Bungie’s integration into SIE deepens

[Vertigo]

After the second wave of lay-offs at Bungie it was mentioned that 155 or so employees from Bungie would now be moving onto positions within Sony.

A handful have made public announcements in the last few months and it seems as if an another wave of talent is migrating over.





I first noticed these posts come up on twitter. There was another I saw I couldn’t track down this morning.

TheGamePost has also written an article detailing other new Sony hires from Bungie. Linked below

https://thegamepost.com/bungie-directors-transition-sony-layoff-playstation-live-service/

“Two prominent Bungie directors have also made their move to Sony. Adam Glogower, previously the Director of Total Rewards at Bungie, announced his new role as Director of Total Rewards at Sony Interactive Entertainment.”

“Similarly, Joseph Biwald, Marketing Art Director at Bungie, has joined Sony PlayStation as Art Director. While now part of Sony, Biwald will still play a crucial role in supporting Bungie’s work on Destiny and the upcoming Marathon project.”


… And in related news, Destiny Rising for mobile will have a “main” narrative protagonist which is a pseudo custom player character named “wolf” in addition to a supporting cast of other playable heroes.

(There are also some reliable narrative and other leaks for one of next year’s two expansions which I will not include here)

 

[KvallyX]

Now a Live Service support team

 

[Papacheeks]

Now a Live Service support team

Did you read?

They are support but also in creative. As in concept art, things like that. Thats what you want to retain.

Bungie's trajectory was going this direction as we know they were insolvent without Sony.

It sucks, but there's a bread crumb trail that people who ran the studio were running it into the ground. Well Sony spent over 3billion might as well get something out of it and retool it to a well oiled machine.

Look at Gureilla Games? They are also a engineering support group within their studio thats supports other studios who use Decima. Same thing with ICE TEAM which my understanding works within Naughty Dog.

Now they have team internally that can support multiplayer titles. Everyone keeps referencing live service. I keep thinking MP expertise in networking/online design.

This sucks in terms of having a memories of what Bungie use to be for sure. But I also look at it that this was the plan at somepoint. If there was no plan for integration into PS studios to help the overall stable of studios and strengthen them then we would have seen them straight up close bungie to recoup money.

 

[KvallyX]

Did you read?

From beginning to end. Thanks for your concern though.

 

[DarkLordOtaku]

Layoffs are always unfortunate, but at least they found a way to transfer some talent to other parts of the company.

 

[Bryank75]

 

[Yurinka]

When they did the layoff at Bungie, they also mentioned that in addition to the layoff some Bungie staff was going to move to other SIE teams. So I assume this is part of it.

They already joined PlayStation when Sony bought them. SIE just reassigned or promoted talent moving it to some other department/teams within SIE.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

GAAS is important for the future of videogame companies?

 

[DarkLordOtaku]

GAAS is important for the future of videogame companies?

They're definitely extremely profitable for companies when they work, and most importantly its recurring revenue. The issue will always be that gamers can't support more than one or two of these games at a time.

I think the profit margins are generous enough that publishers don't mind rolling the dice on 12 GAAS releases, hoping that even 1 out of the 12 gets popular.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Note how none of these are actually developers...

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The issue will always be that gamers can't support more than one or two of these games at a time.

This has been an issue since GAAS first started.

GAAS has grown 1,000 times larger in terms of popularity and profitability because that issue isn't holding the medium back.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Both seem to be good additions to Sony with no garbage agenda so far according to their profiles on X.

 

[Bryank75]

Note how none of these are actually developers...

It is quite funny how liberally the term is used. Hr, pr, accounting, marketing etc.... all developers now! Haha

But still, it is part of the budgie news.

 

[KvallyX]

Both seem to be good additions to Sony with no garbage agenda she/it/me/her/him/they/that/those/this/there/he/dog so far according to their profiles on X.

Agreed.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

now the cancer is within.

Bye bye Playstation

 

[Vertigo]

Did you read?

They are support but also in creative. As in concept art, things like that. Thats what you want to retain.

Bungie's trajectory was going this direction as we know they were insolvent without Sony.

It sucks, but there's a bread crumb trail that people who ran the studio were running it into the ground. Well Sony spent over 3billion might as well get something out of it and retool it to a well oiled machine.

Look at Gureilla Games? They are also a engineering support group within their studio thats supports other studios who use Decima. Same thing with ICE TEAM which my understanding works within Naughty Dog.

Now they have team internally that can support multiplayer titles. Everyone keeps referencing live service. I keep thinking MP expertise in networking/online design.

This sucks in terms of having a memories of what Bungie use to be for sure. But I also look at it that this was the plan at somepoint. If there was no plan for integration into PS studios to help the overall stable of studios and strengthen them then we would have seen them straight up close bungie to recoup money.

Bungie as a development studio is wholly retained aside from the previous guts (including what Sony took for that new Playststion studio and game). Nearly all of this is the notorious “overlap” aside from maybe the artist but they’ve been contracting from Sony recently for extra hands when needed.

Should’ve happened sooner. It also should serve Bungie better as a dev studio if Sony has its own resources to do similar jobs.

The issue now will be if this overarching body meant to support their online efforts does its job well. I would imaging it’ll also function like the live service review and try to stop a Concord from happening.

 

[catchew]

crazy how it started as owned by sony but independent and they even threw them under the bus in terms of speaking( or better said lack off) on a social issue at the time and releasing wherever they want which was no biggie but the attitude... months later they draining money bts dev-news coming are not so great, they are behind and the former boss was buying hot wheels. for the extra billion this should have been done day one. sony went pretty soft on them but i dont blame them. would have been seen as a hostile take over. now they are just salvaging it and maintaining valuable members up the front. i can respect that. bungie does have amazing talent.

 

[Yobo]

I know we like to shit on Sony but this is a rare great move

The way they've built up and structured their support studios is world class. We see it time and again with devs like Kojima Productions, Shift Up, Housemarque, Bluepoint, Arrowhead being able to quickly accelerate to AAA development status

I'd argue nobody else in the industry has this capability

 

[Yurinka]

I think the profit margins are generous enough that publishers don't mind rolling the dice on 12 GAAS releases, hoping that even 1 out of the 12 gets popular.

So far Destiny, Gran Turismo, MLB, Helldivers already are popular. Firewall Ultra and Concord weren't.

Marathon, Fairgame$, Horizon Online, new IP incubated at Bungie, Bend's new IP, ex-Deviation's game are in the works.

These are the 12, 3 of these replacing 3 cancelled games.

The idea in these kind of investments where they invest in 12 or 20 projects at the same time is that one or two become megahits, some of them become pretty popular / successful, a few do just ok, a few tank and a few get canned. The idea is that the profit from the successful ones more than compensate the loses of the unsuccessful ones.

 

[mibu no ookami]

So far Destiny, Gran Turismo, MLB, Helldivers already are popular. Firewall Ultra and Concord weren't.

Marathon, Fairgame$, Horizon Online, new IP incubated at Bungie, Bend's new IP, ex-Deviation's game are in the works.

These are the 12, 3 of these replacing 3 cancelled games.

The idea in these kind of investments where they invest in 12 or 20 projects at the same time is that one or two become megahits, some of them become pretty popular / successful, a few do just ok, a few tank and a few get canned. The idea is that the profit from the successful ones more than compensate the loses of the unsuccessful ones.

It's a model that you'll never be able to explain to these people.

It's entirely lost on them how big a success Helldivers 2 has been.