Bungie Devs Say Atmosphere Is 'Soul-Crushing' (ign.com) 47
In the wake of laying off about 100 of its 1,200 employees, Bungie, the developer behind Destiny, is reportedly grappling with internal challenges and cost-saving measures, amid efforts to maintain some autonomy from Sony. Although Bungie operates as an independent Sony subsidiary, its leadership is seemingly striving to prevent a complete Sony takeover, IGN reports. The company's board, split between Bungie and Sony representatives, faces potential dissolution if Bungie fails to meet specific financial goals. This risk has been heightened by the delay of Destiny 2 expansion "The Final Shape" and investments in Marathon, challenging Bungie's financial performance. The report adds: Along with the recent layoffs, this has resulted in a massive decay in morale within the company, according to IGN's sources, one of whom told us that the mood within the studio has been "soul-crushing" over the last month. And it doesn't sound like management is making any significant efforts toward improving the atmosphere, either. According to those still with the company, employee frustration and sadness in the days and weeks following the layoffs was met with a surprising amount of indifference or even outright flippancy or hostility from management.
Several people we spoke to told us that leaders had reiterated, across multiple meetings, that they couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be more layoffs, with two specifically confirming previous reports that chief people officer Holly Barbacovi outright stating that layoffs were a "lever" the company would pull again.
Several people we spoke to told us that leaders had reiterated, across multiple meetings, that they couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be more layoffs, with two specifically confirming previous reports that chief people officer Holly Barbacovi outright stating that layoffs were a "lever" the company would pull again.
Sounds like every tech company... (Score:1)
Every tech company is offshoring to India and laying off people. Morale is shitty across the entire industry, with management making it well aware that if you can be replaced by a chatbot, you will be shitcanned.
This isn't just Bungie devs... this is everyone. Welcome to the new normal, and either re-tool, or perhaps consider blaming politicians for allowing your job to be sent overseas with tax benefits to companies who do this. The days of being a full stack developer with a smattering of SQL and copyi
Too many people in the games industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Bungie has had a string of hits. Several Halo games, a couple Destiny games. Maybe this is the end. Plenty of truly impressive studios have bitten the dust before, they certainly wouldn’t be the first. But if you have the kind of skills to make video games, you also have the skills to work a nice 9-5 in some corporate IT department making boring web apps for marketing for more money and less work. There’s no shame in that. You just can’t say you’re in the games biz.
Re:Too many people in the games industry (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost any field in entertainment or fashion is cut-throat and intense. My daughter tried to go into fashion design, but found it far too brutal and back-stabbing. Everyone wants the glamour and (alleged) fun of creative design, but the fact is it's too many people chasing too few positions, making it viscous.
My wife is also in the fashion business, but in a support position where the competition is less fierce. She could do fashion design, having tons of experience in the industry, but chooses to stay out of the fray.
Re:Too many people in the games industry (Score:5, Insightful)
While the competitive nature of entertainment is definitely true TV and cinema workers benefit from a long history of unionization. From the Teamsters to IATSE and the DGA, SAG, WGA, etc.
Game company employees (and in the film industry the VFX workers) are a bit of a mix of entertainment and tech but they both unfortunately kept the anti-union stances of the tech workers since in the 90's when both of these industries were starting to see increased growth the workers were all very special, very talented, they generally eschewed other jobs to work in games so who needs a union right?
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The film industry can probably get away wit
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there are more people trying to make games than the market can support.
This is a claim that has to be backed up, we can't just presume it. Even on just a cursory search there are 3000+ game studio job openings on Indeed, what's the factual basis for an overemployment issue in the games industry?
Also the underlying issue we are talking about here is worker conditions. Bringing up overemployment is huge pivot from the core issue and barely a secondary issue and a union only has to do with the relationship of worker to employer, the overall market conditions of the sector has li
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Unions may make it harder to get into the industry, but those already in would be harder to abuse. Less stress and less heart attacks.
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Straight out of high school I worked for a major game publisher in QA and then briefly in production just before the dot com crash and boy was that a fun work environment to work in. Post crash I was eventually laid off and chose to go to college and now no longer work in games. I kept in touch with quite a few people from back then though and not a single one of them still works in the game industry because working conditions and management have just turned to utter shit most places.
I'm glad I got out when
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Oh the work loads and hours could be quite heavy. That part was less than great but given that I was young and grew up working and going to school at the same time when I was in high school I think I just didnt notice the long hours like I would now. Fortunately as well for most of that time being in QA I was hourly so my take home some weeks was greater than my immediate boss'. But yeah, on refection those hours were kind of abusive.
