Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "DESTINY 2 STUDIO BUNGIE COULD BE FACING A 50% REDUCTION OF STAFF IN SUMMER LAYOFFS"

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

Linktree: ⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠⁠Join The Normandy For Ad-Free NME, Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme+! Join Here:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://ow.ly/msoH50WCu0K⁠⁠ In this segment of Notorious Mass Effect, Analytic Dreamz breaks down the latest reports on Bungie’s rumored major layoffs in summer 2026 following the official end of Destiny 2’s active development.Analytic Dreamz examines claims that up to 50% of Bungie’s roughly 800–850 staff could be cut, potentially affecting 400 employees. The discussion covers multiple sources including Sylvain Trinel and Paul Tassi, the $765 million Sony impairment loss, the shift of resources to Marathon, and the timing of expected leadership departures in July 2026 after vesting payouts.This segment also explores Destiny 2’s final update Monument of Triumph, the surge in player numbers, the growing Destiny 3 petition nearing 400,000 signatures, Bungie’s previous 2024 layoffs, and broader PlayStation studio restructuring. Analytic Dreamz provides context on Sony’s 2022 acquisition, Marathon’s performance concerns, and what this means for the future of one of gaming’s most iconic studios.Essential listening for Destiny fans and industry watchers tracking the latest Bungie and Sony developments. Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Shepard, promise me you'll tell them to subscribe for ad free content. September 25th, 2024. I remember reporting that the Destiny 2 devs, as far as Bungy, laid off 220 employees post-merger with PlayStation. You know what I'm saying? Just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? And as far as the state of gaming, safe to say all the way up into 2026, it has not gotten any better, guys.

Saddened history. As May 31st, 2026, I also reported that PlayStation recorded a $765 million impairment loss from Bungee as operating income falls 41.6%

in quarter four. So, when it comes to this shocking news, safe to say, if you've been following notorious mass effect is not that shocking as multiple insiders have came out and said that bungee is reportedly preparing major layoffs after destiny two ends now of course this could be the logical um continuation of destiny two concluding because now the people working on destiny two

are probably going to be without of a job and that is essentially what surveying trinel hopefully I'm saying it right, is reporting on as Bungee is reportedly we're preparing another major round of layoffs this summer, 26, according to the, well, according to Savane Trinnell, but I wanted to get into who this person is because you're probably thinking to yourself, who is this individual? It's safe to say as far as surveying specifically, he is a prominent French technology and gaming journalist reporting for BFMTV. And of course, as far as him breaking news. He did break the scoop as far as Bungee.

And then when it comes to another person co-signing what he said, Paul Tassie from Forbes also co-signed it, basically coming out and saying that layoffs are expected, though he declined to specifically comment on the reported 50% figures. So when it comes to Bungee, I think at the end of the day, this is one of the craziest front headline well this is just the craziest headline especially for the gaming community because if you're looking at PlayStation acquiring all type of studios i mean they acquired bungee for a 3.6 billion they acquired fire sprite firewall studios blueprint games

house marquee nixis software hopefully i'll pronounce that name right but as far as previously Sony has laid off Blueprint games in London Studio. And of course, PlayStation-affiliated studios could face additional layoffs. Because as of right now, I think the ultimate reason for these layoffs is because of the huge 765 million loss reportedly as far as it being related to Bungi. Because when you look at Destiny 2 specifically, of course it's made a lot of revenue as far as 3.65 million. billion oh no that's the acquisition my fault when you look at destiny two specifically i'm trying to see how much is okay so destiny two has grossed roughly three billion over his lifetime however when it comes to other factors as far as maintenance service infrastructure global local localization

and content production the cost for that specifically is 150 to 200 million plus per year so because of the high basically when you look at your bottom line and you see how much it costs to pay for a bunch of different infrastructures especially with people developing the game you come to realize it doesn't offset enough when it comes to revenue being considered because as far as a 55% drop and player spending causing these immediate immediate severe losses i think this is why we're seeing this type of news come into the landscape in the first place. Because of course, when you look at Bungee's extraction shooter

Marathon, a lot of people were saying that because of Marathon, Destiny 2 is being disregarded. But that's just sadly not the case. You guys. When you look at the grand scheme of things, people just stop spending money on Destiny 2

and then they come to realize that they're not, Bunchy's not making this game for free so somebody's going to have to keep the revenue coming in as far as offsetting the actual expenses for this particular game. So that is why, as of right now, Destiny 2 is going under. When it comes to jobs being affected, you never want this to come into fruition, but it is currently. As the current workforce for Bungy is roughly 800 to 850 employees.

