Former Bungie lawyer praises Sony for ‘inflicting some discipline’ on the company

Bungie has experienced significant changes in recent years. Earlier this month alone, the company announced major changes that will affect the future of Destiny 2. Following this, its former lawyer expressed his opinions on those changes.

Don McGowan posted a message on his LinkedIn page on Sept. 14 praising Sony’s recent decisions regarding managing Bungie. He claims the company made good disciplinary decisions with Bungie and said they’re best for the company’s future. McGowan said the changes could force the company to focus on new player acquisition instead of making games and decisions catered to fans.

“Much though it pains me to say this, it appears that Sony’s inflicting some discipline on my former colleagues,” he wrote. “I’m talking about forcing them to get their heads out of their asses and focus on things like implementing a method of new player acquisition, not just doing fan service for the fans in the Bungie C-suite.”

McGowan suggested he expected the changes to happen after the acquisition and they were good for the company. “I remember sitting there during the deal saying, ‘Do you think Sony describes this as them getting to pay $3.6 billion for the right to have no input into what Bungie does?” McGowan said. “I guess they’ve been given cause to understand that that’s not how things work. Good.”

He also referenced a Kotaku article highlighting the recent overhaul of Destiny 2‘s business model as “the things you do to run a franchise.” The new changes include Destiny 2’s next era, codenamed Frontiers, shifting from a major expansion a year to more regular, smaller expansions that are “non-linear” and will have “more unusual formats.”

McGowan was the former general counsel at Bungie until November 2023. Before that, he served as chief legal officer at The Pokémon Company for a decade. He also worked at Xbox.

In 2022, Sony announced it had acquired Bungie in a deal worth approximately $3.6 billion. Earlier this year, in July, the company laid off 220 employees, or approximately 17 percent of its workforce, due to “broader economic realities over the last year.”