NonPhixion
Member
Did I just read some dumb fuck say Colt was right? Haha the old man’s delusional opinion can no way be considered right. Hahahhahah
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Bungie Devs Say Atmosphere Is ‘Soul-Crushing’ Amid Layoffs, Cuts, and Fear of Total Sony Takeover - IGN
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Mibu no ookami
Member
Excruciating? Final Shape is coming out in 6 months. Marathon is coming out sometime in the next 24 months.
The reality is Bungie can always develop a Destiny 3 if it comes down to it and it'll likely be successful.
Activision never owned Bungie. They had a publishing deal that they mutually walked away from early.
People? Over 1200 people work for Bungie. How many people did IGN talk to? Even if they talked to 50 people that would represent less than 4% of the company
Think about the type of people who complain about clubs and gift cards going away and how they weren't consulted during layoffs, and not just complain to their peers but to the press... to what? Pressure management or to publicly degrade confidence in the company, probably costing people more jobs.
Bungie has a great score on glassdoor. You just have a lot of people who don't know what life is really like who had it on easy streak for a long time.
QA people complaining about being called non-developers... what do you develop? You're not programmers, you don't code at all.
It seems like there are still some people Bungie needs to get rid of and it won't be too hard to find them out, because these people aren't hiding.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Oh no.
Instead of learning how to cook three new recipes in 3 months, I now how to suck it up and just learn one new dish per quarter. I could also just learn how to do this myself on my own watching YT videos or reading online recipes, but I want Bungie to fund me putting on an apron and a puffy white hat so Chef Pierre can show me how to make pasta dishes every month.
And now that hand knit pair of socks will take forever to make. Instead of Grandma Greta showing me how to do it across Jan and Feb, I'll now have to wait until April if Granny cant solve my sock problem in Jan.
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Mibu no ookami
Member
Exactly. They threaten additional layoffs as future levers because they want people to put full effort into Final Shape and Marathon.
If Final Shape performs well there will be a little more breathing room. If it fails, Sony will likely need to take over and that probably means the departure of some key people at Bungie and it'll still likely mean additional layoffs.
It's hilarious how so many people think that work is a field trip where they are there to collect their entitlements.
No one wants layoffs and everyone wants their bonuses, but they don't like it when operating costs are cut? And the gamers who enable this stuff are even worse, because this is the stuff that makes monetization even worse.
Mibu no ookami
Member
Bungie likes to tell themselves that they are this independent maverick studio, but they've really never been that. Most of their relationship has been involvement with a major benefactor whether they owned them or not.
They fear the unknown but they are also angry at current leadership for taking away their fluffy perks.
Activision employees wanted to be under Microsoft because a) Kotick sucked and b) their RSUs were going to get a major pay day. Bungie was a private company unlike Activision that was public. So while you would be compensated for your ownership in the company, it wasn't the same type of deal you'd get simply by owning a fluctuating share of stock.
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
No he's not
The Pleasure
Member
Jigsaah
Gold Member
I think Sony should take over Bungie personally. Bungie was bad under Activision, and worse independently. Somebody needs to put the reigns on this donkey. Sony's greed doesn't seem to seep into their games...yet. Maybe under Sony's leadership, Marathon won't be a microtransaction hell like Destiny 2 is.
ResilientBanana
Member
Doubt it
blue velvet
Member
I don't hate Bungie, they're just not worth a billion and all these trouble. In fact, Sony and Jim Ryan are to blame for all of these. They didn't venture on other types of games outside of that cinematic
AAA third person games they've been churning out the past decade, they were extremely reactive and confident of themselves. It took MS to buy Activision and COD for them to react and realize they need a competitive GAAS first person IP to compete in the future. Buying Bungie wasn't the brightest choice either.
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Lupin25
Member
Let’s hope they can capture some of their audience back. Destiny 2 isn’t doing too well right now and another six months is a huge let down knowing why it was delayed.
Avg. Peak Players
Oct 2023 - 42k
↓
Nov 2023 - 33k
Things aren’t pretty right now. We’ll see.
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ReBurn
Gold Member
I don't understand how anyone believed that the exchange of $3.6 billion was anything other than Sony putting themselves in a position of total control of Bungie. People swore and vehemently defended that it was somehow "written into the contract" that Sony can't take over and that Bungie were contractually independent from Sony. But that's not what ever happens legally when you sell your company. Sony owns the legal entity that is Bungie and there wouldn't be an agreement in place that allows Sony to sue themselves over breach of contract.
Any binding independence agreement could have been with people they retained that gives those people an option to repurchase some or all of the company should Sony choose to exert their right to absorb it into the mothership. But chances are they wouldn't walk away with everything they walked in with, if they could even afford to repurchase it at all.
