Ex-Bungie Composer Marty O'Donnell Wins Legal Fight

Megalith

Megalith

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It looks like the Halo composer is getting a lot of money owed to him after his split with Bungie. What is more interesting is that—if I’m reading things right—Marty got fired because Activision was assuming artistic control by removing his music, and he wasn’t very happy about it.

Bungie must honor its agreements with O’Donnell that gave him the right to hold a considerable share of stock in the company. And the filing contains for the first time a description of the ordeal that O’Donnell went through as he quarreled with Bungie over issues of creative freedom and stock ownership in the company that he cofounded.
 
Yeah, have to love it when a corporation doesn't honor its own contract with employees on the hope that things will be more profitable if it doesn't go to court.
 
The real question is did this provide a rare glimpse into the world of Bungie? That is what I want to know :p
 
Reading through the entire article... I have to say that he did sound like kind of a dick in this entire thing. But regardless, if you work hours you should be paid. So glad he at least won that.
 
Exavior said:
The real question is did this provide a rare glimpse into the world of Bungie? That is what I want to know :p
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No it just furthers proves what a shit company Activision is and how they butcher everyone they get their hands on.
 
NickJames said:
No it just furthers proves what a shit company Activision is and how they butcher everyone they get their hands on.
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Did you read the article? I was making fun of part of it.

The court papers reveal a rare, unseen story of the making of Destiny, and the internal struggles that happened between Activision, the publisher, and Bungie, the developer of the game that is now played by millions.
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The litigation between O’Donnell and Bungie offered a rare glimpse inside the high-stakes world of one of the best known game development studios on the planet.
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What's funny is when Bungie split off from Microsoft and were purchased by Activision, ALL of their fans were making noise saying that Activision was going to yank creative control from them. Bungie reps actually got aggressive with defending the contract, they INSISTED that Activision would ONLY act as a form of distribution and marketing and Bungie had FULL creative control over EVERY aspect of their project. They even went so far as to say something along the lines of "they are going to give us total freedom and publish our games for ten years, what's so bad about that, huh?"


Yep. Looks like use uneducated, reactionary fans actually knew more about what Bungie was getting into than they did.
 
Bungie knew what was going to happen, they were just performing damage control to protect their product in the short term.
 
Wow...I always kind of respected Bungie.....Now I think they're just a bunch of assholes.
 
Scythe said:
Wow...I always kind of respected Bungie.....Now I think they're just a bunch of assholes.
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Yes and no. From the story Marty was just as much of an asshole as they were if not more. They just didn't handle it correctly.
 
Exavior said:
Yes and no. From the story Marty was just as much of an asshole as they were if not more. They just didn't handle it correctly.
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???How?

He spoke out against Activision taking creative control over things (IE not using his music with trailers, etc).

On top of this they fired him without cause and did not give what they were legally contracted to give him.

Why do you think he won?

Also if you're talking about the part where it says he wasn't working, or engaged on the project, he's explained before when he worked on Halo, the music is one of the last things he likes to finish because he likes to compose the music once the game is in the bug testing phase (IE basically finished).

It sounds like they wanted him to finish all the music while the game was in development, and that's just not how he likes to compose music.


How do you think film composers work? A lot of them make music after they actually see the movie or scene, so they can get a feel for the movie and base the music around what they visually see.

Imagine trying to write a piece of music and having no idea of what the game is going to look like or how the scene is going to be filmed.
 
KazeoHin said:
Yep. Looks like use uneducated, reactionary fans actually knew more about what Bungie was getting into than they did.
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My guess is anyone of importance knew all this stuff behind closed doors, but the reps you mentioned have a more politically correct version for the press.

Yes and no. From the story Marty was just as much of an asshole as they were if not more. They just didn't handle it correctly.
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Only if you ignore the "what happened next" part. Activision meddled with the music development process, so O'Donnell tried to salvage it and took some obstructionist action. Your statement would be true if it ended there. They fired him over it, fair enough, but refusing to honor their contract, not paying him, and taking away his stock somehow makes them LESS of the asshole? I don't put wage theft on the same level as "creative differences" myself.
 
Stiler said:
???How?

He spoke out against Activision taking creative control over things (IE not using his music with trailers, etc).

On top of this they fired him without cause and did not give what they were legally contracted to give him.

Why do you think he won?

Also if you're talking about the part where it says he wasn't working, or engaged on the project, he's explained before when he worked on Halo, the music is one of the last things he likes to finish because he likes to compose the music once the game is in the bug testing phase (IE basically finished).

It sounds like they wanted him to finish all the music while the game was in development, and that's just not how he likes to compose music.


How do you think film composers work? A lot of them make music after they actually see the movie or scene, so they can get a feel for the movie and base the music around what they visually see.

Imagine trying to write a piece of music and having no idea of what the game is going to look like or how the scene is going to be filmed.
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Yes that is part of what I am talking about. Watered down version of events. He worked on a score, wanted it released it wasn't be released as quickly as he wanted so he started to get upset. Trailer was then released without his music so he got pissed and went destructive. Started putting effort into sabotaging the marketing of the game and started to not care anymore about his work.

