One of the most dominant stories of 2024 that we sadly have to keep talking about is the layoffs that continue to spread throughout the gaming industry. Just when you think that things “might cool” off, it doesn’t. The end of July was hit with the news that Bungie was going through massive layoffs and that some of its staff was going to be reassigned to parts of Sony, which is its parent company now. The whole situation has been a mess, and as details continue to come out, the mismanagement of things continues to be shown, and the outrage continues to build.
We’ll start with the easy stuff: with the developer in dire straits, numerous reports were coming out about what the dev team would do for its next games or if certain games were going to be canceled. Enter Jason Schreier, who works for Bloomberg and helped put some rumors to rest while also revealing that certain games that were thought to be in the works or stated to be “in development” previously aren’t happening:
That’s two big blows for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that one of the other projects that the company had announced years back as one of its “next big games” was also put on a “delayed status,” and who knows if that game will see the light of day again.
Plus, remember, the company’s “current big title” just had its last big DLC release, and it was troublesome. Yes, it may have done well revenue-wise, but as the layoffs prove, that’s not all there is in this industry.
Then, there is the situation with Bungie’s CEO, Pete Parsons. As noted by sources on Twitter and beyond after the layoffs were revealed, Parsons spent a couple million dollars on cars RIGHT WHEN he claimed that the company had “financial challenges.” He also made another big purchase of cars during the late 2023 layoffs within his company.
This is sickening because it is yet another case of a big-name CEO making loads of money while all those below them suffer. The gaming industry is suffering because “big wigs” who don’t even touch the games outside of promoting them are getting made MUCH more than the actual game developers and are making choices that are causing the companies themselves to suffer.
If things don’t change, the gaming industry will be in for an even bigger world of hurt, and that’s not something that should happen simply because of greed.
