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Bungie Crisis and Recovery Strategies

Listen, we've got some things going on today, but I just came across this video, and I really wanted to have this moment with all of you. The video is titled Saving Bungie. It's from Laura Frier here. This is a banging video, dude. And I know some of you right now, I got my white knights that are like sharpening their blades, man. They're like, "Oh, hell no." About to talk about Bungie. Haven't we moved on from this cross? This is a good video. Get the pitchforks ready. No, no, no, no, no, no. She comes She comes at this very objectively. [Music] You ever wonder what happened to these people? Bungie has been mired in controversy for the past several years. They've had tonedeaf layoffs. They've lost several key team members, and they've been caught multiple times stealing artwork. To top it off, their latest game, Marathon, isn't loved by gamers, and it's likely to fail if it continues on the current trajectory. Things aren't looking good, and I wonder if Bungie can be saved. Can they lead their team out of this crisis? The short answer is yes. They can save the studio. That doesn't mean it will happen, but with transparency and accountability, they can build back the trust that they've lost. For context, if you haven't heard, the game developer Bungie, famous for making Halo and Destiny, was recently caught stealing artwork. Here's what they had to say. came to our attention that an artist who worked on Marathon in the early stages of pre-production uh took a number of graphic elements from a graphic designer uh without permission or acknowledgement and placed them on a decal sheet that was then checked in in 2020. Uh the decal sheet included icons and text elements. Um these elements ended up in 2020. Um, and there's absolutely no excuse uh for this oversight and we are working on and 100% committed to our review process to ensure instances like this uh don't happen again on Marathon or at Bungie. Let me just say this. I feel for Joe on this, but that may have been one of the most legendary streams Bungie has ever done. Okay, the amount of that was being said in that stream while they were sitting there trying to just go through all the details and then just trying to get into marathon stuff, it may go down as like one of the most legendary streams for like the worst reasons, by the way, but still, it was absolute cinema. This was a good first step for fixing things. Joe, the art director, did a great job. It's very difficult to be the public face of a disaster like this, and he didn't mince words. He apologized. He said they'd fix it and he said he'd make it right for the artist. I applaud Bungie for owning the mistake. This is the way they can start to rebuild trust. As long as they follow through and compensate the artists and fix their process, this will be a win for them long term. Every studio faces this problem with assets. It's not a new problem. And if you have hundreds of people working on the game, you have to be better than average at tracking where every single thing is and making sure you document it. You see, if Bungie's successful, they're going to be shipping this game 5 years from now, and the people who knew where the art assets came from will either have forgotten or they will no longer be in the company. Bungie has consistently struggled with process, so I wasn't surprised to see the issue. I saw it firsthand when I interviewed with them in the spring of 2004. They were working on Halo 2 and Jason Jones tracked me down one day in the cafeteria and said that I should come and work as their executive producer. He seemed very concerned, but by the one one of the founders of Bungie, I didn't realize how behind they were until I interviewed. I ended up talking to about 20 people over the course of a couple days and Halo 2 was a train wreck from a production perspective. It was clear they were facing an epic crunch if they were going to finish the game for holiday. Designers are here, programmers are here, environment artists seem like they haven't gone home since about April. Anyway, so they needed two things. Production support to finish the game and adjustments in their culture so they wouldn't repeat the same mistakes in the future. I was excited to help, but it didn't happen. Bungie's process of interviewing was so broken that they never actually could decide or get back to me on a decision in a timely manner. During that period, I was also speaking with Xbox Publishing. Phil Spencer managed both of the teams and he told me I should go work with Epic on Gears of War. So, I did. Wow, dude. That's about right. You know what I'm saying? That's about right. You got you got clear clearly good talent potentially, but uh the interview process was just Bungie has taken the first step in fixing trust with gamers, but now they need to fix it internally with their team and Sony. Yeah, this isn't the first time art has been stolen. They've had this problem for multiple years. So why will it be different this time? Someone needs to be asking hard questions when mistakes that should have been fixed are apparently still being repeated. So, I know she's really like she's clearly talking about from the perspective of art, but as she'll go on to explain later in the video, it's a much deeper issue than just assets being stolen. Not that that's not a big issue. It really comes down to like team morale and the production standpoint. And she really gets into those details on when a game is too far gone, you can't save it. and then um how to salvage certain situations. I've had to fix teams before, and here's where I would start. I would find a trusted person on the team that's competent and gets things done, someone who's production-minded, and then I would ask them to go figure out why this has happened. I