Fabieter
Member
I bet fractions 2 which was basically delayed by bungie devs would have made more money than the last few destiny 2 expansions. Iam a big sony fan but this was jimbos/Sony's biggest mistake.
Imagine burying sqaure enix and letting yoshi p handle all the gaas games a guy who's made a gaas game more and more successful after a decadent without beeing the most greed guy in the industry.
Imagine burying sqaure enix and letting yoshi p handle all the gaas games a guy who's made a gaas game more and more successful after a decadent without beeing the most greed guy in the industry.
Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
We have some morons knitting during our meetings ands events ... and my god, some of them are complete twats. I should bring in a Singer overlocker and start churning out some clothes or someshit as well.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
We dont know what all the bonus metrics are, but if they missed sales by 45%, surely their profits tanked too.
Having bonuses reduced 20% so people still get 80% worth is incredible. Every place I worked (including friends and ex-coworkers who work at similar kinds of companies), if the company misses major targets the bonus is literally 0%. And it's not like it requires a 45% sales miss. All it takes is missing targets by 5% and it can be a big fat donut. Who has ever heard of a company missing by 45% and still get most of their bonus? I've never worked at a place that doled out a zero, but I've worked at Fortune 500 companies where the company did pretty status quo decent and we'd get like 8% bonus. Getting double digit % was tough. And that's a company that still makes billions in profits.
Bungie sounds a dream gig when the company is rolling in the money. Nice bonuses with minimum 80% payout safety net, perks everywhere, and hell going by what employees got I wouldnt be surprised if they got free oil changes and lawn mowing service. And why not? They are already getting cooking classes and birthday gift cards.
Bungie clawing back is getting the company back to reality. When things hit the shitter, you get shit back.
"Reduced travel". Welcome to 2018 Bungie. My company reduced travel for all people forcing us to use Skype or MS Teams. And it's not like we were losing money. We were doing solid as usual. It's just a cost savings.
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Roxkis_ii
Member
To be laying off people, Bungie must feel some kind of pressure, so of course that pressure will be felt by the employees working there. Some people can handle the pressure and preform, and other people whine and crack... I do hope the company does keep their QA team, as they're unappreciated until games start shipping broken messes.
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Mibu no ookami
Member
The reason why companies are laying off QA people isn't because they're interested in shipping broken games, but because it doesn't make sense to pay QA pay year round despite projects not being ready to enter even initial QA phases.
Imagine a team of 20-80 employees sitting around doing largely nothing for an entire year or more.
It makes way more sense to outsource or centralize QA among Sony Studios.
Mibu no ookami
Member
The same people who want to work fully remote also want the company to pay for them to take trips cross country for conventions and conferences and to visit other studios.
They're very lucky the layoffs weren't more severe.
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
Bungie created Halo... one of the greatest FPS franchises of all time.
Destiny 1 and 2 have also been super successful and until recently (due to the poor choices by Bungie fucking up Lightfall and increasingly nickel-and-diming the D2 community) Destiny 2 was the sole reason for the $3bln company valuation because the franchise made multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues.
They were absolutely worth the price Sony paid. Just not now after the most recent terrible missteps with the D2 franchise.
This is delusional.
All of Bungie's problems are by Bungie and because of Bungie.
This is fan-fiction. And a pretty terrible one at that.
Balducci30
Member
Xbox shoulda bought back bungie, put the og team on halo. Instead of activision,
Mr.Phoenix
Member
What's the problem here?
ZoukGalaxy
Member
It's over bunguys, go back to work now.
Bernardougf
Gold Member
They have stolen the chance of learning to knit from hundreds of programmers at bungie so we are discussing if a knitters revolution is necessary in this industry.
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GigaBowser
The bear of bad news
bungie must be used to make the next killzone im sorry its all true my friends
ChorizoPicozo
Member
that would be the dumbest decision they can take.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
Cert.in.Death
Member
TBH: they've earned it.
None of what was described in the article would strike me as unfounded or unwise. All good things come to an end.
None of what was described in the article would strike me as unfounded or unwise. All good things come to an end.
Heart_Attack
Member
Go Woke, Go Broke
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Mate. Almost all their games since Oni have gone through development hell.
Halo CE
Halo 2 - Rebooted from scatch 1 year before release. Final game was very different from the original E3 demo. All Halo 2 devs still recount the Halo 2 crunch with horror as the worst video game crunch or as Marty said "There are two kinds of crunch, the crunch you want to do and the Halo 2 crunch, no dev should go through the Halo 2 crunch ".
Halo 3 - Story expanded from the final act which was cut from Halo 2. Max Hoberman who was leading the development left in December 2006 to make Certain Affinity. The writers felt the story was bland so they included deaths of important characters like Johnson to make it impactful. To conflict versions of Forerunner origin in game messing up lore.
