Is Destiny Mobile to blame for Bungie’s fall from grace?

• Rumours of overspending and poor management within Bungie are breaking out following last week's redundancies
• Destiny Mobile, while much desired, remains increasingly elusive

Following the news that Bungie would be laying off staff and relocating a project to their PlayStation paymasters, word has now been breaking out as to what went wrong and who was to blame.

Call them the sour grape airings of disgruntled ex-employees but the gossip being traded in articles such as this one by Bloomberg paints an interesting picture of a company that lost its way as new-found cash went to its head.

Of course, everyone knows that you have to speculate to accumulate and the entire industry is always on the hunt for investment with which it can finally make those big plans a reality. The trick is in spending this money wisely, not burning through it too fast and ensuring that you have a great product at the end of the day with which to replace that money (and hopefully make a little more besides).

It seems that in this regard Bungie got their sums wrong.

Pinning the blame squarely on the back of CEO Pete Parsons, a number of Bungie staffers have taken to various socials to describe a company that found itself swimming in cash following a buyout by Sony back in 2022.

Where did it all go wrong?

Bungie were - of course - a successful and much admired company at this point. With the Halo series making its name and Destiny proving to be an enduring hit (with almost limitless expansions and spin-offs possible) they were an attractive win for Sony and PlayStation in general. Destiny’s endless ‘games as a service’ model allowed PlayStation to get in on the ‘next big thing’, moving away from the $60-a-pop buy once, play, discard model they’d made their fortune with and gaining a foothold in the brave new world of GAAS. 

And with PlayStation footing the bills and keeping the wolf from the door Bungie could enter into a new era of growth and experimentation - including the much rumoured and they’d-be-stupid-not-to project of porting Destiny (most likely in Destiny 2 partner form) to some kind of mobile game. It seems most likely that Destiny on mobile WOULD have been some kind of cross-platform play rather than a standalone spinoff. With the game already a hit on PC and console a mobile spin COULD have allowed players to keep playing (and spending) endlessly, no matter when or where they were.

We say ‘would’ and ‘could’ as it seems that mobile Destiny is now not going to happen and by all accounts proved to be the straw that broke Bungie’s back.

Too much too soon

Flush with cash and brimming with ideas, the company burnt through money, time and talent before arriving at last week’s buffers with the loss of 220 staff and an unnamed, un-announced title moving from the studio to PlayStation’s own internal team along with (it’s hoped) up to 155 existing Bungie staff - a move that feels not only like an admission of failure from Bungie but a slap on the wrists from their new paymasters.

Could this be the Destiny project? Will mobile Destiny see the light of day? Time will tell. But it's debatable as to whether a new in-house PlayStation team will find the creation of a mobile Destiny (seamlessly integrating into an existing PC and console universe in progress) any easier than the team that devised the game in the first place.

We wish Bungie and PlayStation the best of luck righting this ship.