New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.
About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."
So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.
You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.
Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:
Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.
Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.
Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:
In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.
"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!
Bloomberg article in full:
Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2.
Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting.
Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall.
The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product.
In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up.
But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts.
Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month.
The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office.
TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.”
PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign.
Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.
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Listen I love Pokemon so so SO much. Like so much. But I do want to say in terms of design it’s REALLY gone downhill;;
There’s definitely a lot of really sick designs in Gen 9 that I can’t really nitpick at too much because compared to what we could have had they did a good job with them.
But then we have Dunsparce.
I want to talk about Dunsparce in particular because of its evolution. I know a good handful of people have wanted to see a Dunsparce evolution for YEARS now, and for good reason: It’s a very forgettable Pokemon. A normal type one stage that shows up briefly in Generation 2 (which, sadly, is a generation full of forgettable Pokemon) and barely anywhere else. SO if we take that and look at some other really neat Gen 2 evos we got in Legends Arceus and SV--like Wyrdeer and Farigiraf, for example--you’d THINK that they’d come up with something equally as creative and unique, right?
NO.
LOOK AT THIS.
THIS IS DUNSPARCE.
NOW LOOK AT THIS.
THIS IS DUDUNSPARCE.
WHAT THE FUCK.
It looks the same. IT LOOKS THE EXACT SAME. It just has another segment and a thing on the tip of its tail. You could mistake this for a powered up Dunsparce or a shitty take at a regional form. What the ever loving christ is this???
THERE WAS SO MUCH ROOM FOR POTENTIAL HERE. Instead they just said ah yeah let’s just slap some extra stripes on it and maybe give it a cool wingdrilll thing and move on. LIKE. BRO. THIS IS THE LAZIEST POKEMON EVOLUTION DESIGN I’VE EVER SEEN. THIS IS FUCKING INSULTING.
If you Google Dunsparce evolution, you’ll find WAY better designs made by creators not currently employed by Nintendo:
(@/woodenplank on Twt)
(@/mykemon_regions on IG)
(@/trainer_matz on IG)
THESE ARE SO MUCH COOLER??? Some of them even have an ouroboros theme which is SO sick and such a clever idea for a Dunsparce evo.
I’m just. I’m so salty. We could have had a sickass evolution but we were ROBBED
Anyway Nintendo shape up and hire these people to do your designs instead of whoever you have on staff right now that designed THAT abomination of an evolution
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did I watch another supercut of an Outer Wilds playthrough? yes. have I done it multiple times before and played the game a lot myself? yes
Will I ever stop bawling my freakin eyes out each time at the ending? No
btw the playthrough I saw was done by a astrophysicist and it was a great watch, I highly recommend it if you for any reason can't experience the game yourself, or if you're looking to try to remember the blind playthrough feelings as a veteran.
I highly recommend trying out the game first if you've never played it before. There can only be one blind playthrough of this game and it will be the best experience possible. Please try out Outer Wilds.
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Can we talk about how unbelievably normal Kevin would've been if he wasn't the Son Of Exy? I mean seriously, even with that he's a history major. A history major. His mother died in a car crash, he was abused for over half his life, he ran away to live with his illegitimate father and yet he is still tries so hard to be normal. When Andrew gets at him for having no spine, it makes me so unspeakably mad because yes! of course he's scared! His abuser is chasing him across the country to his safe space and is torturing and killing his friends!
Kevin pretty much grew up in a cult and his response is to avoid confrontation with them because opening his mouth has always meant incurring Riko's wrath; it's better for everyone to take the path of least resistance- sit down, shut up and don't cause any problems. Kevin is pretty much the fawn response to Andrew's fight and Neil's flight and it's so annoying how critical of Kevin everyone was. He was trying his goddamn best and when Wymack literally had to tackle Kevin in his apartment to calm him down showed us how much pain and fear he was in, how much he had always been in.
