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Bungie Devs Atmosphere 'Soul-Crushing' Amid Layoffs, Cuts, Fear of Sony Takeover
- voidfunc 3y agoReactionary panic purchase by Sony when MS acquired Activision and looks like they're well on their way to destroying the company. Good job Sony.
- CSMastermind 3y agoI assume they care most about the IP and less about the studio?
- ClassyJacket 3y agoWhat IP? Marathon that was only just announced? Destiny seems to be winding down.
- wsc981 3y agoThe new Marathon game seems to be very loosely related to the originals and not even having a single player experience. Pretty much only Mac users played the original. I think it would have been better if they gave the game a different name. To me it feels a bit like a “betrayal” of the original game and with very little, if any, benefit.
- Moto7451 3y agoHalo is in many ways an extension of the Marathon lore but with a different plot. Since Halo is a Microsoft IP Sony probably saw this as a good way to have their own Halo.
- safety1st 3y agoI think Bungie eventually confirmed that the two aren't in the same universe, but in the early days it seems like that was pretty up in the air. Prior to the announcement of Halo, a prominent Marathon fan site started receiving emails from cortana@bungie.org - https://marathon.bungie.org/story/cortana.html https://marathon.bungie.org/story/cortana.html . The sender appeared to be a rampant AI who was dropping all kinds of cryptic tidbits that linked her to Marathon. For example Cortana and the AI antagonist of Marathon are named after swords wielded by Charlemagne's paladins in the 12th century, and they appear to be aware of this and of each other... at one point in Marathon 2 Durandal asserts that he's got a history with Charlemagne and calls him a fruitcake..! Cortana later repeats some of the lines from those emails in Halo 3, and Marathon references are all over the place in the first few games. Bungie was in a league of their own back in the day with all the cryptic references and teasers and connections. At one point they released a timeline for the Marathon universe, and the point in time when Halo takes place is labeled with "Nothing important happened here."
- hooverd 3y agoYou can play the original Marathon(s) on Mac, Windows, and Linux now thanks to Aleph One [0]. There's also new scenarios for the engine still being released, like Apotheosis X which came out last year [1]. [0] https://alephone.lhowon.org/ https://alephone.lhowon.org/ [1] https://www.moddb.com/mods/apotheosis-x https://www.moddb.com/mods/apotheosis-x
- TerrifiedMouse 3y agoI heard the opposite. They care more about the studio’s live service expertise than the Destiny IP.
- steveklabnik 3y agoThat was the stated reason for the acquisition, and why they put so much money towards retention bonuses. Unfortunately, since Sony is scaling back their live service ambitions, seems like maybe this wasn't the best move. Then again, this article makes the situation sound pretty dire, and it isn't like those things would be different had the acquisition not happened...
- magicmicah85 3y agoI don't think Sony should get blame on this, Bungie was already well on their way to mediocrity. They had a great IP, great game mechanics but they've been riding the Destiny train for way too long with mediocre expansions (except for Witch Queen). There are also too many looter shooters competing for people's time, live service as a model is a steady revenue stream but the good times don't last forever. It's time for something fresh and new, even if it's not live service, just give players anything.
- lokar 3y agoThey are doing a remake of marathon?
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoNot a remake: a PvP "extraction" shooter, which is apparently a term that means something to folks who like to play FPS games online. I, on the other hand, love offline, atmospheric FPS games with deep lore, like the Marathon games I grew up playing on my family's Performa 6115. https://blog.playstation.com/2023/05/24/bungie-unveils-marathon/ https://blog.playstation.com/2023/05/24/bungie-unveils-marat...
- yoyohello13 3y agoAny by "extraction" they mean "extracting as much money as possible from whales."
- Apocryphon 3y agoYeah seems like a case of zombie IP, a “remake” in name only in service of the lucrative genre of the month. The very same thing happened to Starsiege recently: https://youtu.be/EAB4vDhCHf0 https://youtu.be/EAB4vDhCHf0
- somenameforme 3y agoThe greatest bastardization of all time, which rightfully flopped as hard as a 2 ton pancake, was Shadowrun. [1] Take one of the most beloved RPG and tabletop genres of all time, and create an online only, PVP only, $60, first person shooter. Brilliant! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_(2007_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_(2007_video_game)
- Apocryphon 3y agoYah, but fortunately for that series, they’ve made a few RPGs since then, starting with Shadowrun Returns. No such luck for a proper Syndicate sequel yet…
- scientifik 3y agoBaffling why Bungie would sell themselves to Sony after their purchase and split from Microsoft considering they are printing cash with Destiny microtransactions.
- julianeon 3y agoDestiny 2 revenue fell 45% below projections for the year, which had to hurt.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoSo they sold at peak. Good for them!
- MoBarouma 3y agoI don't buy the line it was get bought by Sony or close. The article states that Bungie were giving people bonuses of >100% because they'd been so successful financially, and they'd just signed a lease on a really expensive new office These are not things you do if you're clinging desperately on for survival. To me this reads like corporate greed and nothing else. Here's my take on the cycle Bungie is trapped in and how they got there: They sold to Sony to get sizeable payouts on their owned shares and they over-inflated the value of the company whilst doing that. Sony is now asking where the money is. In response, the senior team at Bungie claim that the economy is hard and then passes on all the consequences of their actions onto the workforce. In doing so, they destroy the day-to-day working of the company because nobody actually wants to work there anymore and it just becomes a place where everyone is utterly despondent. The revenue continues to fall, and the senior team continue to respond to the falling revenue by passing more layoffs/discipline/cruelty onto their employees. Eventually there is a surplus of managers left at Bungie and nobody to actually do the work. They desperately try to plug these gaps with contractors and outsourced staff but the burden of training people to work within a 7 year old code base that is riddled with spaghetti and bugs just means that nobody can actually successfully build anything. Bungie as a company will not survive long enough to make Destiny 3.
