Bungie reviews

Not everyone supports the "Bungie Core-Values" and it's most evident in their Marketing Department also known as VizD. Teams are stronger than heroes Player experience first Strong ideas loosely held Closing is an everyday practice Widen your perspective Keep it fun Put a dent in the universe The VizD Marketing Department is very well known throughout the studio as being the hardest department to work for. Mostly due to its management or lack of. People are expected to work late hours with little-to-no notice, they work through lunch every day, weekends, through holidays, with no leadership, no communication and no direction on projects. You like those ViDoc’s on YouTube? That’s great because the team that makes them is slowly dying. Yes it's a job and yes it's a competitive industry however it's not the “Bungie” way…or is it? In fact I would go so far to say that the Marketing for Bungie which is now 100% Bungie is more like that of Activision and less like Bungie. There is very little regard to showing people they are of value or are creatively part of the process. The Management for VizD is the most awful I've ever experienced. People treat each-other like garbage and it comes from the top down. It is acceptable and tolerated. Three of the past senior artists were fired for various "reasons" and several others were placed on pips or “Performance Improvement Plans” however they’re some of the most productive and positive people on the team. Bungie HR is either completely clueless or completely incompetent and no help what-so-ever. There is no support for this team. Several members of the team have been with VizD for years, yet they’re still not considered FTE and thus have no medical or dental insurance, they pay for their own parking and walk to work in the rain or snow. Vendors/Contractors are strung out for years with the hopes of being hired full-time. During that time they work long hours and receive none of the “Perks” or benefits that the Bungie employees receive. No one speaks up on the VizD Team as they’ve seen so many people come and go and they fear reprisals from management. As much as I love what Bungie says it stands for – I’ve sadly only seen them watch quietly as peoples lives are destroyed.

- Lack of formal sick time, PTO policy out of line with technology industry - At heart a content/creative company, technology and engineering are not given the craft and attention needed - Dev group structure makes cross-team efforts incredibly difficult - Leadership is afraid of making difficult decisions, will generally over-analyze and defer decisions until time pressures make it for them - HR processes and career growth are very immature relative to other mid-size companies - Recruiting/staffing overly complex, too difficult to close candidates as a hiring manager and back-fill positions - Tooling and workflow are the soft underbelly. Systems were built pre-Destiny and for the most part are still being used. Leadership talks about the game as a service, but not willing to make changes, take downtime for infrastructure, or provide budget that would speed up the release cycle - Lack of ownership around tooling makes it difficult to make changes. Teams who technically own a tool still deal with the original creators of it who are resistant to change. Tools that don't have a formal owner or support are not shut down, reducing burden to engineers who do their best to keep something going, at the expense of features or other improvements - Salary not competitive for engineering roles