Paul Tassi: Layoffs at Bungie - Happening Now.

ReBurn said:
Probably going to use the resources of the mothership for some of those roles. PlayStation corporate likely has lawyers and recruiters and tweeters that can do some of that for them.

Perhaps most surprising but not really all that surprising is cuts to QA. It's been a QA slaughter this year. QA seems to always be the first job to get cut.
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Looking forward to their damage control when The Final Shape is a buggy mess.
 
ReBurn said:
Probably going to use the resources of the mothership for some of those roles. PlayStation corporate likely has lawyers and recruiters and tweeters that can do some of that for them.

Perhaps most surprising but not really all that surprising is cuts to QA. It's been a QA slaughter this year. QA seems to always be the first job to get cut.
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Artists aren't redundancies, though. Those are true talent cuts.
 
Wastelander92 said:
Looking forward to their damage control when The Final Shape is a buggy mess.
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The good news is that gaming press don't care about bugs any more. The world has acquiesced because everyone knows that the worst bugs will get fixed eventually. Standards have never been lower.
 
tmlDan said:
You can also blame this on Bungie, didn't they go from like 900 employees to over 1,500 when they were acquired?
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By the sounds of it, just about every tech company shot through the roof during covid years hiring tons of people as if the golden goose would be laying eggs forever.
 
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I always assumed this would happen. I saw a thread listing the number of devs bungie had. 1400 is pretty damn big just to maintain Destiny or even make one new remake.
 
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GHG said:
This is the full list.




It's mostly (but not only) support staff. Points towards trimming the fat for redundant roles in the organisation while also reducing head count for games in production.
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That list isnt good news because it's a combination of support staff that can be redundancies as well as creative roles.

So holistically whatever Bungie games are being made now (Destiny 3, Marathon etc...) are scaling back in people power despite these games not even close to being finished yet.
 
ReBurn said:
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but you can get good enough video game art from robots these days. It's tragic what's happening to art, but it's happening all the same.
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My point was that it's not just redundancies being cut. Talent IS being cut. Whether that talent is actually talented and worth keeping is another story, but it's not just people that can be replaced with already existing employees. A large amount of hiring listings have been removed as well.
 
GHG said:
This is the full list.




It's mostly (but not only) support staff. Points towards trimming the fat for redundant roles in the organisation while also reducing head count for games in production.
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Notice that no software engineers or game design is impacted

So yeah, cutting fat
 
ReBurn said:
Probably going to use the resources of the mothership for some of those roles. PlayStation corporate likely has lawyers and recruiters and tweeters that can do some of that for them.

Perhaps most surprising but not really all that surprising is cuts to QA. It's been a QA slaughter this year. QA seems to always be the first job to get cut.
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Probably. Makes sense.

But what doesn't make sense is Bungie was supposedly an independent arm kind of studio who has autonomy to do their own thing.
 
SEGAvangelist said:
My point was that it's not just redundancies being cut. Talent IS being cut. Whether that talent is actually talented and worth keeping is another story, but it's not just people that can be replaced with already existing employees. A large amount of hiring listings have been removed as well.
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I get what you're saying. It's sad because talent can be and is cut all the time in the name of cost savings. Especially when technological advancement and general critical apathy minimize the most important human contributions.
 
killatopak said:
I always assumed this would happen. I saw a thread listing the number of devs bungie had. 1400 is pretty damn big just to maintain Destiny or even make one new remake.
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I'm a SW engineer in a different industry and this is just mind blowing to me. How in the hell do you have 1400 employees working on what, maybe 3-4 projects in active development + sustaining existing products. What are they all doing?
 
ChuckeRearmed said:
Considering the state games have been launched recently, do they even need QA anymore? :messenger_tears_of_joy:
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All I'll say is that the lack of it definitely shows.

StreetsofBeige said:
Probably. Makes sense.

But what doesn't make sense is Bungie was supposedly an independent arm kind of studio who has autonomy to do their own thing.
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The notion that Bungie was totally independent from Sony was always just publicity that people vehemently defended for some reason. No conglomerate would spend $3.6 billion to buy a company and not have a way to be directly involved in its operation. If It's making boatloads of money I'm sure the mothership would be happy to leave it alone, but if the rumors that Sony is reversing course on GaaS are true then I couldn't think of a subsidiary that would be more under the microscope than Bungie.
 
