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Bungie Emerges As A Leading PlayStation First Party Studio w/ Over 1400 Employees Post-Acquisition

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Why isn't it an example of success? it shows its staying power when recently released games in the genre like The Finals fall behind it already. Halo was also one of the biggest dogs around and a more recent game too, it failed worse. So what exactly are you trying to compare it to?

Destiny took Bungie from a 80 person studio to a 1,400 person studio.

Those are the facts.

Some people would rather believe the (fake) narrative though...
 

Rac3r

Member
That being said, there is a huge market available to GT7 on PC, though the performance of Forza probably didn't engender much confidence.

Gran Turismo is a legitimate system seller though. As someone who's kept up with the series since the PS1 days (GT7 is by far my most played game of current gen), if it were to release on PC, and was the "best" version in terms of performance/PQ, I'd have to seriously consider moving to PC/Steam. I'm confident that many people in the community would ditch the platform.

It's probably a complicated decision for Sony to make because PlayStation would instantly become less appealing to thousands (maybe millions) of their users, and the cost-benefit may not be worth it. PD on the other hand seem content with PS5, as mods and exploits on PC may make things more difficult for them in regards to Sport mode.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they are working on a port on Sony's orders. PD is clearly busy with something, as content updates for GT7 have begun to wind down considerably. We haven't had a new GT car or race track since April '23, so either they're busy with PC or they're shifting focus to GT8.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I thought they laid off like 10% of the employees. So they had nearly 1600?
No. They had fewer employees.

They let go of people they didn't need (from departments they didn't to grow), and hired people later in other departments.

It's a common thing to do. As long as the net number of people are growing, it seems like the studio is growing and flourishing.
 
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Godot25

Banned
??

According to the LinkedIn they have almost 1600 employees. They crossed 1400 mark in early last year. They are also down 4% in last 6 months...

So I don't understand this "news"
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Gran Turismo is a legitimate system seller though. As someone who's kept up with the series since the PS1 days (GT7 is by far my most played game of current gen), if it were to release on PC, and was the "best" version in terms of performance/PQ, I'd have to seriously consider moving to PC/Steam. I'm confident that many people in the community would ditch the platform.

It's probably a complicated decision for Sony to make because PlayStation would instantly become less appealing to thousands (maybe millions) of their users, and the cost-benefit may not be worth it. PD on the other hand seem content with PS5, as mods and exploits on PC may make things more difficult for them in regards to Sport mode.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they are working on a port on Sony's orders. PD is clearly busy with something, as content updates for GT7 have begun to wind down considerably. We haven't had a new GT car or race track since April '23, so either they're busy with PC or they're shifting focus to GT8.

Maybe you're a little too close to the subject and as a result you're biased.

Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and eventually Spider-Man 2 all went to PC and all sold well on PS5. It's consistently been a system seller for them.

Gran Turismo 7 is doing so well because it's a full-fledged Gran Turismo game on the healthiest console since the PS2. It's still the preeminent name in racing in the premium console market.

Gran Turismo Sport was not a full GT game and the PS3 significantly underperformed. If you look back to GT4 which was the last entry on a healthy PS console it was the second best selling game in the franchise second only to GT3 which was heavily bundled with PS2s. It was the 3rd best selling PS2 game overall.

The movie has given the game serious exposure once again and new generations are going to discover Gran Turismo for the first time as a result, but it's growth is hampered by being exclusive to PS5.

They could put it on Xbox Series and Switch 2 at this point and I don't think it would impact PS5 console sales dramatically.
 

DrFigs

Member
??

According to the LinkedIn they have almost 1600 employees. They crossed 1400 mark in early last year. They are also down 4% in last 6 months...

So I don't understand this "news"
i'm sure it's news to some people that Bungie has 1600 employees
 

Ar¢tos

Member
i'm sure it's news to some people that Bungie has 1600 employees
It's actually really sad news.
Imagine having 1600 employees at still taking weeks to fix basic bugs in Destiny.
The code of that game must be messier than RDR ps3.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Jeez. 1400 people, that seems absolutely crazy. It seems impossibly difficult for me to work out how many people are needed to make purple socks of everlasting fury or whatever, but evidently it is a LOT.

Next big game after Destiny 2.
Destiny 3?
 
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Bungie was a panic purchase for Sony after they found out about the Activision/Blizzard deal. They're dead weight.
The fact people actually believe Sony bought Bungie in less than 2 weeks following MS's announcement of acquiring Activision are hilarious and shows a huge lack of insight on these deals.

Many times these talks start months or years before acquisitions are announced to the public. You don't spend billions and acquire a big company in less than 2 weeks, lmao.

Sony wouldn't spend billions on an acquisition before analyzing the company they were about to acquire. Specially a company with a single IP, whose game they already had a marketing deal with them and the biggest platform for said game being their own. It would make no sense.
 
Bungie was a panic purchase for Sony after they found out about the Activision/Blizzard deal. They're dead weight.

