Video Gamers Podcast
We Sat Down with Bungie: Dev Secrets and How They're Giving Back - Gaming Podcast
Thu, 20 Mar 2025
Gaming has some truly epic franchises. Two of the most well known video game franchises in existence are Halo and Destiny. We sat down with Bungie Senior Producer Jarrod Luty and Bungie Foundation Director Christine Edwards to discuss their gaming history, pedigree and how the Bungie Foundation is truly looking to help the world. From video games to generous goals, this is an incredible episode you absolutely MUST hear. We get an inside look at development, how Bungie leads the industry in giving and much MUCH more! It’s another gaming packed episode from the Video Gamers Podcast! You can help the Bungie Foundation here: https://tiltify.com/bungiefoundation Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/ Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What iconic games are discussed in this podcast?
Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Some games and studios are so iconic we remember our first game that they ever made or that we played by them. We remember the times with friends we had playing together in the excitement of a new major release. We've had the joy of talking with several indie devs and studios, but what about the big boys in the industry?
Chapter 2: What is it like to work at Bungie?
What's it like working at a AAA studio and making some of the most iconic games of the last 30 years? Well, today, we have the immense honor to do just that. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, he's got more hours in Destiny than any other game he's played, so he may be geeking out just a tiny bit.
It's Ryan. Why do you have to remind me every time? Like... This is an amazing thing. It's a horrible thing. It's just like a lot of my life has gone to this beautiful, beautiful game. It's an amazing thing, Ryan.
And also, I'm pretty sure you don't even come close to my time in EverQuest.
That's probably true.
And joining us, they work for a little game studio you may have heard about. Just the company that, you know, made two of the most successful franchises to ever exist. From Bungie Studios and the Bungie Foundation, it's Jared and Christine. Hey everybody, happy to be here. How are you guys doing today?
Ah, so good. What a way to start our Monday.
Oh man, we're excited. So number one, thank you both so much for giving your valuable time and hopping on this podcast with a couple of doofuses like Ryan and I, we are really, really excited to have you guys here with us. Um, and man, this is good. This is going to be a fun episode.
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Chapter 3: What roles do Jared and Christine have at Bungie?
So I really kind of want to just start off by, you know, introducing you guys a little bit or letting you kind of introduce yourselves a little bit. So, Christine, you are the director of the Bungie Foundation and you've been with Bungie for quite a while now. Is that right?
Uh, pretty much my entire adult life. Yeah. Basically right out of college. Yeah. Started in 2008, April, 2008. So I think like next month it's going to be 17 years. I don't know. I think 17 years. Yeah.
I turned 40 this year.
22 to 40 is a long time.
Chapter 4: How did Christine start her career at Bungie?
That is amazing. I mean, how many people can get a job at Bungie right out of college? Right. And then, you know, you knew you were onto a good thing if you've been doing it this long though, too, at the same time.
It's been a great ride. A really, really fun ride for sure.
This place is a pretty good. I think I'm going to stick around.
Yeah, totally.
And then Jared, you worked with Christine at the Bungie foundation for a little while. Um, and then you are currently a senior producer for Bungie studios. Is that correct?
That is, that is correct. I, uh, I began my journey with Bungie about, three and a half years ago with the Bungie Foundation, with the boss over here. And just back in November, I had an opportunity to move over to the development side and much to Christine's chagrin, in my own, to be honest, I made the leap over to the development side and now I'm working on Marathon. That is awesome.
But I still keep on reeling him in.
Here we are. Yeah, I mean, I actually haven't really stopped working at the Benji Foundation yet. I probably will never. Christina just keeps sliding me stuff under the table and under the door.
Just excuse us a little bit. You guys go on both sides now, though. You get to still do the foundation stuff, but then you get to work with video games. How awesome is that?
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Chapter 5: What are the challenges of breaking into the gaming industry?
games and it like taught me so much about what it takes to actually make a game and how complicated it is and how many different people you have and how many different teams are working on it and just the teamwork and camaraderie around all of it. So yeah, I think I have a soft place in my heart for good old Halo.
I think I could take a grunt, too, to be honest. You think so? Just punch him right in the face. Maybe nothing else, but I think I could take a grunt.
I got that. I got that. So, Jared, you've been with Bungie for a bit now. As a gamer, I was actually watching some of your stuff. I think you are a kind of longstanding gamer. Oh, no. You're watching some of my Bungie bounty fails? They
what what is it um i mean you know these games what what is it that takes you you know what what's a game that is is that next level for you what what makes you kind of feel you know as a gamer what what's the best best that's out there i mean right now or like yeah yeah right now right now oh this is hard um
I'm going to give you two answers.
All right. I like it. I like it.
So I've played a lot of great like single player games, uh, over the past couple of years. Um, you know, I think I, I finally finished Ragnarok, uh, after a long hiatus. I've, I'm trying to make my way through all of Ghost of Tsushima. I've just been delaying it. Like they're kind of old at this point, but like I finally need to complete them. Yes. Um,
I think the game I keep coming... I'm a very competitive guy. I love shooters. I love winning. I love killing people in the game and standing over their dead bodies. So the game that I kind of go to, because I work a lot, so like... When I play my games now, it's quick fixes. It's like I want to be in and out, get that dopamine hit, and then move on with my day.