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Interfectum said:
Games as a Service is crashing and burning. You have 5-6 games at the top that dominate and the rest just fall into oblivion. These high level execs know this and don't give a fuck... they'll just keep throwing bodies at it hoping they hit the Fortnite lotto too and there is very little consequence for them if they fail.
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This is my takeaway and I think Sony realize throwing 12 games at the wall to see 1-2 that stick wasn't a smart strategy. It's a lot of money and resources wasted on cancelled GaaS titles that could've gone towards surefire traditional games and/or more surefire GaaS titles.

I'd also say if that is the case, then at least at SIE there are consequences. Jim Ryan is leaving. Connie Boothe is leaving. Other high-level execs could be leaving, we don't know yet. I'm not saying Jim and Connie are leaving solely over GaaS and a shift to something less lenient on it 1P-wise, or even if that's the reason whatsoever.

However, if it's part of the reason, I wouldn't be surprised. I heard davidjaffe davidjaffe has a scoop on Connie's exit; would like to think he had further details but curiously he hasn't shared anything about that now has he? 🤔...
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
This is my takeaway and I think Sony realize throwing 12 games at the wall to see 1-2 that stick wasn't a smart strategy. It's a lot of money and resources wasted on cancelled GaaS titles that could've gone towards surefire traditional games and/or more surefire GaaS titles.

I'd also say if that is the case, then at least at SIE there are consequences. Jim Ryan is leaving. Connie Boothe is leaving. Other high-level execs could be leaving, we don't know yet. I'm not saying Jim and Connie are leaving solely over GaaS and a shift to something less lenient on it 1P-wise, or even if that's the reason whatsoever.

However, if it's part of the reason, I wouldn't be surprised. I heard davidjaffe davidjaffe has a scoop on Connie's exit; would like to think he had further details but curiously he hasn't shared anything about that now has he? 🤔...
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It's crazy that people are coming to a conclusion based on their preconceived notions.

Layoffs are happening across the industry and they aren't limited to GaaS.

We have no idea why Jim Ryan is leaving or why Connie Booth was fired. None, zilch.
 
ReBurn said:
All I'll say is that the lack of it definitely shows.


The notion that Bungie was totally independent from Sony was always just publicity that people vehemently defended for some reason. No conglomerate would spend $3.6 billion to buy a company and not have a way to be directly involved in its operation. If It's making boatloads of money I'm sure the mothership would be happy to leave it alone, but if the rumors that Sony is reversing course on GaaS are true then I couldn't think of a subsidiary that would be more under the microscope than Bungie.
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Rumors based on people's desires of what they hope to be the case...

Also, whether Bungie was independent or not wouldn't change that they would still have layoffs.

Look at Epic Games.

People pretending this is just about GaaS are disingenuous.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
Rumors based on people's desires of what they hope to be the case...

Also, whether Bungie was independent or not wouldn't change that they would still have layoffs.

Look at Epic Games.

People pretending this is just about GaaS are disingenuous.
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What's it about, then? What does Bungie do these days that's not about GaaS?
 
SEGAvangelist said:
Artists aren't redundancies, though. Those are true talent cuts.
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Depends if they were contractors, or full-time salaried employees. More importantly to what department were they supplying art?

People forget how large web-teams can be, and developers working on actual game-dev shouldn't be spending their time preparing and finishing assets that fall under the marketing depts aegis.
 
Interfectum said:
Games as a Service is crashing and burning. You have 5-6 games at the top that dominate and the rest just fall into oblivion. These high level execs know this and don't give a fuck... they'll just keep throwing bodies at it hoping they hit the Fortnite lotto too and there is very little consequence for them if they fail.
Click to expand...
As for GAAS, there's a small number of big boys that dominate, but there's going to be lots of smaller scale ones that are profitable and do fine. I'm sure there's many gem matching, puzzlers and deck building games that can survive based on 10,000 gamers playing and an indie studio making it.

Problem is Sony is a company that makes games with big production values, so to make it worth it, it's got to be a huge hit. if not, everyone has seen what they do to their MP games. They shut down servers fast. And with no Xbox, Switch or mobile version (this assumes it's PS and day one on PC(?)) the available market size is going to be a lot smaller than other big GAAS games that are multiplatform including smartphones. So to make it worth it, the sales and mtx got to be a decent chunk from these two platforms. Of course, maybe the games in production are actually B-tier budgets. So the drive for high sales on PS/PC isnt needed. And if all these GAAS games are PS5 only + PC, the market potential is even smaller with no PS4 gamers.
 
