Sony's acquisition of Bungie was undoubtedly for its PlayStation's service-based gaming strategy. However, after joining Sony, Bungie's game "Destiny 2", which is still the main game, began to decline, and after a wave of layoffs, many employees expressed concerns about whether Bungie can still guarantee independence.
In October last year, Bungie warned employees that Destiny 2's earnings were 45% lower than expected, which Bungie CTO Parsons said was due to Destiny 2's poor player retention rate. Now, with the mass layoffs of Bungie, many employees believe that this is Sony's potential move to take control of the entire Bungie, which has left many people feeling "frustrated and sad". At the same time, some Bungie employees revealed that they were "survivors" who were treated indifferently by management. They have not received any guarantees that there will be no more layoffs, which is very demoralizing, as many fear that there will be more layoffs to come.
Today, Bungie's board of directors is made up of Hermen Hulst, president of Sony PlayStation Studios, Eric Lempel, senior vice president of Sony, Jason Jones, co-founder of Bungie, Luis Villegas, and Parsons, Bungie's own leadership has more power on the board. However, all of this is premised on the fact that Bungie can meet its financial goals, and if it can't, Sony will be allowed to dissolve the existing board of directors and take full control of the studio. So if the Destiny 2 DLC "The Final Shape" doesn't go as expected, then Bungie's independence may suffer.