He grew up in a cage and he never got the outlet Neil had when he ran, or when Andrew lashed out and got shipped somewhere else. Kevin Day deserved the life he was owed and he finally got it when he went to Palmetto. He finally got to play exy on his own terms, went pro, made the US Court AND got a family- Wymack, Abby, and Thea. Not only them, but the Foxes too. Neil and Andrew, Nicky, Aaron, Dan, Matt, Allison and Renee. He got everything he deserved in the end and yes that is the success story we all needed for him.
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lol someone on Twitter posted the podcast clip of Angela and Damien commented under
https://x.com/shourtneey/status/1775774250185482288?s=46&t=LBN-nTL3dHZAbWOFkeCnKg
LMAOOO NO WAY
(Twitter link)
I wont lie, my heart genuinely DROPPED yesterday when I read the first reply, I thought something was wrong! but then I thought about it and realized he was being /j /hj lmao (tone indicators man.)
THEN I started to think about why he would reply to this tweet in the first place. "From my perspective, this story contains FALSEHOODS" I'm going to BET you it has something to do with her asking him what she had said at the party. (or maybe she did something silly and left it out? ie. her throwing up, spilling something on him, her talking about something she likes [nerdy][[derogatory]] ?) (OR OR she embellished on him saying "that talk really meant a lot")
BUT THEN,
THIS MUTHAFUCKA ^^^ (within the first TEN MINUETS OF STREAM) TALKS ABOUT THE TWEET, AND ABOUT HOW PEOPLE ALWAYS THINK HE'S BEING PASSIVE AGRESSIVE. (<-context) someone replied to Damien's first reply thinking he was being /s) -GOES TO BED, WAKES UP, GOES BACK TO THE TWEET TO REPLY AGAIN, SO THAT PEOPLE WILL KNOW HE'S BEING /j
.... this man....
Since I believe he was only /hj (half-joking)... I want to know exactly what Damien meant by "FALSEHOODS".
So, I'll wrap this up with-
Why would he @ BOTH of them?
If it was something small she got wrong I could see him just @ ing her. But BOTH the Host of the Podcast and Angela sounds like whatever she got wrong/different was BIG. (and most DEFINITELY something funny)(based on Damien's vibe)
NOT TO MENTION HOW MUCH HE SAYS "Whoa" IN THE FIRST REPLY !!
YOU CANNOT TELL ME WHATEVER SHE DIDN'T SAY WASN'T SOMETHING HUGE !
He also mentions in the Twitch clip that "we got to talk about it a little bit" in what I believe to be him earlier on his stream referencing , that he had been at Smosh that day. (remember, this was the day they were BOTH confirmed(based on social posts) to be ONSET at Smosh) Meaning he talked TO HER IN PERSON ABOUT WHAT SHE SAID ON THE PODCAST.
[YOU HAVE ENTERED "THE DELUSIONAL ZONE", CONTINUE OF YOUR OWN FREEWILL]
VVV
So I'm theorizing (being delusional)(but also really hoping) that they're planning on talking about it on camera somewhere. I'm thinking, if anything, something for (the Host) Miles' Podcast? since Smosh fans only know about it tangentially, and the story was told on his Podcast.
I think it would be better that way anyway :) (PODCAST VERSION OF ANG AND DAMES??? AN HOUR!!?? THE FOOTAGE DOESN'T CUT?? YES PLEASE!!)
(other idea- how fucking funny would it be if DAMIEN (or I suppose Angela) called into the podcast about a "silly little co-worker" that told "FALSEHOODS" about a Christmas Party..?)
[YOU HAVE SURVIVED "THE DELUSIONAL ZONE", NOW BACK TO REALITY]
VVV
It is nice that by default, we are a BILLION PERCENT going to get mentions of whatever it is she did sometime in the future at Smosh (I'm hoping the longest we'll have to wait is next month!)
I CANNOT WAIT for whatever it is the "FALSEHOODS" are!!!
PLEASE TELL US ANGELA AND DAMIEN!!! 🔊🔊🔊
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