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ReBurn said:
What's it about, then? What does Bungie do these days that's not about GaaS?
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That's not inherent to GaaS, that's inherent to the fact that Sony upped their headcount tremendously and their last expansion didn't perform well and they've now had to delay two major projects...

That comes at a cost whether it is GaaS or not.

In 2014, Sony had layoffs at Sony Santa Monica after Stig's game was canceled. Four years later they put out God of War 2018.
 
mckmas8808 said:
It's not great for everyone, but 2008-2009 was what bad really looked like. That was the Great Recession. The unemployment numbers are still too low for our economy to be considered "BAD" per say. And wages are still going up, just not as fast as the cost of living. :-(

But back in 2008, wages were going down fast and everyone was losing their jobs like crazy. And there weren't many job openings to apply for. Nowadays, there's PLENTY of job openings to apply for.
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The jobs numbers are faked(and honestly always have been). They always look great upon release until you look deeper and see most added jobs are people taking second jobs, not adding to the work force. Then after several months they go back and revise the data much lower while no one is paying attention and suddenly the numbers look pretty bad.
 
ya timing is about right. alot of stuff winds down during the holidays if there is no product release. As people take time off and staff are in and out, its hard to coordinate between teams and productivity just craters.

they probably are trying to layoff staff so they're not just paying for employee vacations.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
That's not inherent to GaaS, that's inherent to the fact that Sony upped their headcount tremendously and their last expansion didn't perform well and they've now had to delay two major projects...

That comes at a cost whether it is GaaS or not.

In 2014, Sony had layoffs at Sony Santa Monica after Stig's game was canceled. Four years later they put out God of War 2018.
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Ok. But 2014 was 9 years ago and this layoff is at a company that currently only makes live service games. Since Bungie only does live service games it's not exactly a stretch to assume that's what it's related to. The only other thing i can think it could be is that Sony only had one major AAA first party release this year and they expect a drop in revenue as a result, but such an opinion not likely to be popular.
 
Sorry for those affected.

Looking at the roles lost, it looks like areas that either won't be needed for a while or ones PlayStation already has and doesn't need huge duplication on..Bungie were over 1600 people and that isn't needed.
 
ReBurn said:
Ok. But 2014 was 9 years ago and this layoff is at a company that currently only makes live service games. Since Bungie only does live service games it's not exactly a stretch to assume that's what it's related to. The only other thing i can think it could be is that Sony only had one major AAA first party release this year and they expect a drop in revenue as a result, but such an opinion not likely to be popular.
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It's related to their decision to delay games and they underperformance of their last release. That's not because they're GaaS, that would be the result regardless when you have a product underperform and the next two projects are extremely delayed.

What it looks like is they're moving people off of Marathon and probably having them focus on the Destiny 2 expansion and as a result you don't need a lot of people in the next 18 months for Marathon, so you've got to cut back in places.

Sony knew they were only going to have one major AAA first-party release. They mentioned it in their forecast for the year, so that's not new. What's new was probably the lack of PS5 sales this summer, the need to cut prices in territories to increase sales, and the poor reviews across the board for a lot of games, which is probably why Connie was fired, as it's her job to oversee the production of these games.

Herman may be next if he doesn't watch himself, but the reality is they probably planned on having Spider-Man and Last of Us Online. You also had Last of Us Part 1 underperform on PC because of a rushed port job. That's not GaaS either. My theory on Naughty Dog is that TLOU Online reviewed poorly and they need to make sure TLOUP2 Directors Cut on PS5 and PC is in good shape before Season 2 comes out and then they'll revisit the online game. I doubt they just outright trashed the game. At worst they'd make it an online mode in the next game.
 
Salty Popsicle said:
In Bungie's case however, it's already been confirmed that all their future titles will be multiplatform.
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SlimySnake said:
except bungie is continuing to make multiplatform games,
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That was only one example. Bungie will include HR, accounts payable, legal, and other business support functions that are redundant under Sony.

SlimySnake said:
and firing HR, marketing and other redundant departments dont require mass layoffs. they are unceremoniously let go slowly one after another.
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Not at all. Look at the mass layoffs that occur not too long after every major corporate acquisition. They're never immediate, mostly because it looks bad, but moreso because it takes time identifying what are the redendancies. It's standard fair.

SlimySnake said:
these mass layoffs are a cost cutting measure because the company missed their internal profit targets and have to show shareholders that they are doing something.
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They can be. This can be simultaneously true in this case too.

