After Bungie was hit with plagiarism allegations for its Marathon revamp, more information has been revealed about other problems within the company. Aside from a toxic work environment coming from the top of Bungie, company heads were pitching to give Destiny 2 a subscription service on top of already paying for a PlayStation Plus membership.
Former Bungie employees spoke with Save State Plus, claiming that leaders were quick to shut down ideas and would publicly belittle staff.
"Everything happening to Bungie is because of greed," said a former Destiny 2 developer, which was the focus point for many former employees. When higher-ups pitched a subscription model for Destiny 2, it was only allegedly shut down due to the staff's "vehement" opposition. That would mean players would pay for a sub on top of other necessary subs like PS Plus, depending on your platform. Bungie's leadership followed that up by reportedly holding a meeting where the staff were given a "monetization scolding" for not enabling enough microtransactions.
Bungie has made numerous changes to Destiny 2's monetization since its launch nearly eight years ago, including a shift to a free-to-play model. The company has had to increase the relevance of the Eververse store and seasonal content passes, both of which include paid cosmetics.
In late 2023, Bungie reduced its workforce by over 300 roles, after a drastic fall in revenue. This put even more pressure on different methods of monetizing its games.
Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, two senior executives at Bungie, were part of these layoffs and general sentiment around Marathon has not been the best, but its developers are asking fans to give the game a chance, despite the surrounding controversy.
"Marathon could launch as a solid multiplayer shooter that is brimming with potential but thin on content. And in the dog-eat-dog world of multiplayer games, that could be a major issue," Tamoor Hussain wrote in GameSpot's hands-on preview of Marathon.
Source
Former Bungie employees spoke with Save State Plus, claiming that leaders were quick to shut down ideas and would publicly belittle staff.
"Everything happening to Bungie is because of greed," said a former Destiny 2 developer, which was the focus point for many former employees. When higher-ups pitched a subscription model for Destiny 2, it was only allegedly shut down due to the staff's "vehement" opposition. That would mean players would pay for a sub on top of other necessary subs like PS Plus, depending on your platform. Bungie's leadership followed that up by reportedly holding a meeting where the staff were given a "monetization scolding" for not enabling enough microtransactions.
Bungie has made numerous changes to Destiny 2's monetization since its launch nearly eight years ago, including a shift to a free-to-play model. The company has had to increase the relevance of the Eververse store and seasonal content passes, both of which include paid cosmetics.
In late 2023, Bungie reduced its workforce by over 300 roles, after a drastic fall in revenue. This put even more pressure on different methods of monetizing its games.
Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, two senior executives at Bungie, were part of these layoffs and general sentiment around Marathon has not been the best, but its developers are asking fans to give the game a chance, despite the surrounding controversy.
"Marathon could launch as a solid multiplayer shooter that is brimming with potential but thin on content. And in the dog-eat-dog world of multiplayer games, that could be a major issue," Tamoor Hussain wrote in GameSpot's hands-on preview of Marathon.
Source