would put them in charge of not only fixing the actual current problem of reviewing all the assets, I would also have them fix the longer term issue. I would stay involved because trust has been broken and it's not the first time. This is what I call trust but verify. If you've invested a billion dollars into a company or if you happen to be a leader at Bungie who spent your lifetime building this legacy, you can't just check out when things get bad. You need to make sure that the team members that you've assigned things to are able to get what they need to fix the problems. I'd also invite a person from Sony's team to help verify the findings. There needs to be full transparency. According to this article from February of 2024, Bungie is already in a strained relationship with Sony. Given this, if I were Sony, I would have already picked a trusted person and embedded them with the Bungie team in 2024. It would create a communication channel for the team to express the things that they're seeing that would be outside their normal chain of leadership. You know, it's interesting. I I don't even know and I she she's in the industry. So, so feel like she wouldn't be saying this if that was not in fact the case. I know back in the day that Activision, if you went to a summit or any capture event, Activision was present. Activision always had their people on hand and they were they were embedded and present at Bungie throughout all those events. If leadership's part of the problem, then Sony Les le I'm serious. Like I've I've kind of like I've put together videos and I've said things like how to say bungee, how to how to salvage marathon, how to you know where I'm coming from. Listen to what this what she says. You I I I walked away feeling like I was like, "Dude, just hire her." He needs to know that and they need to know how to fix it. And having this person that they can communicate with will help stop leaks. I found that one of the big reasons you get leaks on a team is when people feel like they have no other option because otherwise things aren't going to get fixed. Sony leaders should also be having skip levels with the Bungee team. This means talking to everyone reporting to the CEO and everyone reporting to the next two levels. I'd also add in all of the key individual contributors. In my experience, competent programmers, designers, and artists will tell you what isn't working. They want the game to be great and they are willing to tell you what isn't happening and how to fix it. This takes time, but you need to get this information from the team. Remember, everyone in the studio knows what is and isn't working. The data is all there. Gathering all those issues, prioritizing them, and fixing them is the only way the Bungee Studio will survive. Everything that's brilliant and broken in Marathon was a decision made by someone, an action taken by someone. Most game companies will have a database or they'll have some type of documentation where debates over features were covered and you can find out who the people are who understand what Marathon needs to be and you can put them in charge. So essentially saying the people that did things like suggest solo modes, suggested things like a PVE mode, elevate those types of people to to be the decision makers for Marathon, making the game better. Imagine how things might have been different for Redfall if Xbox leaders had taken time to talk to the team directly. If they had understood how desperately broken the game was. Of course, you want to look at the more objective data as well. You can tell who the competent team members are by looking what they've contributed to the game build. You can look at player metrics from the recent alpha. You can review what the internet thinks about the game. What are gamers saying and why? All of this will start the process of understanding what is working at Bungie and what isn't. And if it's really bad, you can take this approach. Can we review our status here? S. Let's look at this thing from a from a standpoint of status. Um, What have we got on a spacecraft? That's good. I'll get back to you, Jean. Trying to ship when the studio's on fire isn't easy. It's like driving down the highway at 55 and trying to change a flat tire. You have to be very careful. At the same time, you can't ignore the fire. You need to start chipping away at problems, but you don't want the situation that I call pirates on a burning ship. This is where the ship is on fire and you've got the entire team on deck and they're not putting the fire out. They're sword fighting. It's very Dude, that's such a great point. Holy hell, that's such a Dude, that's such a great damn point. Essentially, politics people are playing politics in the blame game, right? who who up who did what and no one's actively trying to just make it all better. Very easy for a team to descend into this kind of behavior. So any changes you make need to be approached with that in mind. Fingerpointing is going to happen and leaders should watch carefully to see who these pirates are. They may be right. They may be right in what's broken, but you have to look and see how many of them are actually trying to fix the problems and how many are fanning the flames of Bungie's destruction. Assuming Sony wants to keep Bungie alive, they probably need to delay Marathon. Then they have to show the team that they know what the problems are. Oh my god. Hold on. Let's just listen that one line one more time. Assuming Sony wants to keep Bungie alive, they probably need to delay Marathon. Assuming bun or assuming Sony wants to keep Bungie alive, they should probably delay Marathon. No kidding. I know. But it's it's different when you see like when we say that people are just like, "Oh, bro, you're just rage baiting. Oh, man. You just you just you're just trying to just stir the pot, huh?" But