At the beginning of the week, it was revealed that Bungie suffered layoffs continuing the unfortunate trend that has plagued the video game industry this year. Now, new report has revealed new details about the situation. It has been confirmed that Bungie was behind the layoffs. Around 100 staff, roughly 8% of Bungie’s workforce were affected. The layoffs impacted several departments including the Community team, Art, Engineering, Recruiting, Legal, Audio, QA, Creative Studios, and IT, with impacts across both the Destiny 2 and Marathon teams. This also includes multiple members of the company’s diversity committee and accessibility club.
In an internal town hall meeting about the layoffs, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told employees that the company kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2. Parsons said that the layoffs happened in part due to the poor performance of Destiny 2 in the last year which contributed to revenue for the company running at around 45% below what was projected. Staff were told that The Final Shape, the game’s next expansion, was delayed from February to June to give staff more time to improve it. According to sources speaking with IGN, this was flagged to leadership repeatedly for months prior to the layoffs, with employees begging for necessary changes to win players back.
One former employee told IGN that they were repeatedly assured that there would be no layoffs at the company following Sony’s acquisition of Bungie. There was an item from a Sony Quarterly report that claimed that $1.2 billion of the $4 billion acquisition was going to staff retention. Multiple employees confirmed that money was distributed to employees who were fully vested, with money split into multiple payments over time based on discipline and seniority.
Other employees expressed to IGN their frustration with the layoffs following Bungie’s brand new headquarters which is more than double the size of the previous office.
Another detail that was revealed was how certain employee benefits lasted until the end of the month. These layoffs took place on October 30. Healthcare will still be available to those let go for the next three months.
One issue that has everyone taking notice is that of employee shares. The majority was owned by Bungie employees before the acquisition by PlayStation. Sony revealed last year that existing employees would be rewarded if they didn’t leave and stayed for a certain number of years. Sony planned “to incentivize the shareholders and other creative talent to continue working at Bungie after the acquisition closes.” Eligible employees had ‘unvested shares’ which are put aside for them and can’t be accessed until they meet a certain requirement like staying at a company for a certain number of years. According to a source, “Those shares revert to Bungie if you leave, even if you’re fired, which is what’s happening now to many of those affected.”