Veteran Bungie Composer Michael Salvatori Appears to Have Also Been Laid Off - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 November 2023 / 4,607 Views
First-party PlayStation studio, Bungie, was confirmed to have been hit with layoffs on Monday as many employees confirmed to have been let go via social media.
It now appears Bungie veteran composer Michael Salvatori has also been laid off, along with composer Michael Sechrist. Both have updated their official websites with Salvatori saying "GONE FISHIN' :)" and Sechrist saying "GONE FISHIN' with SALVATORI..."
Destiny 2 community animator Carson Reed via Twitter says Salvatori was laid off stating, "he was laid off; source internal."
he was laid off; source internal
— Carson Reed (@cinemamotionss) October 30, 2023
Salvatori worked with composer Marty O’Donnell on the original Halo titles at Bungie, however, his work at Bungie goes back to 1997’s Myth: The Fallen Lords. He also worked on Destiny.
Along with the layoffs it was also reported the Destiny 2 expansion, The Final Shape, has been delayed from February to June 2024.
The next game from Bungie, Marathon, has also reportedly been delayed with the release window pushed back to 2025. Marathon is a science-fiction player-versus-player extraction shooter in development for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Bungie cleared house of the longest tenured employees that have been there since the 90s. Naturally, upper management was excluded. Did the execs pocket the $1.2 billion that was specifically set aside to retain talent? Especially the ones that have been there for decades, played a huge part in bringing the studio to where it is today, and have earned their right to retire at Bungie? This broke the camel's back for me.
Screw Bungie.
I get what you're saying, but nobody has any "right to retire" at any company. People don't own their jobs. Companies exist to maximize shareholder value, not as make work, jobs programs. Every company has an ethical, and in many cases legal, obligation to do what's right for the shareholders. No such obligation exists for the employees.
Treating employees well is an important part of maximizing shareholder value. But, it's only part of that equation. When the other parts of the equation don't balance it out, it is appropriate for a company to reduce head count. And, if you've been at a company for a long time, you are likely more expensive than many of the newer hires. So, it often makes sense to let go of the older, expensive people.
Together, Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori made the legendary Halo soundtracks; the soundtracks were arguably the most iconic element of the Halo games, with Halo's main theme becoming nearly as instantly recognizable to gamers as Mario's theme. Bungie foolishly fired Marty in 2014 and tried to cheat him out of his salary and stocks (he sued and won). Now they have fired Michael as well. Such disrespect for their audio team by the leadership at Bungie (Pete Parsons and Jason Jones).
And it's not just the audio team that was hit hard, we have learned that Bungie has fired multiple veteran devs in this latest round of layoffs, many of which have been with them since before even Halo CE. Looking like Bungie is now a hollow shell of what they once were.
Maybe 343 will pick him up, and he can get back to work composing new stuff for Halo.
This is what will happen to people working at Activision/Blizzard in a couple of years... Think they care about you?
Bungie missed revenue projections by 45%. Chances of this happening with ABK is slim.