when we when you hear from someone that's in the industry who's been in it for three, four decades, who's worked with Bungie and Microsoft and whoever else, Epic, it takes a different tone. And she's not like trying to be a dick about it. I guess I guess we sometimes do, but I mean like she's just being very matterof fact about it. I do love the point that she's making though. Sony needs to ask have someone that goes and talks to the team directly and maybe maybe they are but not to the not to leadership. Sony shouldn't be sending someone to talk to upper management. No, Sony needs to send people to go in there and sit down with the devs themselves and just talk shop, man. Then they have to show the team that they know what the problems are and they have to fix them. This transparency doesn't come without risk. It could lead to more leaks, but I don't think they have a choice. They've already lost a lot of competent people. They can't afford to lose more. This is why I suggest finding those team members that are good and put them in charge of fixing things. Competent team members already know the process and the people. More autonomy Sony can give them, the faster they will start to rebuild trust and momentum. And momentum is critical. Even when you're working on a game that isn't in trouble, you still need to make sure you've got momentum. Bungie's momentum right now is negative. They are so unhappy, morale is so low that they're leaking to the internet. And you've got to turn that around as quickly as possible because the good people still in the studio are likely already interviewing elsewhere. One way to fix momentum is to establish a plan with many milestones for finishing the game. It sounds simple because it is, but it requires analysis and hard work. The team needs to create these many milestones, things that they can definitely hit. And then when they do hit them, they need to celebrate it. And this will start to create those beats, that momentum in a positive direction. It will get everyone focused on making marathon great. and the team needs to set these milestones because the people doing the work need to define the work. This approach might be happening. There have been reports that Marathon will move to a strategy of releasing multiple play tests. As for fixing the larger issues on the team, it will do that too. You will quickly find out who is on board with fixing the studio, who is contributing, and who isn't. Then leadership can deal with the personnel problems. they can start managing the poor performers out and the team can focus on the game. I've used this approach with games and studios before. Early in my producer career, I was handed several games that were on fire, and my job was to figure out if they could be saved. It wasn't fun. I didn't like seeing teams fail. It's heartbreaking because it's usually good people doing their best, and it's hard to stay objective. I wanted every team to be successful, but it turns out sometimes they just can't make the game. There was one game in particular codenamed Dragon. It was being developed in the late '9s by a company called Eclipse and was featured in the NextG magazine. I started by playing the game, looking at all of the assets, the bugs, the design docs. I reviewed everything we had. I also started talking with the team and I started with the Microsoft publishing team. You see, we were still learning how to make games. We were still figuring out how to partner with other game teams. We weren't perfect. And sometimes we were making the mistakes. And if I could find those mistakes and fix them on our side, that started the process of building trust with the developer. It made them happy to see that I was willing to actually fix problems on my side as much as I was willing to dive into their issues for fixing the game. itself. I asked them to make some mini milestones where we could assess progress and get some wins. The developer was continually late on builds and most of what they delivered wasn't high quality. These milestones were really tiny. For example, please deliver one animation on one character at final quality. Take one section of one environment and make it at final quality. My hope was that this would inspire the team and create momentum for the game. Sadly, it didn't. Everything they delivered wasn't great, and it became apparent very quickly that they didn't have the talent to make this game. Yeah. I remember sitting down with their leader over beers and trying to have this discussion with him. It's very difficult to tell someone that their game isn't doing well. But I did it. I sat down and as respectfully as possible, I told him I didn't think they were going to make it with their current talent and on their current trajectory. To my surprise, he agreed completely. I appreciated his honesty. It took courage to do that. When they delivered their next milestone, they failed to hit their goals again. I called a program review with Microsoft games leadership. I laid out my case and I suggested that we cancel the game. It would take too much to save it. I had run down all the data. I knew I was right. Dude, I'm just saying. Imagine. I wonder what she would have thought about if she saw Concord. What would the What would the assessment have been for that one? It I mean, can you imagine? Especially like devs that are like, "This is their craft. This is their art." Especially if it's like their baby or something like that. Imagine looking at someone being like, "This ain't it." Let me back up. This is her talking to the Microsoft leader. I didn't think they were going to make it with their current talent and on their current trajectory. To my surprise, he agreed completely. I appreciated his honesty. It took courage to do that. When they delivered their next milestone, they failed to hit their goals again. I called a