• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Jason Schreier‬: Bungie is planning significant layoffs, Destiny 3 is NOT in active production

Or maybe the morons are the ones in Japan trusting the ones in the West.

When there's money on the table and people with high CIs start acting weird, negligence is not the first thing that comes to my mind.

Sony has been grossly scammed this gen, not once but TWICE. Bungie + Firewalk. None of these cases can be explained logically unless there's some sort of embezzlement.

Or simply Occam's Razor.

Namely (paraphrase): "Never attribute to malice, that which can easily be explained by stupidity"
 
I don't think it will. I think growth is inevitable...the question is how popular will the fully realized version of Marathon get?

Below is Hunt Showdown...a relatively basic Extraction Shooter that doesn't have nearly as many levers to pull as Marathon.

GDn3872eaFQbtaeN.png
I reckon they have a year tops. Sony will want to see the game grow from season 2 onwards. If there is little to no change by say season 4 then they are fucked.

Season 2 will have a lower peak than 1 but with better retention % wise. Game is solid, but whoever let that rediculous budget get so out of control needs a massive slap.
 
Or simply Occam's Razor.

Namely (paraphrase): "Never attribute to malice, that which can easily be explained by stupidity"


There's a very close relationship between both, but that's a topic for another thread.

Here we have negligence by HQ and clear malice intentions from the studio directors who got rich. Though the upper level of Sony overseers may have greenlit this out of incompetence, everyone in direct relation with the deal should be suspected as a bad actor.
 
I reckon they have a year tops. Sony will want to see the game grow from season 2 onwards. If there is little to no change by say season 4 then they are fucked.

Season 2 will have a lower peak than 1 but with better retention % wise. Game is solid, but whoever let that rediculous budget get so out of control needs a massive slap.
We are 100% on the same page...except for that last part. The budget is beautiful.

It took Michaelangelo 4+ years and 3,000 papal chamber ducats (wow!) to paint the Sistine Chapel. F*** anyone who thinks it should have a couple of stick figures up there. Greatness lies beyond comfort and safety!!
 
We are 100% on the same page...except for that last part. The budget is beautiful.

It took Michaelangelo 4+ years and 3,000 papal chamber ducats (wow!) to paint the Sistine Chapel. F*** anyone who thinks it should have a couple of stick figures up there. Greatness lies beyond comfort and safety!!
Oh don't get me wrong its very nice of Bungie and Sony to spend whats looking like upwards of 300 million on us, but you have to admit its not the greatest business move of all time. I'm very grateful though.
 
So what's happening with Bungle?
Do they have something unannounced in the pipeline or will they be turned into a support studio.
 
So what's happening with Bungle?
Do they have something unannounced in the pipeline or will they be turned into a support studio.
They will be turned into closed down studio soon enough, likely before end of financial year so end of march 2027 :)
 
So what's happening with Bungle?
Do they have something unannounced in the pipeline or will they be turned into a support studio.

Hopefully Sony closes them, and then takes marathon out back and Hillary Clinton's it to the back of the head.
 
Oh don't get me wrong its very nice of Bungie and Sony to spend whats looking like upwards of 300 million on us, but you have to admit its not the greatest business move of all time. I'm very grateful though.
I'm not willing to have that conversation until S4 or S5. I really do view Marathon as an Early Access title. It could end up going that way but the next year is too interesting to judge at this moment.
 
Apparently they are pitching ideas but none of been greenlit
Which is completely fucking insane.

I am a Marathon enjoyer but turning it into a viable product for the masses is going to take a miracle and a shit load of time and money, both are a commodity Bungie doesn't have much of.
 
THEY ONLY WORKED ON MARATHON AND DLCs ALL THIS TIME?
what the actual fuck?

is anyone out there still not fully convinced at this point that AAA game development is just completely fucked?
I really don't understand how 800 people studio just did D2 DLCs + support and Marathon for many years. Marathon is also very sparse on content and its graphics are not complex.
 
Sony allocated roughly $1.2 billion (about one-third of the total deal) specifically to incentivize and retain Bungie employees.

Money well spent.
 
I really don't understand how 800 people studio just did D2 DLCs + support and Marathon for many years. Marathon is also very sparse on content and its graphics are not complex.
That happens when you hire tons of DEI clowns and people who have nothing to do with the actual game development.
 
Acquisitions: where great studios go to die

John Lewis Lol GIF by Waitrose & Partners

I think that the main reason, is that soon after a studio is bought up, the top talent that built the studio either leaves or is forced to leave and are replaced.
This happens especially with the studio founders, that had the vision and capabilities to manage it.
 
I think that the main reason, is that soon after a studio is bought up, the top talent that built the studio either leaves or is forced to leave and are replaced.
This happens especially with the studio founders, that had the vision and capabilities to manage it.

Absolutely. Can't buy the people that made the studio great. At that point the corporation has really just bought the sign on the door and some IP and most of the time they ignore the IP as Sony seems to be doing. The companies seem to have more money than sense at times.
 
Sorry Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes but you know what you must do.

TK7g3X.gif
I'm not worried about any of this.