Tell me you`ve never worked in a big company with any kind of budget responsibility without saying you`ve never worked in a big company with any kind of budget responsibility.


There is no such thing as "panic buying" with these kind of numbers. There is hilariously stupid long term planning and generally wrong business decisions, but the singular steps no matter if good or bad still take quite a while.
 
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1400 people to do what exactly? Bungie aren't building ancient Egypt, or some rennisaunce city, ala Assassins Creed or a Simulated world ala GTA. They make non connected multiplayer maps, for an mmo-lite. With that many employees you would think they would make a super connected world with complelling single and multiplayer, but no we get generic looter shooter with horrible story and b tier writing, along with no single player mode (which leaves people like me out by default), and subpar multiplayer. I remember destiny one and how lackluster it felt. They hyped it like you could fly a ship and explore, instead you were auto funneled to the planet and that was that. Destiny 2 was worse, imo. It was like an ammusment park and felt fake, imo.

Frankly, most of these studios suck now. I miss the first party of the ps3 gen. Where we would get multiple games per generation. Where they a single player and multiplayer game in one package where you could play offline and years later without worrying about it as the single player wasn't some gaas push to lock you out and make you pay over and over again.

As a long time PlayStation fan, they lost me. In fact I got an Xbox this year. Not that they are doing much better, but at least I can play older games with a fps/resolution boost. Games i used to own on ps3.
I would of never said that in the ps4 gen, as the good games were coming along at a steady clip. Even if there was something I didn't like, it wasn't that big of a deal as there were a lot of studios. Something would appeal to me.
Now, outside of GT7 and Gow, not much. A remake of one of my favorite games (demon souls) isn't enough. GT7 while great, is missing a lot of variety that was in GT4 -> gt6 (where is my lotus elise? and more classics)

I get it the youth today loves their not owning shit, but some of us old heads remember the time before this gaas bubble and I know I can't wait for it to burst and Sony and others go back to making great games like they used to. Or not and I can just stay on to the handful of 3rd party games that provide what i am looking for.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
I didn't realize that headcount is what defines leadership. The author of that article must have received the highest marks in sensationalism class.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
A job listing for the position of Payroll Manager at the studio has revealed that the studio now has over 1400 employees. Bungie was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in January, 2022, after which it appears to have expanded considerably, become a leading PlayStation first party studio.

destiny-2-1.jpg


The listing states that the new recruit will will lead a comprehensive payroll function overseeing a diverse workforce of 1,400 employees across the U.S., Netherlands, Japan, and Canada. Prior to the being acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment, the studio had a workforce of around 900 employees.

The studio has since expanded considerably, as it is currently involved with multiple projects, including Destiny 2 expansions, Marathon, and a brand new IP. Regarding the latter, it was reported via an earlier job listing for the position of a Lead VFX Artist that the project is a departure from the studio’s prior games, though it follows the GaaS model. The listing stated that, not only is the game a brand new IP, but it belongs to a new genre that “combines amazing action feel with lighthearted and whimsical characters”. The game is also said to feature “joyful” PvP combat.


Articles like this make me mad at the overall video game media in the West. When devs get laid off, there's 50 articles on it, think pieces, and 1,000 Tweets talking about how bad the industry is. Yet, when people like Bungie are hiring as it's revealed they have grown by 60% since Sony bought them, nobody wants to talk about that at all.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Articles like this make me mad at the overall video game media in the West. When devs get laid off, there's 50 articles on it, think pieces, and 1,000 Tweets talking about how bad the industry is. Yet, when people like Bungie are hiring as it's revealed they have grown by 60% since Sony bought them, nobody wants to talk about that at all.

Exactly.

"Bungie is thriving" doesn't get nearly the clicks that "Bungie is doomed" gets. They have an audience that prefers to be lied to, as long as the lie supports what they want to believe.
 
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Xtib81

Member
Granted I don't follow the studio closely but what the hell are all these people doing?
As far as I know they are working on an upcoming extension for Destiny 2 and they're developing Marathon. They really need that many peope for that!?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
ill say it again gaming journalism is trash. For every story 50% is true the other 50% is conjecture.
Yup.

Any story with someone writing something can always have bias or misleading opinions. Or just plain wrong facts.

At least with news reports that are plain numbers (earnings reports, sports stats etc....) they are what they are. Numbers. Unless a stat provider is falsifying numbers or has an error like stating Lebron James scored 25 pts last night when in reality he scored 30 or Yahoo Finance saying Apple stock rose $1.00 when it really rose $2.00 on every other site, it's pretty hard to BS numbers.
 
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Roxkis_ii

Member
I like Bungie and I've experience countless hours of fun in Destiny 1&2. It's too bad they have to spoil all that good will with some of the worst microtranscationss I've experienced in a game since early Fortnight. I'm not getting invested in anymore of their games if they are gaas.
 
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