something along the lines of you’ll pay you this extra set amount of money for the next ten years as long as you stay with the company, but if your fired we keep it….sorry, I forget the exact details

View attachment 10926
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Yeah I had read that there was something with stock options, but not sure the details (or if it was accurate).
 
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Paul Tassi made this video a month ago, basically saying how the whole live service thing may be taking a massive downturn. A bunch of companies are chasing the money, but the nature of live service games is highly risky, and basically, regular gamers don't have the time for more than one.

I don't think he really meant things like COD battle passes (which probably aren't going away), but more games like Destiny.

 
Kerosene31 said:
Paul Tassi made this video a month ago, basically saying how the whole live service thing may be taking a massive downturn. A bunch of companies are chasing the money, but the nature of live service games is highly risky, and basically, regular gamers don't have the time for more than one.

I don't think he really meant things like COD battle passes (which probably aren't going away), but more games like Destiny.

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I haven’t seen it yet, but Bungie originally intended destiny to be a trilogy with massive expansions in between releases and updates in between those. But then they changed course, which they publicly stated and said D3 will really just the last major thing they’ll do and it won’t be titled D3. I Guess they looked to valve for inspiration when completing This m Destiny’s trilogy…
 
Another good read (if it isn't obvious, I'm a fan of Paul's reporting. Seems like a good guy and informed, and avoids needless drama or bias). Some new info, some more clarity on older info.

As someone who works in IT and has to be the one to disable access for people who are fired or even pass away, just cutting someone's accounts is a HORRIBLE way to fire someone. I get from a security perspective, but come on.

www.forbes.com

The Bungie And ‘Destiny 2’ Situation Gets Worse, Per New Info

While Bungie’s wide-reaching layoffs occurred on Monday, Tuesday was all about making sense of the mess, and uncovering new information about what happened, why and how it was linked into the performance of Destiny 2 specifically.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

Many employees had unvested shares as a result of the Sony deal that mandated they stayed with the company a number of years afterward to collect. But that is null if you leave, and that includes being laid off. When that happens, shares revert back to Bungie, and as such, many employees just involuntarily lost those shares to the company that fired them.
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Lightfall was a big, negative turning point. While achieving a whole lot of players at launch (it was Steam’s highest concurrent count since D2 launch on the platform) extremely poor reception to the expansion reverberated through the rest of the year and player engagement fell off hard.
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Additionally, speaking of revenue, many employees have been upset about Bungie’s investment in a sprawling, expensive new 200,000 square foot HQ in Bellevue that has cost tens of millions to build, despite Bungie relentlessly plugging themselves as a leader in remote work.
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So, every Thursday is the weekly Destiny update on the state of the game. We'll see if they do anything for it.

They really, really need to speak up. I mean, the Final Shape delay has never officially been announced.

Of course the team that does those communications is gone...
 
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