While 2023 has been a great year for games, it has been a terrible year for layoffs. Bungie is continuing this worrying trend, as it has laid off staff and delayed its upcoming titles.
This horrible news comes our way via journalist Jason Schreier on his X account:
As Jason explains in his Bloomberg article, Bungie Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons sent an email saying employees would be “hearing some news today” and a team meeting would take place where the company would “discuss today’s events.” The Sony-owned studio let go of an undisclosed number of staffers.
This news follows Bungie’s struggles with its upcoming video games. Destiny 2‘s The Final Shape expansion was delayed from February 2024 to June 2024. Its revitalized IP, Marathon, has been moved from 2024 to 2025, as well.
These firings keep happening. Personally, I believe it is long past due for the video game industry to unionize. There is no reason for all of these layoffs to occur when video games are a multibillion-dollar industry and companies praise their titles’ accolades and sales numbers. The industry keeps losing creative talent at a rapid rate, too, while CEOs continue to line all of their pockets with cash.
