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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Hesina Willshaper AU
Step one canon divergence: Amaram's army doesn't do the kind thing. Kaladin's listed next of kin are sent a letter stiffly informing them that their son is a deserter and, thanks to the highmarshall's mercy, has been sold into slavery.
Step two canon divergence: a light spren has started following Hesina around.
The letter reaches hearthstone.
Hesina cries the bones of the first ideal through labor pangs. Their wretched diamond lamp grows slightly dimmer during childbirth.
Hesina and Lirin discuss if there's anyway they could possibly find their son and pay his slave debt. They're not optimistic.
Hesina talks with her lightspren.
Lirin and Hesina talk again about trying to find their son, now that Oroden is starting to be weaned.
Hesina appears to have grown taller. No one but the two of them seem to be aware but they're worried other future changes might be more noticeable.
Hesina and Lirin realize that she can mold rock as if it was clay with stormlight. A spark of hope for freeing their son emerges.
The two leave town.
They find a slave market in the nearest city. They see other parent's sons, but not their own.
Hesina swears to free those in bondage. Stormlight starts coming easier.
They make a tunnel. Rebellion follows. Lirin is horrified by the violence (the violence is not actually that bad all things considered. a couple guards dead. some bystanders frightened. Fair amount of property damage as they rob the military barracks food supply, steal every sphere that's not nailed down. and also steal the spheres that are nailed down. (Lirin won't admit it but the stealing from lamps part is kindof fun.)).
Many of those they freed flee. Some return to slavery willingly, scared of retribution. Many decide to follow the Radiant woman who has vowed to see others like them freed.
The group proceed to the next town. They find another slave market. They make a tunnel. There is more resistance than last time, clearly they were warned something might happened. Hesina kills a man.
Lirin is terrified by what his wife is becoming.
Hesina swears to shelter those without homes. The lightspren forms an unbreakable hammer, perfect for knocking crem free from buildings. And for knocking down men.
A now larger motley group seeks shelter in a mountain town razed in one of Alethkar's many skirmishes over the last decades. Hesina builds homes. Lirin begs her to stay here, to stop fighting before she goes to far down this path, not to go to war. The slaves they've freed are split, many wanting to stay, hide, some wanting to fight and free more, with a radiant at their head, there's a real chance to change things. Hesina lingers, practicing, spends some time falling in and out of shadesmar.
Lirin and Hesina separate.
Lirin stays with Oroden and the noncombatants. Hesina leads those who want to fight to another city, still trying to find their son, still trying to free everyone's children.
The town settles into a routine. Hesina and Lirin miss one another. This is the first time they've gone longer than two days without seeing each other in the last 25 years, and the two days was only when Lirin had to travel to where someone had overturned a cart on the road nearby and Hesina had to stay and watch the children, too young to travel. besides that, it had been every day. they keep turning to talk to each other.
While the army is gone, the free town is attacked by those trying to reclaim her property.
Hesina swims deliberately through shadesmar for the first time. reaches lirin just in time.
Lirin accepts that not fighting won't stop the violence. (It breaks him just a little bit)
Hesina shouts that one person's freedom ends where another's begins. She vows to fight against powers which would rather see their people in cages then homes. A thousand light spren rise up to grant her strength.
(yes I know she's moving fast through the oaths. but she's always been a thoughtful woman and she raised two children who asked difficult questions and now shes mother to another several hundred. honestly she had already worked through some of these concepts before they became actionable on such a grand scale.)
Lirin vows to support his wife through whatever trials the Almighty seems inclined to put her through.
The lightspren, who has started to get some memories back, remembers Oathgate Spren not terribly far from here by physical realm measurements, guarding a hidden human city
the stone remembers the way the radiants once traveled.
The path to a kingdom in the sky is slow — there are many cages to break on the way.
Kaladin doesn't know it right away, because people weren't exactly telling slaves about the freedom riots, but slave wagons start having harder and harder times reaching the shattered planes after him.
