It’s a sad case of another day, another round of mass layoffs at a game studio. On this occasion, Destiny developer Bungie has announced it is letting go of 220 employees, or 17% of its workforce. CEO Pete Parsons said the eliminations were due to “financial challenges,” which isn’t going down well, especially after it was discovered he may have spent over $2.4 million on classic cars after Sony acquired the company, and continued buying them even after the previous layoffs.
Bungie blames the job eliminations on “rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions.” The Sony subsidiary says it needs to make substantial changes to its cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon.
The cuts will impact every level of the company, including executives and senior leader roles – but not Parsons, obviously.
It was only in October 2023 that Bungie made its last round of layoffs, and the news comes just under two months since the launch of Destiny 2: The Final Shape, which has been well-received.
In December, Bungie devs told IGN that the atmosphere at the company was “soul-crushing” due to fears of more layoffs, extra cost-cutting measures, and a loss of all independence from Sony if Bungie’s financials did not improve. Staff said earlier this year that they feared more job cuts were coming.
The latest layoffs have led to many angry posts on social media from current and former Bungie employees. Destiny 2’s global community lead Dylan Gafner (AKA dmg04) called the move “inexcusable,” and noted that it’s a case of “Accountability falling upon the workers who have pushed the needle to deliver for our community time and time again.”
What’s angering people even further is the discovery of what seems to be Parsons’ account on a car bidding site called Bring a Trailer. It shows he has spent $2.4 million on classic cars since September 2022, which includes $500,000 since the October layoffs.
TAX THE FUCKING RICH!!!
70% of that $2.4 million should have been taxed and he can do whatever he wants with the remaining money. OR he can get paid what he actually deserves and leave the rest for the company to become stronger.
70% of that $2.4 million should have been taxed
It’s literally post-tax income already, lol.
That just illustrates a more fundamental problem
You lot are constantly talking about how workers are uniformly short-changed on their labor by their employers, underpaid for it and therefore being a profit source for employers, but you never explain why any business would do layoffs like this if that was the case, lol. Do these people who got laid off make the company money or not?
You lot
Very interested in who “you lot” refers to when you’ve had a different commenter every reply in this thread.
Do these people who got laid off make the company money or not?
What’s your position here? That labour isn’t exploited and undervalued by the people who profit off it? That if it was, no one ever would be sacked? These companies usually go through phases of hiring talent when they predict they need more labour done (ie when they want to increase profit).
Seems like Bungie haphazardly acquired more talent than it needed, presumably under the assumption that the company would grow indefinitely. It didn’t. So what’s the easiest and shittiest way to bring the company ledger out of the red?? You guessed it, sack them. There’s also a bit of an upset at the idea of paying executives million dollar salaries, then sacking hundreds of actually productive employees.
sacking hundreds of actually productive employees.
If they were “actually productive”, sacking them would hurt the bottom line, not help it.
Yeah no. If that was all you managed to get from my reply then it isn’t worth continuing this discussion.
HERE is some information regarding these companies and CEOs that you are stupidly and disgustingly sticking up for. Hope that helps.
Nobody deserves to be able to buy $2.4mil of toys. Period. This guy is gross.
I believe it’s peer pressure once you have that kind of money. They are so far from reality they just don’t think about it. All their cocaine-buddies ramble about how they “deserve it” to throw money out of the window, they worked so hard yadda-yadda.
It’s bonkers. But I also never had that kind of money. Maybe we would all do the same thing?
Maybe we would all do the same thing?
That’s precisely my point. That kind of wealth should not be allowed, specifically because it seems to lead to this kind of behavior. Rare is the wealthy philanthropist; common is the wealthy psychopath.
Wanna know what’s even more sad? That 2.4m is only enough to pay for salary of 10 employees. This is salary, benefits, and additional respurce costs and personel usage. Basing this based on my friends who work for bungie and their salary is nothing enough for this areas cost of living.
So instead of spending money on extravagant expenses they could have fired 5% less people this round… Compared to what the money is spent on that still sounds good.
Though it indeed makes little difference in the big picture, this is still a bad image.
I just cannot fathom this absolutely brainlet, short-term thinking. Yeah, these people have created some of the best content we’ve ever made (according to player feedback). Let’s fucking fire them all!
When did “investing” die and rise as a revenant obsessed with burning down the building to get one more penny? Do billionaires know something we don’t and are burning everything down because the planet’s gonna explode?
Guys, all of you are being really mean. Do you know how many cars he would have to give up buying if he didn’t lay all those employees off?
At least one. Probably.
