Jeff Grubb: Hermen Hulst is now the man running Bungie, set to lose it's autonomy

[Englishy]

Why would anyone trust that guy as a source?

He's probably right on this one, due to the acquisition of Bungie by Sony and the terms that came with it.

Obviously, Grubb is trying to spin it as a negative. But reality distortion is what he does for a living, so it's just another pathetic "take" on what's happening.

 

[BillyZ]

Let’s Examine Hulst since becoming Head of PlayStation's Worldwide Studios in 2019.

Which do you like / dislike?


1. Expansion of PlayStation Studios: Hulst has led the growth and diversification of PlayStation Studios, overseeing the development of over 25 games, including new IPs and sequels. This includes notable titles such as *Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales*, *Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart*, *Returnal*, and *Horizon Forbidden West* [oai_citation:1,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/) [oai_citation:2,Herman Hulst of Guerilla Games is Sony's new Head of Worldwide Studios](https://www.truetrophies.com/n17839/head-of-worldwide-studios).

2. Support for Indie Developers: Hulst has emphasized the importance of indie games, working closely with independent studios to bring unique and creative experiences to PlayStation platforms. This initiative has included collaborations and the inclusion of indie titles in the PlayStation ecosystem [oai_citation:3,Herman Hulst of Guerilla Games is Sony's new Head of Worldwide Studios](https://www.truetrophies.com/n17839/head-of-worldwide-studios).

3. Cross-Platform Expansion: Under his leadership, PlayStation has continued to explore cross-platform expansion, including bringing select games to PC. This strategy has expanded the reach of PlayStation games and allowed a broader audience to experience them [oai_citation:4,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/).

4. Focus on Global Development: Hulst has fostered a truly global approach to game development, encouraging collaborations across studios in different regions, including Japan, Europe, and the Americas. This has resulted in a diverse lineup of games that cater to a wide range of tastes and cultures [oai_citation:5,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/).

5. Media Expansion: Hulst has also been involved in expanding PlayStation's properties into other media, such as films and TV series. This includes the *Uncharted* movie and the upcoming *The Last of Us* TV show, which aim to broaden the audience for PlayStation's popular franchises [oai_citation:6,Hermen Hulst Q&A: Interview with Head of PlayStation’s Worldwide Studios – PlayStation.Blog](https://blog.playstation.com/2020/03/10/hermen-hulst-qa-interview-with-head-of-playstations-worldwide-studios/comment-page-3/).

6. PS5 Launch and Success: Hulst played a crucial role during the launch of the PlayStation 5, ensuring a strong lineup of games and supporting the transition to the next-generation console. The PS5 has become Sony's most profitable console generation to date, reflecting the successful execution of the launch strategy [oai_citation:7,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/).

These accomplishments reflect Hulst's leadership and strategic vision for PlayStation's future, focusing on innovation, diversity, and global reach.

1) What expansion? Not even the bare minimum for single player games and all on GAAS.
2) Cool I guess
3) Weakening your own eco system is bad
4) They aren't even that many
5) Don't care at all
6) We'll see how it will measure up to Switch 2
My opinion is that after Andrew House everyone who was in charge of PlayStation was a moron and Hermen might be the worst yet.

 

[Shmunter]

1) What expansion? Not even the bare minimum for single player games and all on GAAS.
2) Cool I guess
3) Weakening your own eco system is bad
4) They aren't even that many
5) Don't care at all
6) We'll see how it will measure up to Switch 2
My opinion is that after Andrew House everyone who was in charge of PlayStation was a moron and Hermen might be the worst yet.

I don’t judge

 

[Yurinka]

Let’s Examine Hulst since becoming Head of PlayStation's Worldwide Studios in 2019.

Which do you like / dislike?


1. Expansion of PlayStation Studios: Hulst has led the growth and diversification of PlayStation Studios, overseeing the development of over 25 games, including new IPs and sequels. This includes notable titles such as *Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales*, *Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart*, *Returnal*, and *Horizon Forbidden West* [oai_citation:1,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/) [oai_citation:2,Herman Hulst of Guerilla Games is Sony's new Head of Worldwide Studios](https://www.truetrophies.com/n17839/head-of-worldwide-studios).

