American video game developer Bungie is a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It was founded in In May 1991, by Alex Seropian. During its early years, the company focused mostly on Macintosh games and produced the popular Marathon and Myth video game franchises.
Since its debut in 1990 with Gnop, Bungie has created eighteen games. Its most famous production is without a doubt the Halo series. Despite its delayed entry into the game business, the series, particularly Halo: Combat Evolved helped Microsoft’s Xbox establish itself as a legitimate challenger to Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo.
Recently, Bungie has made headlines after staff members there said they recently experienced another round of layoffs. This layoff is a sudden reversal from August when Bungie declared it was aggressively seeking new remote-first employees to work on an unidentified project. Approximately 100 workers, or 8% of the workforce, were reportedly impacted by the layoffs, according to Bloomberg.
Here are some of the disciplines that have been affected by layoffs at Bungie so far:
– Community
– Social
– Marketing
– Publishing
– Art
– QA
– Support
– Legal
– HR
– Production— Destiny Bulletin (@DestinyBulletn) October 30, 2023
The CEO of Bungie, Parsons, informed staff members that the underwhelming sales of Destiny 2 in the previous year and the lower-than-anticipated preorders for the game’s planned expansion, The Final Shape, were the main causes of the layoffs.
Bungie’s response fails to convince fans
Following the huge layoff spree, Bungie, the makers of Destiny 2, found themselves in hot water. These cutbacks led the corporation to postpone The Final Shape and its new IP Marathon, with the new season just over a month away.
In a statement released after the layoffs, Bungie acknowledged the studio’s difficult week and hinted at some of its future intentions.
NEW: Message from the Destiny 2 Dev Team. pic.twitter.com/mz6C1BH95f
— Destiny Bulletin (@DestinyBulletn) November 2, 2023
Many fans thought that this comment was just an automated response. It was derided as a corporate ruse that ignored the previous week’s occurrence. Many also thought the statement was bland and irrelevant in light of the recent layoffs. The excitement surrounding The Final Shape, in spite of the circumstances, came in for more criticism.
Man this is sad bros.
— Æ’y (@AustinJLEast) November 2, 2023
It is estimated that 650 developers are still working on Destiny 2 and The Final Shape. However, the game’s future may be in jeopardy because of this occurrence. Many individuals chose not to pre-order The Final Shape after Lightfall. After Bungie’s layoffs, a few of the people who had pre-ordered the game requested a refund.
The status of Marathon, the extraction-style shooter that Bungie disclosed earlier this year, was also left unanswered. Although it hasn’t been given a date, Marathon is supposedly moving to 2025.