So when you look at the estimated jobs affected, it would be approximately 400 employees. And those are 400 people who, maybe have families definitely are trying to put food on the table trying to pay for just shelter vehicles, things that nature like they have a life in themselves so it's not the happiest scenario

as far as what's going on in bungee ultimately I think it is because of the lack of support from the destiny community even though, you know, before the destiny community gets mad at me, even though that destiny is one of the biggest games of all time

When it comes to how much money it takes to develop the actual game, it does not justify the actual cost because of the revenue is, once again, dropping by 45% as far as player spending rates. So my take on this, because I've never been like a huge bungee fan. I never played Destiny. I play Marathon at, you know, Analytic Dreams video because I already have like marathon gameplay up there when I play with my cousin. but ultimately playing the game, you come to realize it's definitely a hardcore game loop, in my opinion, especially would that be an extraction shooter? And at any point, your entire loop could be gone if you bring it into that specific session. So that's definitely a hardcore gameplay loop.

And for them to try to replicate Destiny 2's revenue with Marathon, I mean, as you can see, objectively speaking, the numbers for Marathon is just not even justifying the lack of development for Destiny 2. So that is why I'm primarily focusing on Sony losing $700 and, what was it, $760-something million as far as, I'm trying to see if I can find it again. Yeah, it's Bungy, no, PlayStation losing $765, $765 million as far as the impairment loss from Bungi. I think that is primarily because of the lack of spending habits from the destiny players. So for them to come together, like, oh, we want Destiny 3, oh, we want Destiny 3. I mean, we can't tell.

No, I mean, I'm just saying, like, at the end of the day, we can't even tell that y'all want to play Destiny because the ultimate player spending rate is dropping by or has dropped by 45%. So with that being said, there's really no future for Destiny 2. Hopefully the Destiny community isn't irate at me because basically I'm just giving you the objective facts. If you don't like it, you know, over here covering the gaming and music IPs that detourously affects the masses, I think this is just objective facts that I'm giving you as to why you're in this situation in the first place. Because no Destiny 3 is insight. As far as major content updates, they have ended, servers will remain online for Destiny 2, though, and they will only receive maintenance and stability support for the foreseeable future. And of course, with the Destiny community, not spending money on the game, but of course coming out in droves because of Budgie being like, okay, you don't want to spend money, but now the game's done. Now the game's done is dead. So be it. And the community came out and expressed a lot of this. The community was in disarray. As they came out and basically campaign for Destiny 3. And there's literally a change.org.org petition calling for Destiny 3. And that has reached nearly 400,000.

signatures. Now, I'm going to say something that's not in, you know, it's not in the best interest of the Destiny fandom because, of course, if all those 400,000 signatures spend at least $5 on the game, you know what I'm saying, in a month or something like that to support the game to actually enjoy, I think we will still have Destiny 2 around. But as of right now, Bungie is losing PlayStation a mammoth amount of money. So now, when you look at it in total, I don't think they're bringing back anything that's related to destiny. Marathon as of right now, it's not in the greatest state, I believe, let me see. So it's not on the top 10 as far as PlayStation Xbox.

When you look at Steam specifically, as 10,000 players concurrently play in Marathon, a 24-hour peak of 11,000, and the all-time peak was three months ago as far as 88,000. That is not nearly enough to keep Bungy in line as far as paying off the people who are probably going to be out of a job because destiny two is now ended all that revenue that is missing from marathon cannot go to the destiny workers because guess what there is none you know what i'm saying the destiny two workers are

probably like what we're going to do now and budgie probably saying and that's just a sad day in history you guys see that's the problem so some of the other things i wanted to touch on because i don't like talking about gaming layoffs but of course when you look at layoffs in the gaming industry there's a lot of reasons for this. And I think the main reason is because of the pandemic era. Now, before y'all get mad, the main reason why I say that is because in 2020 and 2023, a lot of companies scaled aggressively, right? And it was because of everybody being in a house and video games being the only entertainment medium, in my opinion, that you could just go and enjoy hours upon hours and have a mammoth a backlog in two.

Like, of course you could watch TV or movie, but a lot of the interactive elements was taken away from humans when the pandemic was around. But what gave you that interaction element? Video games. You hop on an all-line game. You play it. You find a person that you are vibing with

as far as chemistry on the game. And now you have a PlayStation buddy. You have a virtual buddy. And now you're having certain interactions that you couldn't have because of the pandemic, everybody being in the house. So I think all the sales from every gaming company skyrocketed and reportedly Bungy scaled to over 1,600 employees between 2020 and 2023. So when you look at the operational overhead, usually you're not supposed to keep it at a certain level unless you know that you're going to bring in their revenue. But Bungy could care less because during the pandemic and not default them because a lot of other companies did the exact same thing, which is why.