We don't know of ODST and Reach development.
Destiny 1 - 1 year before release, Jason Jones fired the entire writing team because he didn't like the original story as it was too linear. Game was rebooted. Many important bungie devs left before Destiny 1 release. Year 1 was a mess.
Destiny 2 - Rebooted 1 year before release and Taken King director took over.
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The Pleasure
Member
I thought Colt Softwood wasn't allowed?
Zannegan
Member
You may jest, but I'd be all about that.
Katatonic
Member
Bungie needs to untuck it and take a page from Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Housemarque, Sucker Punch, etc. Companies that were acquired.
They all stepped their game up and delivered.
Bungie has more than enough clout to push their ideas through if they truly believe in them.
They all stepped their game up and delivered.
Bungie has more than enough clout to push their ideas through if they truly believe in them.
DeaDPo0L84
Member
When you start using colteastwood tweets as a point of agreeance you've completely lost the plot.
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bitbydeath
Member
Slash and burn, Sony.Looks to me like they got rid of some absolute bums and are focusing in on people who want to make fun games
Shocking. If you want to be indispensable to a company then maybe your time should be spent harnessing game development skills, not creating little gay clubs
Slash, and, burn!
Dynasty8
Member
Really curious as to who was let go and from what department? Bungie went on a rampage hiring spree during 2019-2020 and that's where the DEI groups were formed and a shit ton of new "team members" came into the studio. I really enjoy Destiny and playing with friends makes for a very fun time...but as long as the team behind the raids, dungeons, ritual activities and campaign remain then I am happy. The DEI people need to stay the fuck away from anything game related. Half the characters in this game are LGBTQ...coincidentally that started happening around 2019-2020.... it just doesn't fit in and feels very forced.
sendit
Member
The OG team didn't want to make Halo anymore.
Gamerguy84
Member
Whoever this dev is they are acting like a toxic girlfriend of Sonys.
Baki
Member
It’s also cheaper to offshore QA to lower cost locations than Seattle lol.
Baki
Member
And it’s not a story for the journalists if it’s balanced. That doesn’t drive clicks.
WitchHunter
Banned
They sent the Forbidden West head honcho in... that's a bad sign for them.
Bungie Devs Say Atmosphere Is ‘Soul-Crushing’ Amid Layoffs, Cuts, and Fear of Total Sony Takeover - IGN
One month after a major round of layoffs impacted roughly 100 Bungie employees of 1,200, those remaining at the Destiny developer say the cuts, as well as other cost-cutting measures, came alongside an apparent scramble by studio leadership to avoid a total Sony takeover.www.ign.com
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Independent. Sell to Microsoft for $40 million. Somehow regain independence. Partner with Activision, who eventually loses interest. Sell to Sony for $3.6 billion. Has any other developer done this before? I know Blizzard has technically been acquired four times at this point (Davidson & Associates, Vivendi, Activision, Microsoft) but that is a completely different pattern.
Also, what the hell did Sony get for $3.6 billion, if not outright ownership of the studio and the IPs it retained? And for all the years Sony has been publishing games and building up internal studios, I can't really think of too many examples of a developer getting the shit end of the stick other than Psygnosis and Zipper Interactive.
Is there really any other problem that could acccount for this, other than Destiny generally being beneath expectations for nine years and counting? Activision doesn't make a habit of disassociating from lucrative franchise.
Also... knitting class?
Also, what the hell did Sony get for $3.6 billion, if not outright ownership of the studio and the IPs it retained? And for all the years Sony has been publishing games and building up internal studios, I can't really think of too many examples of a developer getting the shit end of the stick other than Psygnosis and Zipper Interactive.
Is there really any other problem that could acccount for this, other than Destiny generally being beneath expectations for nine years and counting? Activision doesn't make a habit of disassociating from lucrative franchise.
Also... knitting class?
MasterCornholio
Member
Seems like Sony was planning a take over without actually saying it to the public.
Bungie " You can purchase us but we want to remain independent"
Sony knowing they would fail replies.
Sony " You can have your independence but if you fail you will be mine "
Bungie " It's a deal then if we fail we lose our independence "
It could be possible that Sony planned it this way to fully take over them. And it wouldn't be Sonys fault because it would depend on how successful Bungie is.
Rambone
Member
I feel like Bungie is a has-been studio and nothing that interests me personally has come out of them in some time. I was over Halo when the 2nd game released and was all Destiny'd out after the first one. Maybe it's time for them to move on and do something else. Lol at the knitting class, most jobs I've been to the best perk you get is knowing you are going to earn a paycheck and stay employed for a stretch of time.
