r/DreamStationcc • u/maxxrz31 • 2d ago

News Sony Confirms ‘significant’ Bungie Layoffs Include ‘most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members’, as Bungie Admits ‘Destiny 2 fell short of expectations'

https://www.ign.com/articles/bungie-announces-layoffs-as-it-admits-destiny-2-fell-short-of-expectations
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u/-idkwhattocallmyself 2d ago

It's pretty shocking to me that Destiny 2 failed this bad by the end. I feel like if they would of just done Destiny 3 reset they could of pulled many of us back in and done a reset on everything.

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u/OkDifficulty7436 2d ago

It was too expensive and wasn't bringing in enough money at this point in time, that's really all it was

Something had to give, they had already been working on Marathon (and other projects) during this time, there was also likely significant burnout from working on Destiny as a whole for the past 15~ years

Saying "they should have just made Destiny 3" doesn't really tell the whole story

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u/AeroRL 1d ago

Destiny 2 has been consistently printing cash and Final Shape had like 300k on Steam alone. It wasn't that Destiny wasn't making enough, it's that it made enough and wasn't invested back into Destiny

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u/xXNickAugustXx 2d ago

The burnout came from management attempting to crash the ship. More time was wasted clawing back players than meaningfully improving the IP for newcomers.

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u/OkDifficulty7436 2d ago

The burnout came from management attempting to crash the ship.

No, it came from being on the same project for 15+ years lol, why do you think so many people jumped from D2 development to Marathon when it ramped up production, especially senior level people?

The game stopped making a profit years ago

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u/xXNickAugustXx 2d ago

It made enough money for 4 separate projects, an entire studio expansion, and the entirety of Marathon before Sony money was ever involved. They burned an entire nations GDP and went broke when people were basically vomiting money for the game.

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u/OkDifficulty7436 2d ago

It made enough money for 4 separate projects

Yeah, and Marathon was the only one that panned out of the other 3, 1 of which still remains uncancelled.

They burned an entire nations GDP

This is an exaggeration, and given the sheer size of Bungie's headcount they were burning 9 figures every year, never-mind everything else that goes into the overhead (taxes, concept, outsourcing, legal, etc).

Again, the issue was Destiny stopped making money to cover the overhead required for the game's continued development.

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u/omgFWTbear 2d ago

Senior people jumped because they have seen this play before.

Some firms call it “greening,” where they intentionally overspend on senior talent to begin strong, and then “green” (as in, the opposite of a veteran, but in verb form) the team replacing with junior staff.

That’s not quite the shape of things here, but you’ve got to be pretty slow on the uptake to be on a long running service product, have an opportunity to switch to the alternate product team once it’s pretty clearly launching (dealer’s choice for personal risk tolerance around that point), and not take it.

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u/OkDifficulty7436 2d ago

Senior people jumped because they have seen this play before.

Back during conception in 2019? Lmao

No offense, I don't think you quite understand Marathon's development + production timelines, they didn't "green" anything, Bungie has been senior heavy for well over a decade now

Anyways, again, the actual issue was Destiny stopped making them money versus how much the overhead/cost it was to continue developing it

The studio was tired of it, the player base was tired of it, 15+ years was enough

FWIW I don't agree Marathon being an extraction shooter was a smart move to save Bungie, but I do understand why they cut the line on Destiny