Bungie has been refuting reports that they have been forced to make some cuts in staff by their new publishing partner Activision.

One anonymous source who claimed to have worked for the creator told Kotaku Australia that the studio laid off somewhere in the region of 30 non-full-time staff members ranging from staff such as producers, artists and programmers to IT support staff and security.

The source also suggested that had been told to make the cuts by their new publisher Blizzard. The source began: I and about 30 other people were let go for no reason recently after Bungie decided to let go every employee who wasnt full-time employed, this included producers, artists, programmers, most of the IT staff, and security. We were given no warning and were actually told there was a full-time employee only meeting and that we had to leave the building early, only to find out once we left that our email accounts were killed.

He added: "Bungie told our agencies that it was 'performance related' but one of our fellow fired-employees was an IT contractor, and showed us an email he received before his account was killed, citing 'project sensitivity' and 'budgetary concerns from our publisher' budgetary concerns is laughable considering the scraps we were paid. Bungie can't get away with firing 30+ people, leaving them stuck surprised and having to find new work to feed their families, unable to get unemployment benefits because of the false 'performance related' remarks. One of the IT contractors let go actually had just won an award for his performance that afternoon."

Bungie responded to the claims made by Kotaku's source stating: "This evening, Kotaku published a blog entry to their website claiming that Bungie recently terminated as many as thirty contract employees without notice or justification, effectively eliminating all non full time staff at the request of our publisher, Activision-Blizzard. The claim is false. Bungie has never been asked to lay off any employees or contract employees by our publisher, Activision-Blizzard, for any reason. The talented professionals who grace our offices day in and day out are the lifeblood of Bungie our most cherished commodity and the unsubstantiated rumors posted today are in direct opposition to the culture and values that we believe make Bungie an exceptional place to work, and to call home."

Activision declined to comment on what they called "rumours and speculation".

By Ewan Aiton