2. Support for Indie Developers: Hulst has emphasized the importance of indie games, working closely with independent studios to bring unique and creative experiences to PlayStation platforms. This initiative has included collaborations and the inclusion of indie titles in the PlayStation ecosystem [oai_citation:3,Herman Hulst of Guerilla Games is Sony's new Head of Worldwide Studios](https://www.truetrophies.com/n17839/head-of-worldwide-studios).

3. Cross-Platform Expansion: Under his leadership, PlayStation has continued to explore cross-platform expansion, including bringing select games to PC. This strategy has expanded the reach of PlayStation games and allowed a broader audience to experience them [oai_citation:4,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/).

4. Focus on Global Development: Hulst has fostered a truly global approach to game development, encouraging collaborations across studios in different regions, including Japan, Europe, and the Americas. This has resulted in a diverse lineup of games that cater to a wide range of tastes and cultures [oai_citation:5,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/).

5. Media Expansion: Hulst has also been involved in expanding PlayStation's properties into other media, such as films and TV series. This includes the *Uncharted* movie and the upcoming *The Last of Us* TV show, which aim to broaden the audience for PlayStation's popular franchises [oai_citation:6,Hermen Hulst Q&A: Interview with Head of PlayStation’s Worldwide Studios – PlayStation.Blog](https://blog.playstation.com/2020/03/10/hermen-hulst-qa-interview-with-head-of-playstations-worldwide-studios/comment-page-3/).

6. PS5 Launch and Success: Hulst played a crucial role during the launch of the PlayStation 5, ensuring a strong lineup of games and supporting the transition to the next-generation console. The PS5 has become Sony's most profitable console generation to date, reflecting the successful execution of the launch strategy [oai_citation:7,Herman Hulst Discusses The Future Of PlayStation And More In New Interview - PlayStation Universe](https://www.psu.com/news/herman-hulst-discusses-the-future-of-playstation-and-more-in-new-interview/).

These accomplishments reflect Hulst's leadership and strategic vision for PlayStation's future, focusing on innovation, diversity, and global reach.

I think that considering AAA games take nowadays 5-9 years to be made it's too early to analize.

Even more when Sony is in a transitional stage where they are expanding to also cover MP/GaaS, PC, mobile and movie/tv adaptations on top of what they had before. Since he made many investments there and is working in many related projects still to be announced, specially in the GaaS & mobile area.

It's also worth mentioning that some of these expansions weren't decided by him, but also part of broader SIE strategies and Sony strategies that were started/mandated not only by him, but also from other SIE & Sony management from both his and previous SIE and Sony management teams.

But still we can analize the stuff we saw:

1. Expansion of PS Studios: I think he did a great job expanding the existing teams more than ever. We know that minimum Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, SSM, Insomniac, Polyphony, Firesprite, Bungie, XDEV, XDEV Japan, (previosly part of Japan Studio) work or worked in more games at the same time than ever before, partly because in this year they heavily grew their headcount. As also did -even if we don't have confirmed that work in more games than before- in other teams like Bend, Sucker Punch or Arrowhead.

On top of that he acquired new lead dev and support studios with great pedigree like Housemarque, Bungie, Bluepoint, Firesprite, Firewalk, Nixxes and Haven who have top tier talent even if it's to soon to have seen some of them in action. We need to see them having published a couple games under SIE to evaluate them properly.

Thanks to this growth SIE/PS Studios has more first party games under development at the same time than ever before. During his mandate many of them have been released with record success in sales, great reviews and tons of GOTY awards with titles like GoT, TLOU2, GoWR, Spider-Man 2, Helldivers 2 etc. Almost all the teams who released new games under his mandate achieved the best selling or fastest selling record of the studio.

