Bungie, Maker of Destiny, dismisses 220 employees and creates a new studio in Sony to avoid bankruptcy

The game makers of Destiny and Marathon are cutting 220 workers which is 17% of their staff because the studio managers have got themselves into a financial trouble through expansion plans that were too grandiose, mistimed individual projects, and an overall decline in the economy in the year 2023. Bungie are also moving a total of 155 positions to parent company Sony Interactive Entertainment, and are spinning out an untitled incubation project – a ‘’action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe’’ – to form a new PlayStation studio.

This comes after months of releasing information that all is not alright at Bungie – the company laid off an unknown number of people in 2017, and talks of a complete takeover by Sony, everything depending on the Destiny 2’s Final Shape DLC.

In a brief report at the developer’s site today, the CEO Pete Parsons sketched out how Bungie has wound up in the state it is in. ”This was our strategy for over five years: to ship games in three lasting, worldwide brands,” he said. To achieve that goal we established several incubation projects, each initially funded by senior development leaders from our current roster. We eventually understood that this model overloaded our talent, and the level of experience that the team could provide to the project. It also caused our studio support structures to grow to a level much larger than any of us could sustainably support, based on our two principal development activities – Destiny and Marathon.

‘Also in 2023, our strong growth met a wide-spread game industry downturn, a decrease in the games market, our misfire with the quality with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the requirement to provide the proper amount of time to the strategic games The Final Shape and Marathon for them to meet the quality that the first, the players, deserve,’ said Parsons. Thus, we were too optimistic, our financial profit margins overlapped, and we started operating in the red area.

Several modern comments, such as Parsons’s remarks about the “overly ambitious” expansion throughout the Covid lockdown years, keep a low note. When I interviewed Larian CEO Swen Vincke at GDC, he told me that many CEOs are guilty of short-term thinking and concentrating purely on their own paychecks, while the employees in the lower ranks are often seen as dispensable.

Perhaps prejudicing such comments, Parsons states that the layoffs are across all organizational levels, touching most of the company’s executives and senior leadership employees; however, he still has his position. Others have been merged into Sony Interactive Entertainment, and this has prevented “cutting a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been impacted by the reduction in force.”

This will now leave Bungie’s remaining approximately 850 employees to concentrate on developing entirely on Destiny and Marathon series. The latter is a PvP and loot-focussed reboot of the shooter that established Bungie as an FPS developer to watch, prior to Halo: However, the game that was fairly popular back then was called Halo: Combat Evolved. However, it was said to have undergone a creative leadership shake-up at the beginning of the year especially in March. Regarding Destiny, The Final Shape received good reviews and is a success, according to Parson, but is not good enough for the paymasters.

Various former Bungie developers have written the information on social media. Among those affected are sound designer Tzvi Sherman Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, artist Weston T. Jones, Rooster Teeth and Marathon engine/SDET producer Daryl Nelson, former Blizzard Company and The Pokemon Company.

Other developers have positive things to say about Bungie specifically when it comes to management. “Inexcusable,” said the global community lead Dylan Gafner, who remains employed. In a video, the former community manager of Destiny2 Liana Ruppert who was fired last year stated that Parsons was a liar and a thief; she demanded that he resign.

Good wishes for everyone involved, though may not be that optimistic when it comes to its implementation.