Sony’s layoffs at Bungie may have included one of the men who started the entire studio.
The intrigue started when Stephen Totilo shared the WARN filing Sony is legally mandated to provide, to disclose that they were laying off 292 workers in their main office.
The WARN notice shared job titles of employees, and that’s how fans identified that Chief Vision Officer Jason Jones was included in the layoffs.
Alex Seropian approached his classmate Jason Jones about starting a video game company in 1991. That company was Bungie, and their first game was Jones’ Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete for the Mac.
Jones programmed Bungie’s 1990s gameography, but moved into a team lead position for Halo: Combat Evolved. He also helped conceptualize and was game director for Destiny.
While Seropian left Bungie in 2004, Jones kept a presence to steward Bungie’s games, even though he wasn’t in management. A co-worker even confirmed that he was working on Marathon last March.
This is a huge loss for Bungie that must be categorized differently to other exiting employees. And it rightly raises alarm bells for Bungie’s future.
