Although layoffs are common across many industries, 2023 has been especially dire for workers in the video-game industry. Thousands of employees have seen their livelihoods jeopardized, with a huge number of layoffs in various video game companies.
Bungie Inc., the video game developer studio behind the “Halo” and “Destiny” franchises, suddenly laid off many of their employees on Oct. 30. According to an article by video-game journalist Rebekah Valentine, the number of employees laid off was “roughly around 100.”
The layoffs were announced internally as part of a dubious email sent by Bungie’s CEO, Pete Parson. In an article written by video game journalist Jason Schrier, he stated that the employees received an email announcing that there would be a team meeting to discuss some news. Schrier then goes on to explain that Bungie employees received a heartbreaking confirmation that the company was indeed undergoing layoffs according to “mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff.”
The reports of the layoffs were made official to the public when Parson took to X (formerly Twitter), saying that “Today is a sad day at Bungie as we say goodbye to colleagues who have all made a significant impact on our studio. What these exceptional individuals have contributed to our games and Bungie culture has been enormous and will continue to be a part of Bungie long into the future.” Parson’s statement on the layoffs quickly came under fire from the public, with one X user accusing the CEO’s words as being “tone deaf,” and “a slap in the face to anyone impacted by the layoffs.” Similar sentiments have been shared across social media by members of the “Halo” and “Destiny” communities, who had been complaining for months about the state of recent titles such as “Halo Infinite” and “Destiny 2” and feel as though this decision by Bungie was a critical mistake.
According to an article by Polygon, the approximately 100 laid-off employees were spread across various departments at Bungie such as social, marketing, legal, recruiting, art, human resources, quality assurance and elsewhere. These were made evident by social media posts in the wake of the layoffs.
Notable among those laid off include Michael Salvatori, the composer for the scores for “Destiny” and “Destiny 2,” whom according to a Forbes article “changed his website bio to strip out all mentions of Bungie, altering the text to ‘Gone Fishin’ :).’” This is especially jarring considering how well-respected and acclaimed Salvatori’s work was for both of Bungie’s franchises, creating more questions regarding the decision-making process behind these layoffs.
This surprising and disheartening news from Bungie begs the question: what went so wrong at the game-development studio that caused the layoffs of so many of its workers? The reasons why are manifold and according to Schrier’s article, include a possible re-structuring happening at Sony, as well as delays. Considering the complaints surrounding the mismanagement of “Halo Infinite” and “Destiny 2” by the gaming public, it might not be surprising that Bungie had also experienced a sharp dip of 45% in revenue in 2022.
According to an article by IGN, Parson’s explanation for the layoffs were due to an “underperformance of ‘Destiny 2’ over the last year, as well as lower-than-expected preorders for upcoming expansion ‘The Final Shape.’” These layoffs came as a shock to the former Bungie employees, who were led to believe by Bungie that, following their acquisition by Sony, they had little reason to worry about their job security. Moreover, management made a slew of assurances to these former employees and even told every employee that their new parent company was investing in retaining its workforce. The IGN article expanded on this by stating how “one former Bungie employee recalled that they were repeatedly assured following the 2022 Sony acquisition of Bungie that there would be no layoffs.” They cited an item from a Sony quarterly report that claimed “$1.2 billion of the $4 billion acquisition was going explicitly toward staff retention.” Several former employees had verified that money had been distributed to those who were fully vested, while multiple payments had been distributed over time reliant on “seniority and discipline.”
The layoffs at Bungie are not an isolated incident. According to an article by Polygon, the developer of the game “Fortnite”, Epic Games, “laid off more than 800 employees in September” and the trend has been continuing with other developers such as Telltale Games and Ascendant Games. This makes Bungie’s layoffs even more catastrophic to the video game industry.
Despite the increasing unemployment of video-game workers, 2023 has been an incredible year for video games as a medium. Titles such as “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” Marvel’s “Spider-Man 2,” “Street Fighter 6,” “Diablo IV,” “Baldur’s Gate 3,” “Final Fantasy XVI,” “Starfield” and “Hogwarts Legacy” have all either received critical acclaim, record-breaking sales numbers or both. So why is it that, despite all these successes by professionals in the industry, so many workers were let go by their respective employers? How is it that so few of them got to reap the benefits of their work?
Further details on these matters are still forthcoming, but it is worth mentioning that the gaming public have repeatedly accused industry leaders of trend-chasing, reckless mismanagement, poor working conditions and placing greater and greater emphasis on wildly ambitious revenue and profit margins, with little regard to long-term consequences.
Kelly Baker is an alumnus of West Chester University of Pennsylvania.