- kermatt 3y agoThis is an all too familiar story, unfortunately, and not just limited to the games sector. It’s why if I can avoid it I won’t touch anything that considers it’s exit strategy more important than its product.
- calamari4065 3y agoThis makes me wonder, what's the oldest game studio that hasn't devolved into utter garbage or been bought and took out behind the barn? Blizzard, Maxis, EA, Rockstar, Bungie, Lionhead, every name I can think of from the old days is now utterly disgraced or just dead. Sierra is still going, kind of. It seems to have devolved into a handful of people with very little money. I actually applied to a job posting from them a couple years ago. Seems the only source of half decent games that aren't actively exploiting people is just indie studios. Nothing against indie, but it's hard for a couple of people in their free time to compete with the kind of quality and innovation we used to get from the old guard.
- marginalia_nu 3y agoParadox?
- distortionfield 3y agoThis was gonna be my answer. Paradox has been putting out solid sim games for a while and they’ve only been getting better.
- jcranmer 3y agoMy sense is that, for example, the reception of EU4 expansions has generally ranged from lukewarm to absolutely terrible over the past few years, so I'm not sure "they've only been getting better."
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- noirbot 3y agoYea, it feels like you move into that smaller studio zone. Paradox, Firaxis, even something like Supergiant. Places that have ups and downs, but generally make a specific sort of thing, get paid for it, and move on to the next thing.
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- LanzVonL 3y ago[flagged]
- grungyneer 3y agoProbably smart to drop the DIE idealogues. They put everyone on eggshells and rarely get much work done. I bet productivity improves after this, despite IGNs outraged pearl clutching.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago[flagged]
- tomdil45 3y ago[flagged]
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoDid I call anyone a name? What name? Where? Let's look at a little bit of evidence, shall we? There is an ENTIRE FUCKING ARTICLE about the problems that Bungie's developers are having with the changes at the organization. And out of ALL of that, GP focuses solely on DEI, which is nothing more than a declaration that HR is going to follow the diversity rules that HR offices at corporations have been made to follow for over a decade now. Why would someone have such a strong reaction to DEI policies? It isn't freedom of speech, because that doesn't exist in corporate environments. Guess what that leaves. If you are a Bungie shareholder, then you have a little bit of an out, because you can claim that DEI should already be ensconced in HR. But if you aren't, then you're just mad because someone can get fired or the company can get sued for behaving like a bigot. I'm not sorry if you're bent out of shape over it. I don't care how you feel it looks. Especially given that the other account and yours are practically brand new just to reply on this article.
- causi 3y agoIs anyone surprised? Bungie sold out the idea of making good games in favor of making infinite money Skinner boxes. Destiny 2 came out six years ago. Spoiler alert: the need to make infinite money means your Destiny plotlines and big questions will never, ever be resolved. You will never find out the origin of the Traveler.
- ukuina 3y ago> You will never find out the origin of the Traveler. Any hopes of this went out the door alongside Joseph Staten's departure.
- causi 3y agoI wonder if there's a German word for that feeling. The Traveler mystery sucks, but what really ripped my heart out was realizing I'm never going to know the ending to the mysteries and cliffhanger of Beyond Good & Evil after Michel Ancel retired.
- Terretta 3y ago> And yearly studio performance bonuses this year will only be the contractually obligated 80% minimum, after being above 100% for good performance several previous years running. ‘Underperforming’ rewarded differently than ‘performing’ shocks under-performers. > leaders had reiterated, across multiple meetings, that they couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be more layoffs Breath of fresh air, since most leadership just lies "that's the last cut forever" then lay off more people next quarter. I once quit a board when it decided to claim the first round was the last while planning 3 more rounds. It does sound awful, being told this particular truth. But being told the truth, being treated like adults with self-agency, should maintain morale more than being fed lies. Meanwhile, compare: > mood within the studio has been “soul-crushing” ... reducing numerous morale events such as cooking and knitting classes from monthly to quarterly ... versus ... > with Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape delayed into the next fiscal year and Bungie still investing heavily on Marathon, many employees understand that Bungie is struggling to meet the necessary targets This sounds like a disconnect between where payroll comes from and the production of value for game players. If a company isn't keeping something worth paying for in the hands of players, there's no margin to keep the company in knitting classes. The bottom line is a hard one, and in a large company, the message doesn't feel particularly "inclusive", but from childhood we learn it: "shape up, or ship out". When ability to deliver gets underwater relative to pay, something has to give -- something has to increase ratio of delivery to expense. All that said ... While most attention tends to go on how to cut the expense number, it tends to pay off better to figure out how to increase the delivery number (always remembering that's valued delivery, valued by the customer with money). "Management" can cut expenses, but teams have to raise delivery value-per-time which might need to include getting management (overhead) out of the way. If teams can see and explain how this could work and deliver on it, let your "inside" board members know. . . . PS. This comment is incoherent, but presumably someone is unpacking it: > "I’m angry. I’m upset. This isn’t what I came here to do,” one person said. “It feels like many higher ups aren’t listening to the data and are like, ‘We just need to win our fans back, they still like us.’ No. They don’t...We got rid of some of our most knowledgeable beloved folks who have been here for 20+ years. Everyday I walk in afraid that I or my friends are next. No one is safe." The phrases "We just need to win our fans back, they still like us" and "higher ups aren't listening to the data" sound (if taken charitably) like the same goal. Given enough fans with wallets, "What do fans want? Let's deliver that!" should be the best morale booster, with margin -- and bonuses -- to follow.