I believe we're going to see more of these layoffs, not to, you know, sound like a Debbie Downer. But I think we're going to see more of these layoffs because of gaming companies' operational overhead being much higher than it should have been and is simply due to the pandemic. And of course, we have a lot of AI data centers that is taking up a lot of the RAM, which in turn is making a lot of the PC parts more expensive, hence the RAM. and PlayStation parts in general. And of course, you know, the economic, let's just say the economic situation right now is not the best, especially in the U.S. So when it comes to prices rising, not only do you have AI, but not only do you have stuff that's going on in the economic and the political landscape. But, of course, the pandemic shift from having all the revenue in the world coming in into today's age, coming back. to reality as far as seeing what you are actually going to have as far as a consistent player

base and i think companies are now accounting for that and trying to uh adjust their course of action so i think when it comes to this bungee news that we're getting into there's really no happy ending like i'm trying to honestly throughout this entire segment i've been trying to think of different scenarios where destiny could come back and their fan base could be happy. But nobody spends money on destiny. I'm not going to say nobody. But when you look at the operational cost, it's way too high for them to even keep the development going for Destiny because the revenue is not offsetting that at all, not even close. So with these reports coming out, as far as them laying off 400 plus employees, because as of right now, they have like 800 to

the 850 staff members. So reportedly, at least 400 is going to get laid off. I mean, that's just insane. From permanent staff contractors get laid off. The way of life is going to be completely shifted. And hopefully they land on their feet because this is not a story that I am pleased to bring y'all, but it is one of the biggest notorious mass affecting type situations in the gaming industry. And it's basically a hint on what's to come because of all of these massive pandemic error over, overestimates, overestimates that made them seem

that they was going to keep that same amount of revenue during the pandemic for the foreseeable future. And we're just now seeing that that's just not the case. And a lot of these video games take a lot of money to develop, especially AAA games. I mean, you're getting into the $4 to $500 million at the very least.

And of course, if you want to compete with the God of War, Lafay, or if you want to compete with the Wolverine, just forget about GT6, right? You're not going to compete with that. But if you want to compete with a Wolverine, a god of World of Fay, it's going to take a lot of money to where now companies are trying to go for the sure fire bet instead of risking their investment. And that is similar to why the movie industry is the way it is now as far as only putting out

certain IPs that are already popular and not really investing on new IP. like I don't cover movies or TV shows but when it comes to the obsession when it comes to what was it backrooms all those movies was made by people who just got into movie making and their budget was like bare minimum they are grossing all type of revenue

that's very much an outlier especially in the gaming community is so much so many high quality products from a Marvel rivals to a Fortnite to a 2K to what else a 007 Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmatic.

I mean, all those games are percolating in the year of 2026, and those are just a few off the top of my head. I mean, should we get into Taskbarre Hero that's currently the second most play game on Steam? Like, we are dealing in the land, we are in this landscape of games just completely being outshine because the competition is just so fierce. But one thing, oh, one thing I didn't want to shout out

because, of course, I do look at the charts. And apparently, as of right now, let me see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Apparently right now, Destiny 2 is the ninth most play game on Steam. Now, of course, you may think, what in the world? And it's probably because it is. They probably had enough. It was like, you know, the petition that is not working.

Let's actually try supporting the game. And, I mean, that's just a phenomenal revelation. I'm not going to lie to you. I just saw this. So, yeah, currently, Destiny 2 is the ninth most play game on Steam. So when I looked at Xbox, it wasn't even on there. And Marathon obviously isn't on there. Let's see.

So yeah, when it comes to Destiny, obviously the fan base came to realize that if you want something to stay around, you should probably support it. And I think this is a huge indication, this right here, this number is a huge indication on what actually is, what actually has to happen for this game to stay around. for the long haul. So anyway, shout to the Destiny community for making it the night's most play game on Steam. And of course you see the petition right now, but analytic dreams video on Spotify to see the video along with the audio. Because of course the destiny community, I think they're probably going to inherently go to war with the marathon fan base because of course they blame marathon even though the lack of revenue, the lack of engagement is why Destiny is going under in the first place. I mean, imagine if Bungee had a successful Destiny. and a successful marathon. I mean, both games

would be getting a mammoth of support, but now when you come to realize the overhead is way too significant, that's why the reductions are reportedly going to be significant as well. So I wonder if there was anything. I think that was basically when it comes to my personal review

of bungee and just how they handle themselves, Destiny 2 lasts for nearly 10 years. I think that's a success in anybody's play, in anybody's playbook as far as trying to make a successful game. Destiny 2 lasted for 10 years. I don't know how long Destiny 1 lasted, but of course, let's see, Destiny 1 release date. So Destiny 1 came out 2014, September 9, 2014.

And Destiny 2, Destiny 2 came out September 6, 2017. team. So three years later, and now you're getting a sequel, and the sequel lasts for 10 years. I mean, in my opinion, I think that's a mammoth of a W. All good things have to come to an end. And with PlayStation, basically throwing Bungy under the bus, saying they lost them $765 million, already having layoffs in the past, which we've covered as far as Bungee laying out 220 employees post-merger with PlayStation. Now with the current report saying that they're going to lose or Bungy's going to lay off at least 50% of the staff, with Destiny 2 going under, it makes sense, but it's still a sad day in gaming history. You know what I'm saying? Just look at the state of gaming.

Like, what is going on? So with that being said, click my link to share in my bio to follow me on my social medias. And when it comes to my listeners and watchers on Spotify, make sure to comment down below. If you're a huge, you're like Destiny fan. what was your favorite part about destiny that kept you on the game for so long and hopefully that would be able to lend y'all to bond over the your favorite parts of destiny so just destiny what was your favorite part of destiny that kept you on the game