But typically, when a larger company subsumes a smaller one, the smaller company becomes further removed from the eyes of shareholders and its performance targets get rolled into those of the wider business group.

So if this was indeed a cost-cutting measure to increase shareholder confidence, it would be happening across the entirety of the Playstation business. Not just a single newly acquired developer.

This is almost certainly a result of a post-acquisition review of redundant functions across the entire Bugine business to trim the fat.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
It's crazy that people are coming to a conclusion based on their preconceived notions.

Layoffs are happening across the industry and they aren't limited to GaaS.

We have no idea why Jim Ryan is leaving or why Connie Booth was fired. None, zilch.
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They may be industry-wide but every company's going to have their own priorities with layoffs and the reason they are doing them.

Sony could be taking care of multiple things at once here; it could be related to adjusting/scaling back on the aggressive GaaS push (particularly if it's goin to be at the expense of 1P non-GaaS titles which could negatively affect the console) and setting things in place to account for that shift, while simultaneously knowing that some people have to be let go because of larger industry & economic concerns.

They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Yeah, some of this is my own hopes and wishes, but that's just coincidental.

StreetsofBeige said:
As for GAAS, there's a small number of big boys that dominate, but there's going to be lots of smaller scale ones that are profitable and do fine. I'm sure there's many gem matching, puzzlers and deck building games that can survive based on 10,000 gamers playing and an indie studio making it.

Problem is Sony is a company that makes games with big production values, so to make it worth it, it's got to be a huge hit. if not, everyone has seen what they do to their MP games. They shut down servers fast. And with no Xbox, Switch or mobile version (this assumes it's PS and day one on PC(?)) the available market size is going to be a lot smaller than other big GAAS games that are multiplatform including smartphones. So to make it worth it, the sales and mtx got to be a decent chunk from these two platforms. Of course, maybe the games in production are actually B-tier budgets. So the drive for high sales on PS/PC isnt needed. And if all these GAAS games are PS5 only + PC, the market potential is even smaller with no PS4 gamers.
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I think this highlights a bigger problem with SIE: the idea everything needs to be big, huge AAA in order to justify its existence. That just simply isn't the case.

Yeah there are some among the fanbase who would scoff at anything that isn't a AAA banger, but those are the ignorant fans. They can be ignored. I personally never saw why Sony prioritized PC ahead of mobile for content expansion in the first place; there is simply too much crossover between console & PC and the decline of Xbox proves this. Jim Ryan's even admitted to it now. It's not like back in the '90s or early '00s when the audiences were more or less mutually exclusive with very little crossover in buying habits and game tastes.

That benefits multiplatform releases a lot, but not marquee games from a platform holder which should be exclusive to the console, to give people a reason to actually buy that console (and do their services & 3P software/MTX/IAP purchases there too).
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
They may be industry-wide but every company's going to have their own priorities with layoffs and the reason they are doing them.

Sony could be taking care of multiple things at once here; it could be related to adjusting/scaling back on the aggressive GaaS push (particularly if it's goin to be at the expense of 1P non-GaaS titles which could negatively affect the console) and setting things in place to account for that shift, while simultaneously knowing that some people have to be let go because of larger industry & economic concerns.

They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Yeah, some of this is my own hopes and wishes, but that's just coincidental.
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When you come to a conclusion based almost entirely on your own views, you're setting yourself up to be wrong.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
When you come to a conclusion based almost entirely on your own views, you're setting yourself up to be wrong.
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I'm sure many were probably thinking similar with mine & others' posts talking about slowing Xbox sales, low Game Pass revenue etc. back in the early parts of 2022 (or speculating Xbox EOY 2022 install base numbers) too. But, turns out our speculation ahead of official info getting revealed & leaked wasn't that far off from the truth after all.

So, gonna say I'm at least 70% sure part of the changes happening at SIE are in relation to adjustments in the GaaS (and probably PC) strategies, but I guess we'll see if that's the case, later on.
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
They may be industry-wide but every company's going to have their own priorities with layoffs and the reason they are doing them.

Sony could be taking care of multiple things at once here; it could be related to adjusting/scaling back on the aggressive GaaS push (particularly if it's goin to be at the expense of 1P non-GaaS titles which could negatively affect the console) and setting things in place to account for that shift, while simultaneously knowing that some people have to be let go because of larger industry & economic concerns.

