First, per tradition, the shit state of the world at large... Russia's invasion of Ukraine churns on, with nothing significant happening (from the outside view at least, not to minimize the sacrifices of everyone directly involved). Israel has basically decided to stop playing games in Gaza, and are going after Hamas with the intent to kill... and look to believe that any incidental casualties among the Palestinians are unfortunate, but worth the price. Sure, they've told people to move to another area if they don't want to be treated as combatants, but that's the barest of fig-leaves to try to cover their abandonment of the "rules of war". Mind you, I've long been of the opinion that any war where one side tries to follow the rules while the other side blatantly ignores them is a losing proposition for the rules-follower, but I didn't think I'd see anybody follow through on that line of thought in my lifetime. It will be interesting (and likely horrific) to see where this all ends up.
Well, that's the world at large, how's the shit state in gaming and corporate America going? Recent events at Destiny 2's developer Bungie seem to show a little more creaking at the seams, at least. The story, as best I've gathered, goes something like this: Destiny 2's most recent major DLC, Lightfall, has not been well received by the gaming public. Recognizing this, people at various levels of the company have, over the past several months, brought up issues and possible solutions, which by and large have been shut down by Bungie's leadership. Fast-forward to a week ago, and Destiny 2's revenues are coming up significantly short against leadership-projected revenues, to the tune of 45% less. Sony asked Bungie to come up with an 8% reduction in expenses (possibly reflecting that shortfall, possibly for other reasons), and Bungie leadership decided to meet that request by laying off about 100 staff, especially in areas that they might be able to outsource, without the input of the team leads, while the leadership team themselves faced no consequences whatsoever. Oh, and they tried to somehow keep a lid on this by, effectively, telling the fired staff to GTFO without handing over to anybody still employed.
My takes on all of this: so, in a game that's riddled with problems and whose player base is hungry for content, you're laying off the people who fix problems and create content. If I were a shareholder in a publicly-traded Bungie, I would be long gone at this point. Also, if unionization efforts don't take off at Bungie in short order, I'll be quite surprised.
As for my playing the game... well, I did already pay for the next season as part of my purchase at the beginning of the year, so I'll probably be around at least enough to pick up any story-beats from that. Past that, though, I've already basically tuned out for the retread "Festival of the Lost" this year, playing mostly Starfield instead, so it's not looking good long-term. That's especially true when they've announced they're pushing back the next major DLC, so there will be a nice, long period of "why would I play this game?" going on, to remind me of those staffing losses. Who knows, maybe, if I catch wind of the leadership team sharing the pain a bit, I'll feel more inclined to step back up, but I'm definitely not holding by breath on that one.
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