2. Regarding the support of indie developers, Hermen has nothing to do with this. He manages the 1st party games, which are the ones published by SIE (using PS Studios, Bungie or SIE publishing labels) independently if 2nd party or not. Indie games are supported by the PlayStation Indies division (created and managed by Shuhei Yoshida), which is under a totally different SIE division not managed by Hermen: the 3rd party relations division (now under Nishino). But in any case, I think SIE is doing a great job with indies.

3. Cross-platform expansion: They are still on early stages, since until now they released mostly ports of old games, the first day one on PC GaaS (the huge hit Helldivers 2) and still haven't published anything in mobile, but I think they are very successful: every year their non-PS revenue has a huge YoY growth. With the past progression, in the current FY they'll generate over a Billion with their games outside PS. But considering the release of Helldivers 2, TFS and Concord they'll go beyond that. I think he did a great job to grow in PC and mobile without affecting their console teams, but hiring, acquiring or making deals with external teams to put new dedicated teams to work on that while their previous PS Studios lead dev teams can continue focusing on making console games.

4. Focus on Global Development: Yes, I think he did a great job with this. Like in any company from time to time had to make some layoff, game cancellation or studio closure but they have more games under development, internal studios and manpower now in each continent that they had before November 2019, when he became CEO. And the Japanese XDEV team now not only publishes/supports Japanese games, but also games from the rest of Asia. Something that gave us the great Stellar Blade.

5. Media expansion: They had a stunning success with stuff like Uncharted or TLOU, bumping game sales and who knows if also console sales. They did a good job with GT or even Twisted Metal, and I think there's a huge potential here with movie, tv show and anime adaptation of many Sony IPs. They have a lot of projects in this area, that I'm pretty sure many of them will be a big success themselves as a product, but indirectly also very positive for game and console sales.

6. PS5 launch and success: He ensured a very solid launch and launch window 1st and 2nd party lineup for PS5, and since then every year provided great first and 2nd party games. If we look at the amount of GOTY awards or nominations, basically every year they get more than MS and Nintendo, in many cases even both combined. And looking to the future will continue being the case with games he greenlighted like Astro Bot, GoT2, Wolverine, Physint, next games from Housemarque or Bend, multiple SP ND games and things that were there before him like Cory's new IP, Marathon, etc.

 

[Yurinka]

Office opened in 2022, just like the new HQ was footed by Sony. Hence Totoki spoke directly about Bungie regarding their financial discipline and age of growth in general. Acquisition talks and agreements don't go overnight, like Jim Ryan said this was not an answer to Activision, it was in the talks at least 5-6 months prior the news in Jan 2022. That said Amsterdam in general is an attractive spot for tech talent to work regardless.

Edit remembered this tweet:

Hermen was on the board. They were an independent subsidiary since that was the requirement of Bungie for acquisition. The board was split, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons had the tiebreaker vote, with fellow board members including PlayStation Studios boss Herman Hulst, Sony SVP Eric Lempel, Bungie CTO Luis Villegas and studio co-founder Jason Jones at the time. And to the report if Bungie doesn't meet the financials, Sony can take-over the board.

Notice that the Bungie Amsterdam publishing and marketing office announcement you posted is from March 2021, almost a year before they announced the acquisition deal in January 2022. If they would have known back then that were going to be acquired by Sony pretty likely they wouldn't have opened such office because Sony could handle their publishing and marketing worldwide.

Yes, the acquisitions normally take several months to be agreed. And once agreed, they take more months or even over a year to be closed. And yes, the Bungie acquisition wasn't a reaction to the ABK acquisition because we know (the exact day was on the acquisition investigation as I remember but now I don't have the link) that the ABK acquisition talks started a 2-3 days after Phil Spencer said to their employees that he was ‘deeply troubled’ by Activision Blizzard and that was ‘evaluating all aspects of our relationship’ with them, during late November 2021 and the Bungie acquisition was agreed on January 2022.

So it's pretty likely that MS started the ABK conversations knowing that Sony was negotiating the Bungie acquisition. And the Bungie acquisition can't be a reaction because started before than the ABK one.

