Sony’s Bungie to cut roughly 17% of the game studio’s workforce

Sony’s Bungie announced that it will eliminate 220 roles at the “Destiny” maker, representing about 17% of the game studio’s workforce. “This morning, I’m sharing with all of you some of the most difficult changes we’ve ever had to make as a studio,” said Bungie CEO Pete Parsons. “Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon.That means beginning today, 220 of our roles will be eliminated, representing roughly 17% of our studio’s workforce.These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles. Today is a difficult and painful day, especially for our departing colleagues, all of which have made important and valuable contributions to Bungie.Our goal is to support them with the utmost care and respect. For everyone affected by this job reduction, we will be offering a generous exit package, including severance, bonus and health coverage. I realize all of this is hard news, especially following the success we have seen with The Final Shape.But as we’ve navigated the broader economic realities over the last year, and after exhausting all other mitigation options, this has become a necessary decision to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable financials. We are committing to two other major changes today that we believe will support our focus, leverage Sony‘s strengths, and create new opportunities for Bungie talent. First, we are deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12%, into SIE over the next few quarters. SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force. Second, we are working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects – an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe – to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development.”