Someone mocks Lirin for having a wife so determined to pursue the masculine art of war. Lirin gets pissy and decides to show them by learning to read and write to help support the administrative side of his wife's kingdom wide asskicking.
The highprinces lead a fairly successful misinformation campaign about the slave riots, lots of accusations of rampant violence, the dregs of society lashing out, you can probably imagine
The ongoing rebellion is large enough that word trickles to the bridge crews, encouraging bridge four's hope for escaping, while also making it substantially more daunting, as the crews are even better guarded than canon.
Rumors of a female radiant swirl around. Most people assume it's a woman in shardplate with some sort of tunneling fabrial, which is still pretty crazy, but several major players Take Note
A very large and tired huddled mass of people reach Urithiru. there's just enough squires, and two new willshapers with their own oaths, to make tunnels through the shattered planes and reach the oathgate without being seen by the alethi armies
the parshendi army is another story, but some are willing to take a chance listening to the neshua kadal, and come with them.
The political implications of Dalinar freeing 1000 slaves is slightly more complex, especially considering the rebellions have been impacting Sadeas the hardest
About a week after being freed, Kaladin hires a spanreed intermediary to write home and find out if his hometown is alright (again, a lot of misinformation and rumors about the violence of the riots)
Is informed by Laral that his family left town looking for him shortly before the riots started, were presumed dead
Kaladin is under the impression that 1) his parents are dead because of him 2) the Rebellion is not the righteous fallback plan that he and the men were hoping it was.
Hesina has many reasons to go to the shattered planes. Nearest part of the trade network for food and necessary goods. Many slaves to be freed from there, and a part of her still hopes to find her son, even thought its been so long. Home of Alethkar's political leaders, the source of Alethkar's slavery.
I have spent. A LOT of time imagining many possible reunions between kaladin and his mom in my highly specific high oath hesenia au. She has a couple faces she could wear when visiting the planes. Brightlady. Radiant. Cagebreaker. Queen of Urithiru (not her real title, they're tentatively trying the Listener council model, but they know what the Alethi will understand). Even darkeyed mother, if she and Lirin approach slowly from a different direction. Honestly, pleased as I am with all of the above, a lot is flexible, the key here is kaladin going "MOM??" In some fashion
Thank you @sorchasolas for conversation and the urithiru ideas and for leading me to actually write all this down <3
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Because the tfc mercs are the 'evil shadow opposite' of their tf2 counterparts, id like to imagine that tfc medic was a genuine field doctor who cared about his job and the sanctity of it a lot.
Maybe he sincerely tried to heal and help and work with tfc heavy who only pushed him away since "nurses dont belong on the battlefield". Idk what i like better, cheavy just being like that and hating all attempts of cooperation from people he deems lesser than him, or him wanting to get closer with tfc medic but his firm beliefs and insecurities twisting that want into disgust and hatred
Im still torn about what made cmedic not stick with the tfc team in the comic, it could be this attitude they all had finally getting to him, or the much spicier 'cheavy killed him after he got tired of his ass/his own emotions getting too strong to suppress so he had to get rid of the problem'.
Now that i write this i absolutely like the second option more, it kinda makes me see the moment cheavy attacked medic in the comic in a different light. Like, he did this before. No issue getting rid of the same problem again.
(Not saying cheavy liked medic whatsoever, he didn't, he hated his guts. I imagine that by this point cheavy grew to be distant enough to almost fully suppress that need for anyone who tries to care for him again. Not to even mention how incompatible cheavy and tf2 medic are as characters. The "problem" this time is another medic trying to work with him on the battlefield, trying to protect him and care for him, trying to make him feel weak. in his head at least.)
Also makes the fact that his demise was a heavy/medic team-up even more delicious, the powerful bond he could've had but was too insecure to accept was the exact thing that killed him. after he tried to get rid of the problem the same way he did last time he had the chance to create something beautiful and stronger than he could ever be alone.
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