Today, Bungie announced that it would be laying off 220 employees, or 17% of its workforce. The layoff was announced in a blog post that called the changes, a “new path” for the studio.
The response to the layoff has unsurprisingly been negative, but a specific point in it has been criticism of leadership, with former employees criticizing leaders and calls for chief executive officer Pete Parsons to resign from his role.
Parsons critics also took issue with the fact that immediately after the layoff was publicly announced, he locked down his Twitter account. After being called out on it he has since taken his account off the private settings, but that he switched it in the first place did not sit well with anyone.
A former employee even called Parsons out for allegedly showing off his car collection to employees two days before they were let go.
Parsons is also being criticized for his car collection as he seemingly kept outrageously spending on cars since Bungie’s last major layoff. Parsons critics are even timing PlayStation’s acquisition of Bungie with Parsons purchasing a string of 20 classic cars.
Another former employee called Parsons “a joke,” and others directly called for him to retire/resign under the only activity from his Twitter account today, which was to share the blog post announcing the layoffs from the official Bungie account.
Source – [Bungie, Twitter, Kotaku]
This post has been updated to include context regarding criticisms of Parsons car purchasing habits.