Earlier this month, IGN printed a damning report on Bungie’s work culture after interviewing 26 of the studio’s workers. These interviewed, each present and former staff, complained of pervasive sexism and “boys’ membership tradition,” heavy crunch, and safety of abusers. “It is a well-known reality, should you discuss to HR you are placing your personal job on the road,” one worker was quoted as saying. “HR has by no means been there to guard staff. They’ve at all times been there to guard the corporate. I’ve watched it occur a couple of instances at Bungie, the place somebody went to HR and issues went utterly sideways for them.”
Following the report, Bungie’s CEO Pete Parsons apologized. “Talking with the group at Bungie,” he mentioned, “studying the tales, and seeing each identified and newly surfaced accounts, it’s clear we nonetheless have work forward of us.” Now, in keeping with an organization e-mail obtained by IGN, the studio’s head of HR Gayle d’Hondt has stepped down from her place.
Within the e-mail, d’Hondt reportedly defined that Bungie’s HR group wanted recent blood to be seen as reliable. “I do know that they have to be trusted to be your advocates – not labeled as ‘enablers’ or seen as firm sources who present unhealthy actors with protected harbor,” the e-mail is quoted as saying.
IGN additionally quotes a point out of dHondt’s 14 years of labor on the firm together with challenges like reporting somebody for abusing her personally, “a person, an govt, and somebody I assumed was my good friend at Bungie — which resulted in Bungie firing him.”
Whether or not d’Hondt will stay on the studio in a unique capability is unknown.
