Pete Parsons taking role as CEO

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/News?aid=14282

Today, Bungie’s Board of Directors announced that it has appointed Pete Parsons to the role of Chief Executive Officer, and that Harold Ryan will be stepping down from his position as studio President. As CEO, Parsons will be tasked with leading the talented Bungie team as they continue to develop great Destiny experiences.

Here are a few words from Pete:

I want to personally thank Harold for his friendship, passion, hard work, and dedication in helping make Bungie the great company it is today. As a team, we celebrated many victories and weathered many storms.

To the players of Destiny, I want you to know that my number one priority, and Bungie’s, is and always has been to deliver great games that we can all share together. I believe that Destiny is a one-of-a-kind experience. I also believe you have yet to see our studio’s best work. My new role here at the studio will be entirely focused on fulfilling that promise.

This is yet another new beginning, and a new challenge for our studio. We remain committed to creating great experiences in Destiny.

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Well, here's to "Yet another new beginning", as he calls it.

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We probably won't see much of a difference for a while. My company got a new CEO about a year ago and were just now starting to see their impact in a tangible sense. Parsons seems like a great choice and I wouldn't be suprised if the move came from the internal operations side of things

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Gaming press is already jumping to the conclusion that Ryan is leaving, even though Parson's statement never actually says that. I was trying to comment on Polygon's story to that effect, but comments aren't loading for me.

Ryan's rise through test to President and CEO always seemed meteoric to me. Was he also running test all this time? If so, does he continue to do that? Is this to pave the way for a reconciliation with O'Donnell, since he seemed to blame Ryan personally for his firing and the attempt to take away his stock-- so much so that he sued him personally? If so, that would seem to indicate that he is leaving.

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Marty seems pretty set on creators' rights and complete control these days. I don't think he would come back to Bungie no matter what happens. Could they even rehire him in a way that gave him the control and rights he would seem to want?

I'm not sure VR is a place for his talents to shine as brightly as they did with Bungie, but hopefully he is happy with what he is doing. :)

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I'm not sure VR is a place for his talents to shine as brightly as they did with Bungie, but hopefully he is happy with what he is doing. :)

I'm not sure either, but Golem does seem like one of the most interesting announced VR games right now.

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Gaming press is already jumping to the conclusion that Ryan is leaving, even though Parson's statement never actually says that. I was trying to comment on Polygon's story to that effect, but comments aren't loading for me.

The statement says he's stepping down as President, and clearly he's not going to be CEO any more (since Parsons is taking that position) - I guess it doesn't say he's leaving, but if he stays it's going to be in a lesser position.

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I wonder if it is lesser. Like, when Bill Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft. Basically he kept doing what he wanted but dumped the responsibilities to Ballmer. We'll find out soon, I guess.

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This bothers me more than it probably should. As a former tester, I've always assumed Bungie's current overlords simply didn't respect the test team enough to listen to their complaints, but if Ryan came up through Test, that seems unlikely. I wonder if their entire corporate structure simply isn't designed to foster constant communication. That would explain the general complaints about Bungie's communication to the outside world: If the corporate culture is to compartmentalize and not to share, then the people who do any sharing at all probably feel like they're amazing share-gods by comparison.

Seriously, either test is incompetent (unlikely), they're not respected (likely) enough to be listened to (unlikely), or there's a fundamental flaw in the way bugs are prioritized and delivered to the devs (extremely likely).

New leadership can help this, if it chooses to. Let's hope it does. I've been worried about Bungie since Staten left. Love that guy.

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This bothers me more than it probably should. As a former tester, I've always assumed Bungie's current overlords simply didn't respect the test team enough to listen to their complaints, but if Ryan came up through Test, that seems unlikely. I wonder if their entire corporate structure simply isn't designed to foster constant communication. That would explain the general complaints about Bungie's communication to the outside world: If the corporate culture is to compartmentalize and not to share, then the people who do any sharing at all probably feel like they're amazing share-gods by comparison.

That would explain things, but it's the exact opposite of the Bungie we saw in the Halo days. I remember their vidocs talking about knocking out walls in a studio they moved to, and putting the desks on wheels or something because people were constantly shuffling around to work on different things. That doesn't sound like a company with bad communication.

Then again, that was like a decade ago, so maybe their culture has shifted more than I'd want to believe.

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This bothers me more than it probably should. As a former tester, I've always assumed Bungie's current overlords simply didn't respect the test team enough to listen to their complaints, but if Ryan came up through Test, that seems unlikely. I wonder if their entire corporate structure simply isn't designed to foster constant communication. That would explain the general complaints about Bungie's communication to the outside world: If the corporate culture is to compartmentalize and not to share, then the people who do any sharing at all probably feel like they're amazing share-gods by comparison.

That would explain things, but it's the exact opposite of the Bungie we saw in the Halo days. I remember their vidocs talking about knocking out walls in a studio they moved to, and putting the desks on wheels or something because people were constantly shuffling around to work on different things. That doesn't sound like a company with bad communication.

Then again, that was like a decade ago, so maybe their culture has shifted more than I'd want to believe.

Yeah, I agree. Up until Destiny, I've always considered Bungie one of the best run, most open communicating companies I'd ever heard of.

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Saw this on Facebook today:

Here's to Harold Ryan

I think, whether Bungie officially says something explicitly or not, that's pretty definitive. :)

(It's currently public; if that changes, I apologize in advance for posting non-public Facebook links.)

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I have to admit, I'm pretty ignorant of Bungie's current hierarchy.

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...that Jason has evolved beyond a mere title. He lives in another plane of existence, one where he and Bungie are one and the same.

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It's pretty common actually, creative types rarely become President. If has an Officer title, it is most likely Chief Creative Officer.

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Pete Parsons taking role as CEO (Destiny)

Huh.

So what's Harold Ryan's job now?

Getting coffee.

Interesting

Odd. What does this mean?

Odd. What does this mean?

Odd. What does this mean?

Odd. What does this mean?

Odd. What does this mean?

I didn't know he came up through Test

I didn't know he came up through Test

I didn't know he came up through Test

In case you're still unconvinced...

What is Jason Jones's title?

I'm pretty sure...

Creative Director