Bungie Cuts 17% Of Staff, Another 12% Integrates With Sony, And A New Sony Studio Will Take Over Some Projects

Poor leadership at the top once again leads to rank and file employees paying the price.

This has been something we've been watching here at MMOBomb since the initial announcement of Sony's purchase of Bungie. While the Destiny 2 creator was initially given a bit more autonomy under the Sony umbrella, things started going sour before the launch of the shooter's The Final Shape expansion and it looked like Sony was watching the financials closely and would step in if they needed to do so. Layoffs in December were just the beginning of the company trying to cut costs to avoid Sony basically taking over.

While The Final Shape appears to have done well, it looks like it wasn't good enough to stave off big changes. Stemming from rapid expansion and poor management from the top (that second one being my personal opinion), Bungie is now letting go of 220 employees. That represents 17% of Bungie's total workforce and it includes staff in senior and executive positions. Another 12% of the staff, 155 positions, will be integrated into Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) over the next few quarters, saving at least some jobs.

Those impacted by the layoffs have been given severance packages, bonuses, and health coverage while they begin the hunt for new jobs.

Project-wise, if it isn't Destiny or Marathon, it's going away. There is one project that may still see the light of day at some point as an unannounced action game in a sci-fi universe may be given to a new studio formed under Sony to complete. This new studio is estimated to be about 75 team members strong.

CEO Pete Parsons tries to explain how the company ended up in this position in the post and ultimately attributes the challenges to the company's rapid expansion into multiple products without a support structure capable of sustaining that expansion. "We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red," said Parsons.

Sorry, but to put it bluntly, these types of decisions come down to leaders at the top and them deciding the direction, something we saw was already a concern internally when The Final Shape's delay was announced.