Bungie is a SIE subsidiary independent of PS Studios, but not independent of SIE. They are a SIE subsidiary, so are part of it. Even if independent of PS Studios, they announced since day one that Bungie was going to work very closely with PS Studios to help them improve their GaaS titles.

Regarding their board yes, as usual when a company buys another one, the ones that acquires normally puts someone in their board of the acquired one to overview them and make sure they go on the direction that the acquirer wants and keep there most of the previous ones to make sure the company continues performing well as did until the acquisition.

SIE, can do whatever they want with their fully owned subsidiary, they bought the 100%. The deal here was Sony took full ownership of Bungie. As such, SIE obviously can change people of the board, change their direction, fire people, etc. if the subsidiary doesn't perform as expected, it's what any owner would do following common sense, not any specific deal. It's how companies work: if you don't perform good enough you get fired.

But normally, when acquired normally acquirers let acquired companies to continue working as they did because they acquired them because they are happy with how they work and their results and because they share the same goals. Normally there's only the few changes in the board we mentioned and there are some minor changes in their workflow to homogenize it a bit across the whole corporation.

As an example, when the studio where I did work was acquired by Ubisoft (around 70 people, nothing to do with Bungie) we changed the day we had our project weekly meetings, changed the names of the milestones, we the head of the each department of each studio also had a weekly meeting with the heads of that department of the other studios to share ideas, experiences, knowledge, etc. and little more. The HQ brought a French creative director for one of our projects that previously had worked in similar games in Spanish talking countries, a finances guy (great folk btw) and that's all.

Everything else did continue as we did work before, with the different that instead of reporting to an HQ in Silicon Valley now we reported to an HQ in Paris. And well, the .doc weekly reports to our dev teams and that the heads of some divisions sent to the HQ and the heads of that division in the other teams were a bit different to homogenize it with other teams but we had freedom to customize them as desired.

Same happened with the previous folks from Silicon Valley (a company of the EA founder and first CEO) acquired us, very little changes. They didn't even send anyone. But as happened with Ubi, they only did put one of them in the board of the studio and barely had quarterly meeting with him to overview the progress, status and plans of the studio. In our case the studio performed well enough to don't have big layoffs other than the usual 2-3 hirings and/or firings/leavings per year we had as normal in any game studio. In some very rare case they asked to chop someone's specific head because of some normal issue in any company.

But in case of underperformance they'd have asked for a big layoff and would have reduced our budget, that's for sure. Because other than PR, QA, porting and part of the marketing we handled everything else in our studio and we had pretty much creative freedom. But at the end they still greenlighted our games, milestones and budgets and were our owners. And for the people I know in other studios from big publishers they work in a similar way: they work pretty much as they did before being acquired but the owner greenlights and approves stuff like projects, milestones and budgets, and as owners can shut down projects, cause layoffs or even shut down the studio.

 

[Bryank75]

 

[Danja]

Of course a certain member is in here spreading Hermen propaganda

 

[CrackmanNL]

The Bungie Amsterdam publishing and marketing office was announced in March 2021, alsmost a year before they announced the acquisition deal in January 2022: https://investinholland.com/news/bungie-announces-first-international-office-in-amsterdam/

Hence my post was Hermen's tweet about being in talks a year prior before the announcement and the link in my post to the office opening in 2022 (and filling with staff after Sony footing the bill). The Amsterdam office was in the same timing as the announcement of the new HQ of Bungie as well, I wouldn't call that a coincidence wo the acquisition.

 

[Yurinka]

Normally after the acquisitions there are layoffs to eliminate redundancies.

But in this case on top of this after 2022 there was something that only happened one in 50 years of gaming history: the gaming market yearly revenue did stop growing and remained basically flat or decreased a little. And did it in a context of huge inflation caused by the pandemic with big global finantial and geopolitical issues and uncertainities.

On top of that, these acquired companies underperformed after being acquired.

Everything combined I consider that these layoffs are normal.

Hence my post was Hermen's tweet about being in talks a year prior before the announcement and the link in my post to the office opening in 2022 (and filling with staff after Sony footing the bill). The Amsterdam office was in the same timing as the announcement of the new HQ of Bungie as well, I wouldn't call that a coincidence wo the acquisition.