program review with Microsoft Games leadership. I laid out my case and I suggested that we cancel the game. It would take too much to save it. I had run down all the data. I knew I was right, but the leader told me that we couldn't cancel it. It was baffling to me and I argued about it after the meeting, too. I'm not sure why he was so stubborn. It's possible that he was friends with the founder of the company, who I believe at that point had just joined Microsoft, or maybe there was something else there. But either way, it was very strange for me to see an ex-programmer acting emotionally instead of refuting data. So, I went home and I told my husband that I didn't see any other way to fix the game except to parachute in. I was going to have to move on site in bed with the team and see what I could do. I didn't want to do it. I doubted that it would work, but I really didn't see any other option. In the end, I didn't end up going because Microsoft decided not to pay for the latest milestone since it failed. That was effectively cancelling the game because if the developer can't make payroll, they can't continue working. So, the game got cancelled and it was really heartbreaking because this team cared about their game. It wasn't that they didn't want to make a great game or that they weren't focused on what player what in the mental gymnastics though. Hold on, hold on. So the essentially the studio doesn't hit milestones, keeps missing them. She suggests that it needs to be cancelled. Microsoft then says no, we can't cancel it. But then also in the same hand doesn't pay the studio since they missed their milestone. So in this situation, what what is expected to work for free? If it effectively leads to the same thing, tax write off as a loss. Jones, it's already tax write off just in g. You see where I'm coming from? Even if it was canceled then or canceled later, as long as you do it within your fiscal year, you're fine. You get it as a write-off. You know what I'm hold on, let me let me let me let me back up real quick. Everybody around here seems to just run around be like, "Oh, don't worry, Cross. It's a tax write off." That doesn't mean it's free. Even with the most egregious tax rates, you still don't want to lose hundreds of millions of dollars for noing reason. You want something out of it. I've seen Wolf of Wall Street. I know what I'm talking about. Do not get any of your tax advice from Wolf of Wall Street. Did you not see the ending of that movie? He went to prison about their game. It wasn't that they didn't want to make a great game or that they weren't focused on what players wanted. It's that they couldn't do it. And it's really sad to see people fail. Oh Jesus. This line from her may come across very like cold and binary, but she's essentially saying sometimes people can't do it because they just can't do it. You know what I mean? Canceling the game because if the developer can't make payroll, they can't continue working. So the game got cancelled and it was really heartbreaking because this team cared about their game. It wasn't that they didn't want to make a great game or that they weren't focused on what players wanted. It's that they couldn't do it. And it's really sad to see people fail. Dude, do y'all have Does anyone have like that friend that that tried to go pro in something? I mean, they really tried. They put it all out there. And they didn't suck. Obviously, they they almost got there, right? They didn't suck, but they just weren't weren't good enough. You know what I'm coming from? It's heartbreaking. You know, truly, it's heartbreaking, man, to see a a good friend put it all out there and really try to make a dream happen. and it just didn't come to fruition for him. I wish everybody could I wish I because especially like the people that that really have their heart in that. It sucks. Yes, his name is Ascross and he plays PvP. This you hear me? Mods, take care of this motherucker. Is he even pay to win? You son of a So, the approach I'm suggesting would start fixing Bungie, but they have to want to fix the problems. And it's possible there are barriers to doing so. Maybe Sony made a deal where they aren't allowed to embed people on site. Maybe there are performance guarantees where leaders on the team are incentivized to act against the best interests of saving the team or the game. For example, maybe Marathon has a set ship date and if it's missed, executives won't get their big payout. I've always admired Sony. They've done a lot of great things, but lately they've made some silly mistakes. So, I can believe their contract isn't great with Bungie. I mean, look at Concord. If you looked at that game and said, "Yes, this is great. We should totally buy this studio." Even without the game looking as ridiculous as it ended up, it's risky to buy a studio that hasn't shipped and has no track record for success. It was too early to tell if the team was good. Sure, there were individuals on the team that had a proven track record, but not as a team. And games like these, it's about the team and the system. It's not about a few people's pedigree. Look guys, this is not coming from like look at like when we say it, people are just like, "Oh, dude, you just you're just a piece of You're just a piece of talking about people and their craft, you motherfucker." But coming from her who's been in this thing for decades and she's even saying it, brother, they understood the value of respect that if they treated their developers and players well, those same developers and players would forgive them when things didn't go as planned. But above all, they cared about their game. Having trust with the gamers, the developers, and Sony is critical. It's critical to the survival of the studio. So, they have to start running at these problems and fixing them as quickly as possible because