Destiny 2 ceased development, a game I cared nothing about. Tassi said morale is good on the Marathon team & Sony put +100 devs onto Marathon last month.

I'd be very worried if I was a Destiny 2 developer but as a Marathon fan, I view the next year with optimism.
 
Last edited:
I'm not worried about any of this.

Destiny 2 ceased development, a game I cared nothing about. Tassi said morale is good on the Marathon team & Sony put +100 devs onto Marathon last month.

I'd be very worried if I was a Destiny 2 developer but as a Marathon fan, I view the next year with optimism.
u47HdQVPSV3AbGLa.gif
 
I'm not worried about any of this.

Destiny 2 ceased development, a game I cared nothing about. Tassi said morale is good on the Marathon team & Sony put +100 devs onto Marathon last month.

I'd be very worried if I was a Destiny 2 developer but as a Marathon fan, I view the next year with optimism.
I know your shtick is to defend this game to death, but you're simply delusional. They can put 500 more developers and billions of dollars towards this game and it wouldn't move the needle at all.

The game is fundamentally good, the problem is first impressions are everything and a lot of people's minds are already made up and moved onto something else. The amount of copium you're huffing thinking this is going to have some magical turnaround is bizarre.

72WdKxi66MsbJPOx.jpg
q0BXKKWvuChh9uNy.jpg
 
I am actually shocked Destiny 3 is not in active production. They were banking all all Marathon. The level of mismanagment is insane.

Also them killing Destiny 2 while it has more players than Marathon is wow.
 
Last edited:
I'm not worried about any of this.

Destiny 2 ceased development, a game I cared nothing about. Tassi said morale is good on the Marathon team & Sony put +100 devs onto Marathon last month.

I'd be very worried if I was a Destiny 2 developer but as a Marathon fan, I view the next year with optimism.

I have an obligation to defend Sony so going to have to agree with boxes here
 
Strangely, i think it was... i mean how much money each company LOST because of these mergers? :-D

Of course, in this case the better scenario was: do nothing :-D

There's still a tremendous amount of value in Activision's IPs. Microsoft has been badly mismanaged, but Call of Duty continues to release every year, and Blizzard and King are both money-printing machines.

Meanwhile Bungie is looking more and more like a total loss.
 
Last edited:
Bungie saved Naughty Dog by canceling Factions and going live service , worth the 3 billion Sony spent.
 
Don't go throwing out FromSoft's name into this. This fucking AAA live service obsession and the new norm of 5 and 6 year development cycles is an affliction affecting Western devs.
I believe you read my statement incorrectly. I'm saying the only devs I can really trust to output a great experience is FromSoftware and Valve.

The list used to be a lot longer.
 
I know your shtick is to defend this game to death, but you're simply delusional. They can put 500 more developers and billions of dollars towards this game and it wouldn't move the needle at all.

The game is fundamentally good, the problem is first impressions are everything and a lot of people's minds are already made up and moved onto something else. The amount of copium you're huffing thinking this is going to have some magical turnaround is bizarre.

72WdKxi66MsbJPOx.jpg
q0BXKKWvuChh9uNy.jpg
If Crytek and BattleState Games can do it for their Extraction Shooters, it's possible Bungie can do it for their Extraction Shooter.

It's possible the forum who has 0 interest in Live Service, and hates them with an almost Puritan like passion, doesn't understand the ability to grow a Live Service game over time.

It's also possible you're right. We'll see.
 
Last edited:
Bungie saved Naughty Dog by canceling Factions and going live service , worth the 3 billion Sony spent.
What? If anything Factions was going to be super fun, a competition to them, and is probably the reason they canceled it.

People just wanted Factions 2, a polished Factions 1, which they already had.
 
Last edited:
I know your shtick is to defend this game to death, but you're simply delusional. They can put 500 more developers and billions of dollars towards this game and it wouldn't move the needle at all.
While I don't think that Marathon is going to pull a miraculous comeback, it does sometimes happen in the industry.

The games that did manage to come back had to basically start from scratch or change so much that it's an entirely different game.

Final Fantasy 14 absolutely bombed at launch and was one of the worst games I had played at the time. It was completely rebuilt from scratch and its new evolution was a major success. Even to this day.

Diablo 4 has changed and fixed so many things since it launched, that those that played it back then would be like "where was this game at launch??". But that took years.

Both of those franchises had an established track record over many decades with a dedicated fan base. Marathon doesn't have that going for it. Some Destiny players hopped over, along with people looking for a new extraction shooter. Lots of them have left.

I don't have the solution for Marathon. If I did, I'd be making a lot of money lol
 
Surprising absolutely no one. They already spun off part of the studio into a separate team. Destiny 2 is stopping development when the plan up until recently was continuing content for it. So the only game they'll need a fair amount of people for is Marathon and you can only find roles for so many people on a game like that until it's just pointless bloat. It doesn't sound like they have any other major projects in the works at the moment. Whatever gets greenlit, if anything, will still spend years in pre-production. They have over 800 people, last I heard. That is way too many people for their current situation to justify a payroll for. Hell, I'd argue Bungie has had way too many people for a long time.
Remind you of Ubishyt honestly.
 
Top Bottom