In January 2022 Hermen said "last year", which means anywhere from the start of January 2021 to the end of December 2021. It doesn't imply "almost exactly a year ago" even if may be likely.

I assume that around January/February 2021, when announced their new HQ and the Amsterdam office, the Bungie heads knew that they wanted to sell the company. Independently if they had started negotiations with Sony or not.

Even in the pretty likely they case of not having started any acquisitions/negotiations, knew that many top publishers like Sony, MS, ABK, EA, Tencent etc. would be interested on them. Because they are one of the top GaaS/shooter devs and the creators of Halo and Destiny, and back then everybody were making huge acquisitions and wanted to make more specially in the top performing GaaS area.

It is pretty common to grow the team before starting a negotiation to sell the studio, because the size of the team affects the valuation of the company, so the price to be paid for the company and the money that the shareholders will make. It also projects the positive image of a company that is doing well and is growing.

I assume that Sony would be perfectly fine with Bungie getting a new HQ to include there more manpower and dev teams, and them getting presence in Amsterdam where other studios like Guerrilla or Polyphony Digital also have an office.

But I don't see why Sony would want to have a Bungie publishing and marketing team in Amsterdam. For SIE/PS Studio's point of view, once acquired would be more optimal to handle Bungie's publishing and marketing with the same centralized team that handles that for the rest of their SIE games, even if using a different publishing label for Bungie.

I assume part of these 155 people who moved to other SIE teams are most people of the Bungie publishing, marketing, PR, HR, CM, CS, IT, QA, finances, legal, localization departments, keeping the minimum needed of each department at Bungie.

Inside other SIE offices, that people would continue doing the same job for Bungie, but also for the rest of the projects, not having to fire some of them between projects. Would also be more productive, would share and learn knowledge better with the people who was working in the other SIE games and their salaries wouldn't count as Bungie costs, helping Bungie's profitability.

 

[quest4441]

I don't care if Herman lays off employees, heck I am all for laying off all the commiefornia and seattle denizens. But the guy also has truly garbage vision and the games he thinks are good are Grade A tripe.

 

[Vertigo]

Bungie started the Sony partnership with around 750 - 900 employees ballparked on payroll. Ballooned to 1300 with aspirations now unrealistic.

Destiny is the only revenue stream. Clearly not all staff on Destiny.

Matter was in development since 2014; cancelled, restarted and shelved again for the time being.

Marathon is said to also have been incubated during that time and is likely spun off from D3 concepts during the Activision days.

Gummy Bears was taken out of incubation and into full development last year but recent rumors is that Bungie’s operating concerns have changed all that and also put that on the shelf.

With the changes in staff size, the gut portion of the studio and new IP now made within PlayStation Studios internally…. I’m starting to believe that Bungie has some agency with its budgets if not managing all that themselves. It’s possible that whatever projects they develop internally isnt directly bankrolled by Sony but correlated to their revenue streams entirely and on them.

The new studio def seems like a concession and gut for Bungie not to join PlayStation studios. Because from what we know at the moment… the Grubb X posts are being ran with as something theyre not.

 

[Vertigo]

I said it in one of these threads. That’s it’s possible Bungie would even cancel the planned Destiny 3 if Marathon seems risky and as a result of these events. Instead just continuing to build on Destiny 2.

Destiny 3 cancelled. 10 more years of Destiny 2 incoming.

(They’re just build iy within engine piecemeal along Marathon engine update)

[UPDATE] Bungie Has Reportedly Canceled Destiny 3 'Payback' Following Layoffs

Bungie has reportedly canceled previously rumored Destiny 3 codenamed "Payback," according to Jeff Grubb.

destinybulletin.com

 

[Shmunter]

I don't care if Herman lays off employees, heck I am all for laying off all the commiefornia and seattle denizens. But the guy also has truly garbage vision and the games he thinks are good are Grade A tripe.

Harsh, but fair