What I was more referring to was company culture. Work every day was like
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“Soul-crushing” work environments have been the standard in video games for decades now, because too many people work in video games. Not only do video games have the same problem as any other entertainment product (more people want to work in this glamorous industry than can ever practically work in it, so employers feel quite comfortable being abusive), but there are just more video game companies than the market can bear. There have been tons of tricky business gimmicks to keep a game afloat when nobody is willing to pay full price for it (free-to-play, "early access", subscriptions, micro transactions), and tons of effort to squeeze as much profit as possible out of even successful games because everyone is quite aware that one flop can be fatal. And yet, I still constantly see new entrants, and new initiatives to lower the barrier to publishing even more (e.g. Steam Greenlight, Epic Games Store).
Bungie has had a string of hits. Several Halo games, a couple Destiny games. Maybe this is the end. Plenty of truly impressive studios have bitten the dust before, they certainly wouldn’t be the first. But if you have the kind of skills to make video games, you also have the skills to work a nice 9-5 in some corporate IT department making boring web apps for marketing for more money and less work. There’s no shame in that. You just can’t say you’re in the games biz.
It kind of puts me in mind of the sex industry. I mean, the girls might be all smiles and pretty and stuff, but underneath its just soul destroying and they hate their lives...
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Bungie has had a string of hits. Several Halo games, a couple Destiny games. Maybe this is the end. Plenty of truly impressive studios have bitten the dust before, they certainly wouldn’t be the first. But if you have the kind of skills to make video games, you also have the skills to work a nice 9-5 in some corporate IT department making boring web apps for marketing for more money and less work. There’s no shame in that. You just can’t say you’re in the games biz.
It's the cyclical nature of the video games industry, a studio has a hit or two, gets bought up by a large publisher, pushes out sequels until it's such a smelly turd that hardened fanboys cant stand them any more. The key personal leave before this point to start the cycle all over again at another studio, which makes a hit or two, gets bought up by a large publisher and the circle of life continues.
Although I think we can replace "sequels" with "seasons" these days. I think we've reached the point wher
Inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
Selling your company to another company is selling out. You lose your independence. Period. End of story. There's no such thing as a truly autonomous unit inside a company. If "vision" matters most to you, don't take your company public.
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If you sold your company it is generally because you didn't see a successful financial future for your company.
Sell or die.
They can't blame Sony for giving them money and expecting something in return. It was spelled out in the contract. This is pure Bungie management failure from long before Sony came along or there wouldn't have been a sale.
That being said, layoffs suck. I've been on both sides several times. It doesn't feel good to be the manager picking names off a list handed down from higher up wi
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If you sold your company it is generally because you didn't see a successful financial future for your company.
Horseshit. Some people just prefer a lump sum paycheck and to move on to something else. That doesn't mean there isn't a financial future for the company.
You're not very smart.
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As usual:
1) I am smarter than you, that's all that matters, and I'm pretty fucking stupid so you're even lower
2) Bungie management is still there, did not move on, so assault, you are wrong
3) you are wrong, oh so wrong, wrong wrong wrong, again, as always, as per norm.
Idiot.
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I was a big fan of Bungie back in the Marathon through Oni days too. But yeah... then they sold out to Microsoft, gutted Halo of much of the promised (And demoed at Macworld!) gameplay and content, and trashed the Mac version that was already mostly written. After that, they deserve any and all misfortune that has or may befall them. Lie down with dogs, don't be surprised when you get up with fleas.
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"Meet specific financial goals or Sony takes full control" seems like full control with extra steps. Just turn up the thermostat and wait. Enjoy the sounds coming from inside. If you open the doors when it's over and find burned-out husks where useful employees once were, well, that's the usual MO's target anyway.
Guess they thought the autonomy terms would be indulged by a benevolent Sony. They have suits paid to tighten thumbscrews, who likely relished this easy claim to hundreds of hours worked and Value
It is the same situation with Bethesda (Score:2)
They have released a few bad games lately, and with Redfall, Microsoft is now looking to take a more involved role in operating the studio. [windowscentral.com]
The interesting part of this situation is that they were hoping being bought by Microsoft would give them the opportunity to cancel the game [ign.com] because Bethesda did not have faith in it. Instead, Microsoft seems to have forced them to release the subpar game and is now using that as a reason to take control.
