over 2 years ago - Bungie - Direct link
Hello everyone. I’m Pete, Bungie’s CEO. My day-to-day purpose is to invest in the people who make magic here at Bungie. I want to enable and empower them to serve, nurture, and support a positive player community. I also want to help those in need by leveraging our fortunate and privileged position as a studio that has been working in entertainment for three decades.       These past few months have been a sobering reminder for all of us as we hear and listen to the multitude of stories highlighting how good people across our industry have been mistreated. At Bungie, we are committed to fostering a safe and welcoming environment for everyone, and to making conscious and constant improvements through listening, self-awareness, improving our workplace and our systems, and by acting on behalf of our people.       Inside Bungie, recent news and conversations related to Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) in our industry have opened an honest conversation about how we can be better, both as we look to make forward progress, and as we examine and acknowledge our past. We aren't perfect and appreciate it when concerns are brought to our attention. For the things we've known about, we've taken action, and we are working to address issues as they come up.      I know speaking up takes real courage, so I’m always grateful when people come forward. I want Bungie to be the best place anyone can ever work in our industry, and I want to empower people no matter who they are, where they are from, or how they identify, to do their best work. I know it is critical for us to be transparent, to understand our past, our failings, and to acknowledge them. Confronting hard truths and doing our best to repair past harm wherever possible -- that is how we move forward.     I’m hoping that by being honest and transparent, and by having this conversation with you and other development studios and publishers out in the open, we can come together and collectively make this a better experience for everyone who chooses to contribute their talents to this industry. That other leadership teams may see and acknowledge that this isn’t just a challenge for us to collectively confront, but an opportunity to learn and grow.       While this is a difficult and challenging conversation, our industry needs to welcome it and see it for the opportunity that it is. We can do better, and not just to root out bad actors, but to examine our biases, our systems, and how we equip our people with the tools and teams they can trust to support them as they craft worlds and stories that inspire millions of people.

Looking Ahead

Everyone at Bungie recognizes that the work of D&I is never truly “complete.” While progress continues, we have more work to do to fully live up to our values. Our commitment is to recognize our shortcomings, to dedicate time and resources to continual improvement, and to always act in the best interests of our people. With that in mind, here are some notable recent updates and actions around Bungie’s D&I efforts:  
  • We believe that leadership must model our commitment to an inclusive and diverse work environment. As of 2021, members of underrepresented communities comprise 50% of Bungie’s board of directors. In addition, four of the nine representatives of Bungie’s executive team are women or members of Underrepresented Communities (URC).  
  • We have hired a Chief People Officer to strengthen our team, Holly Barbacovi, who brings with her a track record of commitment to D&I initiatives.
  • We’ve hired a deeply experienced D&I Director, who will build on the work initiated by our former D&I Lead. When she begins her role in October, she will work with our leadership teams, our Diversity Committee, our inclusion clubs, and our full team to shape and influence our future.   
  • We will be eliminating the mandatory arbitration clause in all our employee agreements, given the growing concern that arbitration may not be the fairest way to resolve employment complaints.  
  • We’re reviewing our hiring practices and documents to ensure we don’t employ biased language or use unfairly subjective or unnecessary requirements, to foster applications from qualified women or URC candidates.  
  • We will continue to invest in tools and processes that help to avoid bias in application reviews, and recruitment efforts all up, including identifying opportunities across early in career to more tenured level roles.  
  • We will continue to invest in training and processes to help to avoid bias in our performance review, promotion, and compensation practices. 
  • Finally, though we provide several reporting options, including anonymous channels for our people to make our leaders aware of problematic behavior at Bungie, and provide personal internal support, we will also be adding an additional third-party, anonymous reporting tool which will be completely hosted by an external organization to further remove any hesitancy that Bungie employees might have to bring forward concerns.  

I know there’s more that can be done. We have a long history with our community of putting action towards what we believe in and using our platform and resources to improve the lives of others. Externally we do this through our Foundation, via fundraising efforts in support of crucial human rights or social justice movements and natural disasters. Internally in the last few years, we’ve steadily invested in new and more impactful D&I through our people, our Diversity Committee and inclusion clubs, and the progress you’re seeing today. There is no perfect “end state” here and for every goal met there will be new targets and new challenges. But we are committed to this work and deeply believe in the power of this industry to create a more equitable future for everyone to thrive.
Nothing inspires me more than our people and the incredible spaces we create for our community to connect and build memories and lifelong friendships with each other. What gives me purpose every day is creating a safe and welcoming space for the talented and creative people at Bungie to thrive and do their best work.
To anyone who has ever worked for Bungie, who works here today, or will work here in the future: It is our responsibility to keep you safe, to earn your trust, to ensure you have supportive channels to share your experiences, and to demonstrate through our actions that we hold everyone – at every level – to the highest standard of personal and professional behavior. It is our responsibility to be better and to do better.
Thank you for your time. Thank you for your courage and compassion for one another. Thank you for joining us on this journey to make our company, our community, and our industry a safe and welcoming place.       -pete