Bungie executive Jaremy Rich has departed the Destiny 2 developer to join Sony as its new head of live-service product management.
This news comes via a post on Rich’s LinkedIn page, wherein he acknowledges his “amazing” seven and a half years with Bungie and looks forward to his new official position as Sony’s Head of Product Management for Live-Service Games.
Despite this change of position, Rich will still be working alongside Bungie staffers; Sony purchased Bungie back in 2022, so the change might not seem like a particularly seismic one at first glance.
Before joining Sony, Rich was Bungie’s managing director of revenue and products. He was responsible for “build[ing] and evolv[ing] our best-in-class live service capabilities”, as well as roadmap planning.
He’s worked with Bungie in a business capacity since 2016, though, having joined from Wargaming.net’s mobile division WG Cells.
Given that Bungie has made a couple of questionable decisions regarding its live-service approach to Destiny 2 in recent years, let’s hope that Sony intends to take some of the less palatable lessons from the shooter on board for its own live-service strategy.
Rich’s appointment to Sony’s live-service division comes amid a refocusing on service games on Sony’s part, with PlayStation head Hermen Hulst stating that Sony’s offerings on this front won’t just be Fortnite or Destiny clones.
Indeed, we’re arguably already seeing the first fruits of this strategy; Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 has launched to a rapturous reception, not least from us, while Square Enix’s Foamstars has proven somewhat less successful (in critical terms, at least; we don’t have exact player numbers for the latter).
The new position for Rich also comes after widely-reported layoffs at Bungie, reportedly due to poor sales of Destiny 2 expansion Lightfall, as well as poor player retention for the game in general.
We’ll have to wait and see what other changes Sony’s focus on live-service gaming elicits. Stay tuned for more.
