Editorial: Even If He Didn't Spend Millions On Cars During Layoffs, Pete Parsons Needs To Step Down As Bungie CEO

(Editor's Note: The below piece is an opinion piece and represents the opinions of the author.)

For more than a few years, Bungie has received the benefit of the doubt on some things. When decisions were made in Destiny 2 that players revolted against, many just sighed and said "I bet that's Activision making them do this..."

Since the company left Activision and was later purchased by Sony, we've seen some questionable decisions both in their flagship shooter and in studio operation decisions coming from the leadership team, including CEO Pete Parsons. We saw this play out as it typically does over the last year or so. As usual, most of the higher executives at the company have remained untouched (with the possible exception of a leader jumping over to Sony early in the buyout). Rank and file developers, artists, community teams, and others were hit with the brunt of layoffs and "re-structuring". The company even acknowledged a "loss of trust" after the October 2023 layoffs.

Things culminated yesterday in yet another round of layoffs hitting 17% of the company with another 12% of the staff being absorbed into Sony Interactive Entertainment.

If you were the CEO of a company that was purchased, given a ton of money by Sony to retain talent, had reports come out about your toxic work culture, oversaw a round of layoffs to avoid Sony taking over, had your expansion delayed, and then had to have another round of layoffs, what would you be doing during that time?

According to reports (many of which source X user DestinyNostalgi), Bungie CEO Pete Parson was spending a lot of money on cars.

Look, let me be clear about my view on this. You can do what you like with your money. If you're making enough money to fund expensive car collections or even card collections and that's your thing, congratulations. You're living the life.

The allegations accuse Parsons of spending over $2 million on cars, with over $500,000 of that being spent after the October layoffs that hit Bungie. This is just what's been found so far, too. Accusations are also swirling about Parsons scrubbing social media accounts of some previous posts.

In the grand scheme, $2 million is nothing when it comes to Bungie's operating budgets, sure. He couldn't have skipped a few cars and saved the position of the company as a whole. No one would realistically expect that anyway. When Satoru Iwata took a 50% pay cut to prevent Nintendo from laying off employees, it was a big deal.

That said, in my opinion, there is such a thing as being so tone deaf in your personal decision making that it should be a huge red flag regarding your ability to run a company. Parsons knew exactly what position Bungie was in. He knew that money was running out and Sony was closing in. He knew that staff had already been let go and that it was likely more would be let go in the future. He was even asked if executives had pay cuts back in the October layoffs and responded that no executive pay would be adjusted excluding some bonuses that had already been forfeited earlier in 2023.

Knowing all of that, if you want to spend your money like Parsons allegedly had, why on earth are you doing it so publicly? It's because you don't care about being called out for it later, in my opinion.

I get it. Parsons doesn't make every design decision in Destiny 2 that you hated. Fine. Give him a pass on that side then. However, anyone running a company that is in the dire straits Bungie has appeared to be in the last year or so should have consequences for them, not just their staff. Parsons needs to step down now or be shown the door by Sony if he refuses. The damage to the company is already done at this point, but it can be recovered with the right leadership. Destiny is currently too big a franchise and Sony is unlikely to just show the game the door...so show it to Parsons and other leaders who got you here. New leadership needs to be installed from the top down. While yesterday's announcement does say that some senior and executive positions were impacted, there's been no word on Parsons yet.

Clearly you cannot run the company in a responsible way, that much has already been financially proven. If the spending on cars is accurate, then you end up with a leader that just doesn't even care how he looks personally, so why would you expect him to think more of the company and its staff?

Yesterday's announcement had a particular quote in it that stuck out to me. Parsons said, "Additionally, in 2023, our rapid expansion ran headlong into a broad economic slowdown, a sharp downturn in the games industry, our quality miss with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the need to give both The Final Shape and Marathon the time needed to ensure both projects deliver at the quality our players expect and deserve. We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red."

That entire long sentence comes down to two words: Poor Leadership.

That starts at the top with Parsons.

Step down, Pete.

(I reached out to Bungie's PR teams to see if we could get a comment on the accuracy of the reports of Parsons' spending but did not hear back by the time of this writing. I will update this piece with their response should I receive any.)