They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Yeah, some of this is my own hopes and wishes, but that's just coincidental.



I think this highlights a bigger problem with SIE: the idea everything needs to be big, huge AAA in order to justify its existence. That just simply isn't the case.

Yeah there are some among the fanbase who would scoff at anything that isn't a AAA banger, but those are the ignorant fans. They can be ignored. I personally never saw why Sony prioritized PC ahead of mobile for content expansion in the first place; there is simply too much crossover between console & PC and the decline of Xbox proves this. Jim Ryan's even admitted to it now. It's not like back in the '90s or early '00s when the audiences were more or less mutually exclusive with very little crossover in buying habits and game tastes.

That benefits multiplatform releases a lot, but not marquee games from a platform holder which should be exclusive to the console, to give people a reason to actually buy that console (and do their services & 3P software/MTX/IAP purchases there too).
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Get through one wall of text in an unrelated topic without crying about Sonys PC ports challenge: failed

You guys really need to get over it. They own Nixxes for a reason.
IMG-8791.jpg
 
Mibu no ookami said:
It's related to their decision to delay games and they underperformance of their last release. That's not because they're GaaS, that would be the result regardless when you have a product underperform and the next two projects are extremely delayed.

What it looks like is they're moving people off of Marathon and probably having them focus on the Destiny 2 expansion and as a result you don't need a lot of people in the next 18 months for Marathon, so you've got to cut back in places.

Sony knew they were only going to have one major AAA first-party release. They mentioned it in their forecast for the year, so that's not new. What's new was probably the lack of PS5 sales this summer, the need to cut prices in territories to increase sales, and the poor reviews across the board for a lot of games, which is probably why Connie was fired, as it's her job to oversee the production of these games.

Herman may be next if he doesn't watch himself, but the reality is they probably planned on having Spider-Man and Last of Us Online. You also had Last of Us Part 1 underperform on PC because of a rushed port job. That's not GaaS either. My theory on Naughty Dog is that TLOU Online reviewed poorly and they need to make sure TLOUP2 Directors Cut on PS5 and PC is in good shape before Season 2 comes out and then they'll revisit the online game. I doubt they just outright trashed the game. At worst they'd make it an online mode in the next game.
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I don't know. Her getting fired over review scores seems unlikely. She's probably not Involved in the day to day decisions thst each development team at PlayStation Studios makes and likely couldn't directly influence review scores. I think it's more likely she was fired because Jim Ryan was exited via retirement for lack of output in a year with high sales expectations and she was responsible for executing on his vision. Sony having to sacrifice margin to meet hardware sell-through targets had to come down on someone. Lack of new games likely contributed to having to run discounts.

If Hulst's biggest concerns is how to handle remakes and remasters of older games for PS5 then no wonder leadership is being shaken up. He should be worried.
 
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Have they even been owned by Sony for a full year? Sorry to those affected, must be some nasty confirmation bias going on.
 
Jim Ryan and Connie Booth are leaving because they likely got the golden parachutes and don't want to mess with the slowdown that is yet to come/is happening. They want to associate their legacies with Playstation being at the top and they probably know the consequences of the gamepass/streaming/gaas future, particularly if Sony will be able to compete in that world or not. I bet you Bob Iger's biggest regret in life is coming back to Disney and dealing with the current mess, shareholders gave him the bag.
 
Best wishes to those impacted. I hope they find employment soon. Being unemployed during the holiday season would suck.
 
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ReBurn said:
I don't know. Her getting fired over review scores seems unlikely. She's probably not Involved in the day to day decisions thst each development team at PlayStation Studios makes and likely couldn't directly influence review scores. I think it's more likely she was fired because Jim Ryan was exited via retirement for lack of output in a year with high sales expectations and she was responsible for executing on his vision. Sony having to sacrifice margin to meet hardware sell-through targets had to come down on someone. Lack of new games likely contributed to having to run discounts.

If Hulst's biggest concerns is how to handle remakes and remasters of older games for PS5 then no wonder leadership is being shaken up. He should be worried.
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...

Internal reviews not metacritic... we're talking about incomplete projects.

Again, they knew Spider-Man was going to be the only AAA game, it was forecasted.
 
Tarnpanzer said:
From a german perspective reading about that man who worked more than 20 years and just gets fired is just mindblowing.

Here in germany with over 20 years at the same company you would be a permanent who cannot be fired under normal circumstances.
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Europe is a different mate, there are actually rules in place 👍
 
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