So I play a lot of Apex Legends, playing since the beginning. That is my dopamine hit. I drop in for a couple rounds. I hopefully come out with a dub or at least a couple top fives. And so I play way too much of that. Way too much. I will say a newer game that I've been begrudgingly hooked into, which I never – I hate mobile games. Like this is nothing – this is not for me. I hate the form factor.
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Chapter 6: How does Bungie foster employee growth?
Yeah, when you know and then you're just running away like, well, this is the end. That's awesome. Oh, my goodness.
All right. What's up? We gotta put you guys on the spot a little bit there too. All right, so Bungie is, I mean, it is such a huge name when it comes to gaming. I mean, I don't think that there's a gamer alive who hasn't heard of Halo or Destiny. And we're all old enough to remember the launch of the Xbox and the impact that Halo had on the gaming world as a whole.
The heyday of Destiny, the massive success of Destiny 2 is honestly legendary. And so we'd love to chat a little bit about some of the culture and then kind of the magic of Bungie over the years, if that works for you guys. So, Christine, you mentioned that you got a job working for Bungie right out of college. How does one get to work at one of the most iconic game studios in existence?
It's a really good question, especially for somebody who doesn't play games and doesn't make games. What am I even doing here? Um, yeah, so my personal story and it's like unique to me, everyone has their own journey, but, um, yeah, so I, out of college, I was like a Latin American studies major. I planned on going into global health. Like I knew I wanted to be a nonprofit.
Um, so after college I moved to Guatemala and I was volunteering with the medical clinic. I spent every last dollar that I had and moved home and just like immediately I just like needed a job. And I had already gone into, I had already like registered for my like master's program that was supposed to start in six months.
And I was just like, what can I do for six months to get me like any penny to my name? And at the time, Bungie was hiring for a six month contract admin position. And I'm like, I know nothing about video games, but it's the exact time frame that I need and I can do admin work, I'm sure. So I applied for it. I went into the interview.
And no joke, for a six-month contract admin role, it was an eight-hour interview. I interviewed with a representative of every single department at Bungie. And it was the best interview ever. Everyone was just so kind. They were super excited to hear about my story. At the time, we had recently separated from Microsoft. And so Bungie as a whole was like...
really interested in figuring out, hey, how do we leverage this amazing community, this amazing game that we have, and how do we leverage it for the power of good? And here I was, this 22-year-old person who was kind of volunteering for a living at that point, and they're like, maybe you can help us figure this out.
Maybe you have some ideas on how we can harness this thing and do some good in the world. So yeah, so I started with a six-month contract. Um, and we pretty quickly like started diving into the world of like, how do we start a nonprofit? Like, what does that look like? What would we do if we were to start a nonprofit? Like, how can we actually like, you know, build this?
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Chapter 7: What memorable moments do the speakers have from Halo and Destiny?
I feel like there's, like, millions of people out in the world that just, like, hate me right now. Like, this just doesn't happen.
Oh, just stumbled right into Bungie. No big deal at all.
No big deal. You know, it's fine.
I actually, I used to live right down the street from the studio, and then I moved a couple miles away, and I would just, like, stare at their building, like, just one day, one day.
Yeah.
And look where you are now, though.
Well, congratulations. That's amazing.
You did it.
Yeah, you did it.
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Chapter 8: How has the role of a producer changed Jared's perspective on gaming?
Like, you know, I don't want to point to myself here, but like there's other people who have started new roles and just, there's one of my members of my dev team. He was a tester.
and busted his to figure out how to become a designer he failed three times in an internal interview to become a designer and he finally got it and now he's one of our top designers on our team so like it we provide the ability for that mobility that that's there's something to be said about that too do like you keep saying it with with the passion and and um
People that will put in the work and the effort to do these things, it's not just, oh, you failed this time, kick them to the road. You can see the opportunity within them and what they can achieve, and you let that kind of develop. And that's just such a cool – we go back to the community and what a studio is.
And it's cool to see such a big place still kind of feel that small to where people feel like they can make a difference. And so that's awesome to see.
Yeah, I would say there's probably no leader here or no manager here that doesn't take it very seriously. The people on their team, they're not going to be there forever. We want to see people grow. We want to see people learn. We want to see people continue to pursue their passions. We want to foster them to be able to do whatever they want. follow whatever growth path they want.
And so, yeah, we have a lot of people who are in test to design. We have people who are narratives to something else. Like we have people who sort of move within the company pretty freely because we're always looking to continue fostering that, that growth. So you're never stuck. Like, I mean, again, I was an admin to the director of the foundation. He was my producer and I was on the dev team.
Like this, it's like a daily story here at Bungie of people continuing to learn and grow and
evolve and move on yeah people are the greatest resource a company can have legitimately and when you see a company value that and treat them well i mean that goes a very long way to keeping incredible talent you know and success for the company as well so okay so We're gamers. We're a gaming podcast. We can't not talk a little bit about Halo and destiny.
So Jared, this, this little part might be a little bit more geared towards you, but Christine, if you have any comments at all, company anecdotes, I can, I mean, please feel free to jump in here. If, uh, you know, if, if you have something to say on this, but Jared, as, as a gamer, uh, Do you have a favorite moment or moments from Halo or Destiny slash Destiny two that stand out to you?
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