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Microsoft "taking control" may be a really good thing for the on the ground devs as from the linked article it really seemed like Redfalls issue's stemmed from a difference of direction between the developers and the studio management and while the devs may have wanted to cancel it I imagine the management are the ones communicating the progress back to Microsoft and bringing up to your new owner "we should put our new project to sleep" puts your own head on the block so no incentive to come clean to your n
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I don't think it's necessarily a good thing. Microsoft is doing poorly with their own games like Halo and Crackdown, and their other projects like Perfect Dark keep slipping and experiencing issues with development teams leaving the project.
Regularly Scheduled Layoffs (Score:1)
The company I work for has been having regularly scheduled layoffs every 6 months for the last 3 years. The last week of May and the last week of November have seen 20 heads escorted from the premises.
Basically, every one of the 20 group directors must select one person to fire every 6 months. There is no hiring to replace. The mantra is "get rid of the weakest link and let increases in working efficiency in the rest of the group make up for it."
Management does not understand the exponential nature of 1/x.
time to get an UNION! (Score:2)
time to get an UNION!
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time to get an UNION!
Or better yet, THE UNION, the very best source of quality news entertainment.
layoffs to look profitable on a balance sheet (Score:2)
Duh
Was involved in a 'merger' years ago (another company bought us out) and I remember all the meetings to smooth our ruffled feathers.
The most memorable line from my company's HR guy, who I thought was an honest, standup guy, was 'the truth is a moving target'.
yay
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Well, there's also clear evidence of over-hiring potentially ruining product quality in the industry at various times, through various avenues from overall employee complacency to "too many cooks" syndrome (World of Warcraft comes to mind) but the distressing problem is where managers these days seem to be over-correcting without realizing the importance of balance in their strategies. But I don't know, maybe they actually just hate their customers and their employees equally and this is just a fun way for
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When it's a public company it's very simple: the stockholders want the number to go up and it's ingrained into the stock markets, every business and MBA school in the country and pretty much most managers brains that "cut labor --> stock price goes up" and that is the overriding goal.
Just this week I saw Spotify laid off a bunch of people. The next day, stock price bumped. The incentives are all there for this behavior, it's been trained into every industry regardless of whether it is good from an obje
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Just this week I saw Spotify laid off a bunch of people. The next day, stock price bumped. The incentives are all there for this behavior, it's been trained into every industry regardless of whether it is good from an objective economic, ethical or moral point of view.
First off, not every company is a public company that has the burden of worrying about stock price. Or Boards of Directors. Or even debt for that matter. Some are considerably more fortunate than the others who more operate under an often-hyped "value" sold to investors who already know why 70% of their investments will fail to be profitable, recording that majority failure as nothing more than a burden-eradicating expense represented as a "loss" in front of tax collectors and auditors, which ultimately
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The problem is that long term, it hamstrings companies... but the days of companies making research centers like PARC and Bell Labs are gone. If a company wants just some incremental thing to look good the next quarter, they go buy some startup, or maybe toss some cash at some guys to spin off a company to be bought later on. This is partially why we don't see revolutionary new things anymore, but at best some tiny improvement, but with a high subscription cost.
The concept of a stakeholder is completely l
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Where do you get that? Who said anybody was surprised?
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UNIONIZE! (Score:3)
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At least the summary didn't talk about any mistreatments. It seemed to attribute most of the "soul-crushing" to the fact that layoffs had happened and there are likely more to come. Ping pong tables, shark tanks, WFH, "cool" mangers, and other perks can't fix morale when people believe their job is about to be eliminated. At least, for the 99% of people who work to pay for rent/food/car/etc.
Re: UNIONIZE! (Score:2)
Twitter is not in any form or way "working perfectly". The app is more broken than not, performance is complete dogshit, and feature design / development is so aimless as to be useless since it depends on the whims of a single insecure baby and whatever he feels like doing every day. The people left can barely keep the place from collapsing on workdays that would make a coal mine worker blush.
Their PR is excellent towards gullible tools like you, tho.
Re: UNIONIZE! (Score:2)
Ah yes, the only people who can disagree with you are whatever boogie man you created in your mind.
No, I've never worked for that company, which was bad before and is worse now. But your mind can't comprehend it when adults can discuss complex concepts instead of reducing everything to sports team terms. You bad! Me good!
Grow up.
They've got literally all their eggs (Score:2)
Not just Bungie (Score:1)
Save your Nephew! (Score:2)
At Christmas, take that one aspie teenage nephew aside who "wants to be a game developer" and smack him upside the head.
Metaphorically, if you insist. Uncles are there to backstop parental failure.
Service games pressure (Score:2)
With Service Games, games with ongoing content updates, there is pressure to maintain a consistent player base. It seems difficult compared to polishing a complete product that is meant to be sold.