this trust that you build is what allows you to make mistakes. It's heartbreaking for me to see this team struggling because it could be different. It could be so much better. I remember when Bungie came to Microsoft, the passion they had was incredible. They were some of the most fun and competent people I have ever worked with in the games industry. Now, obviously, most of those people are gone. I suppose it's kind of the ship of Thesus at this point, but that doesn't mean that they can't turn this around and survive. There are many problems and the odds are stacked against them. Dude, what an analogy. What an analogy on that. Hold on, hold on. Ship of Thesius right here, also known as the Thesius paradox, is a philosophical thought experiment that explores the concept of identity and change over time. It poses the question, if all parts of a ship are replaced over time, does it remain the same ship? God dog it, man. That's hot. I She's having multiple mic drops here. I I I'm glazing right now. I'm glazing. But I think that if they have the will, if they really want to fix it, they have a great chance. And I for one hope they do. Yeah. Well, you know, software production is much more of an art than a science. Um, at the time we were at Mac World, our box was in production and we were actually planning to ship the product in two weeks. We certainly had no interest in lying to our co customers and uh and getting people annoyed at us, which was actually the end result. Um people getting annoyed at us, not not us lying lying to them. Um but as I said, software being an art and not a science, it's very hard to predict when things will get finished. Dude, brother, she came with receipts. This is this I didn't know this. So So Marathon was delayed originally. This is Alex uh Serropion who was also So let me let me understand this correctly. I think there was two founders for Bungie. There was there was Jason Jones and Alexian. Correct. Those are the two founders, right? And I guess Marathon was delayed originally back in the '9s for whatever reasons. And I love that she brought these these receipts here. Guys, this is a really good video. I mean, I like how matterof fact she is about a lot of stuff. And u she obviously doesn't sugarcoat. Bungie, could could you Lord Frier? I mean, could you get her on? Like, could could she join Bungie right now? I would I would hire her in a heartbeat. Is she Is she retired? Is she done as a consultant, dude? As a consultant, as a just someone to just come inside the studio and help set up milestones. The fact that she brought up like before you even worry about like morale outside of the studio, like between your gamers, you got to boost team morale. and by doing one of the best ways to boost team around is setting up milestones that they can hit. This is a great video though, Laura. Thank you so much for sharing this with us and just your your exper experience in the industry. This this was really really insightful and we'll have to check out more videos from her as well. Also doesn't sugar coat. Yeah, I mean here's the thing like I love that she brought up the fact that sometimes studios fail because their vision fails. You know, sometimes something doesn't hit. is the same reason why someone out there is an author and they're trying their hardest to break out and they never can or a musician, you know what I mean? But then sometimes does break out. That's why you'll see like an actor all of a sudden that you suddenly see them everywhere and they're like in their 60s. They suddenly found a part that just resonates with them and they're in a role that that you don't even see that actor anymore. You just see them as that role and it's perfect. And so it's like I I also don't want to be like just give the up. No, never, man. You got one life, dude. chase what you want to do, man. But maybe in that particular thing, you know, that particular area, dude, at one time I was going to be a CPA. Do I know how to do taxes? Yeah, I know how to do taxes. I'm I'm familiar with with not necessarily super up to date to everything, but at one time I was working under a CPA. I was going to be a CPA. I was taking care of people a bunch bunch of books and and filing their taxes, taking care of all the Tax season, by the way, is absolute hell on earth. I I feel for my CPAs out there. But here's the reality. I slowly started to realize that I was not very detailoriented. I kind of sucked. And the reason why I found out I sucked is because I was managing. My CPA was so smart that I was working for. He primarily had me managing his nursing home that he owned and he had some other assets that I had to oversee and he saw the mistake. So before we like before like I was we were dealing with I was dealing with some customers as well but I was first and foremost having to deal with his own assets and his own books and he was checking over it every week and slowly but surely it was like brother you kind of suck with the details. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? And so long story short I wasn't a good CPA. I was not a good accountant. I wasn't a good CPA. If anything I loved fraud. I live for that Unfortunately, in in a small town in Louisiana, there just wasn't that much. You know what I mean? That's not what I'm supposed to do. That wasn't my job. My my job was to to put out fires, not not explore the fires, you know, and so it just was unexiting for me. And I also wasn't very detail- oriented, you know what I mean? Sometimes you just don't make it. Just means you got to mix things up. And I wonder at what point someone assessed Concord and was just like, "This ain't it." You know what I mean? But she's even saying that uh Bungie should delay marathon. Slap that like button like your mama told you, right? Heat. Heat.

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