“This is an Area That Sony Takes Incredibly Seriously” – Jim Ryan on Bungie’s Workplace Culture Issues

Sony recently decided to jump in and announce that they will be acquiring Destiny developers Bungie for $3.6 billion, surprising everyone. In the wake the announcement, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan and Bungie CEO Pete Parsons have talked a lot about the details in regards to the partnership the two companies are forming.

In an interview with GamesIndustry, both the CEOs talked in detail about the recent acquisition, and also touched on recent reports about ongoing issues with Bungie’s workplace culture.

To that, Ryan said that Sony as a company takes workplace culture “incredibly seriously”, and that they hold themselves to high standards across the organizations and businesses they partner up with.

“This is an area that Sony takes incredibly seriously,” he said. “We hold ourselves to extremely high standards throughout the organisation, and with the businesses that we partner. This is something that I have been incredibly sensitive to, right from the start of the conversations. And I have been nothing but impressed, and I have nothing but the highest praise for the way that Bungie organises and conducts itself. There are a number of areas that Sony can learn from Bungie. Philanthropy is a cornerstone value, and I think that speaks to everything.”

Parsons also chimed in on the topic, saying that they Bungie and Sony have been transparent with each other in regards to what Bungie is doing and that they are continuing to learn, build, and grow. He said: “We’ve been incredibly transparent with each other with what we’re doing and the challenges we face. We are a 30 year-old company, and we’re continuing to learn, build and grow. I am extremely proud of the work that we are doing to create a thriving, inclusive environment for people. And we’re going to continue to do that. We will build, learn and grow. And I think we have a lot to learn from Sony.”

For the uninitiated, Bungie was accused of having a toxic work culture by 26 current and former employees of the company. The same was extensively reported by an article by IGN last month, which covered various topics like sexism, racism, and others at the Destiny studio. Bungie publicly apologized when the article was made public and said it had moved to address the issues, which entailed dismissing some key members that had been accused of abusing employees.

Speaking of the PlayStation-Bungie partnership, it has also been confirmed that Destiny 2 and future Bungie games will stay multiplatform even after the acquisition, and that Bungie will help PlayStation in developing future live service titles.