There are ways to handle disputes, publicly in a way that hurts your company is not the correct one. His bosses didn't agree with things at first but instead of letting them deal with it he started threatening his coworkers, interrupting press meetings, started posting negative things online... He was acting in ways that could hurt his employer. I personally may not agree with all of my bosses choices, but if I stopped working, started to do things to destroy deals that we had... I would expect to be fired also. I can understand him not being happy but his reaction sound overboard to express that.
 
Exavior said:
Yes that is part of what I am talking about. Watered down version of events. He worked on a score, wanted it released it wasn't be released as quickly as he wanted so he started to get upset. Trailer was then released without his music so he got pissed and went destructive. Started putting effort into sabotaging the marketing of the game and started to not care anymore about his work.

There are ways to handle disputes, publicly in a way that hurts your company is not the correct one. His bosses didn't agree with things at first but instead of letting them deal with it he started threatening his coworkers, interrupting press meetings, started posting negative things online... He was acting in ways that could hurt his employer. I personally may not agree with all of my bosses choices, but if I stopped working, started to do things to destroy deals that we had... I would expect to be fired also. I can understand him not being happy but his reaction sound overboard to express that.
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If you read the document more.

They were meant to promote his music leading up to the game release and were supposed to publish the soundtrack in advance, activision did neither, they were cutting his music out of promotional trailers.

He saw this as activision getting into the way of the creative control (Which bungie is meant to control, not activision) and spoke up about it, which in turn lead to them firing him and wrongfully taking money away form him that they had a legally binding contract to give him.
 
Exavior said:
Yes that is part of what I am talking about. Watered down version of events. He worked on a score, wanted it released it wasn't be released as quickly as he wanted so he started to get upset. Trailer was then released without his music so he got pissed and went destructive. Started putting effort into sabotaging the marketing of the game and started to not care anymore about his work.

There are ways to handle disputes, publicly in a way that hurts your company is not the correct one. His bosses didn't agree with things at first but instead of letting them deal with it he started threatening his coworkers, interrupting press meetings, started posting negative things online... He was acting in ways that could hurt his employer. I personally may not agree with all of my bosses choices, but if I stopped working, started to do things to destroy deals that we had... I would expect to be fired also. I can understand him not being happy but his reaction sound overboard to express that.
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I read it more like there was a fundamental communication breakdown between what he said he was going to do v. what Activision was expecting. I've seen managers completely flat out lie about what's currently happening, then only communicate what their actual plan was at the last minute and you get screwed.

My guess is it went down like this:
1. O'Donnel was promised something by someone Activision, he acted based on that understanding
2. Somewhere along the line, a higher up at Activision had his own idea of how this was going to go, running completely counter to what O'Donnel was previously told.
3. O'Donnel, feeling attacked by having his music cut and seeing goalposts moved, took an obstructionist path to try and course correct on what he was originally told.
4. Activision fires him because of this.
5. Besides firing him, Activision also decides not to pay him money owed AND takes away his stocks, because fuck contracts, we're Activision and do whatever we want.

How much of an asshole O'Donnel was at #3 is anyone's guess, you could definitely make the argument it was enough to fire him, even though it's likely Activision only brought this on themselves.

Part #5 is where Activision is acting like the scum of the earth and needs to die, regardless of who was the asshole prior.
 
I used to be a HUGE Bungie fan, going all the way back to the early 90's playing Marathon on Mac. After they fired Marty, they are dead to me now, hell I'd take 343i over Bungie now, and that's downright terrible!

Good for you Marty, you'll always be one of the top video game composers of all time in my book.
 
tetris42 said:
I read it more like there was a fundamental communication breakdown between what he said he was going to do v. what Activision was expecting. I've seen managers completely flat out lie about what's currently happening, then only communicate what their actual plan was at the last minute and you get screwed.

My guess is it went down like this:
1. O'Donnel was promised something by someone Activision, he acted based on that understanding
2. Somewhere along the line, a higher up at Activision had his own idea of how this was going to go, running completely counter to what O'Donnel was previously told.
3. O'Donnel, feeling attacked by having his music cut and seeing goalposts moved, took an obstructionist path to try and course correct on what he was originally told.
4. Activision fires him because of this.
5. Besides firing him, Activision also decides not to pay him money owed AND takes away his stocks, because fuck contracts, we're Activision and do whatever we want.

How much of an asshole O'Donnel was at #3 is anyone's guess, you could definitely make the argument it was enough to fire him, even though it's likely Activision only brought this on themselves.

Part #5 is where Activision is acting like the scum of the earth and needs to die, regardless of who was the asshole prior.
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He was probably superfluous to Activision's plans. They already have huge expensive music licensing deals and wouldn't necessarily need custom composed music all wound up in the promotion of the game they are publishing, especially if they needed to keep going back to O'Donnell for permission to use it over the 10 year life of the deal.

It sounds more like the decisions regarding his employment were made directly by Bungie, after all they are not owned by Activision.
 
tetris42 said:
I read it more like there was a fundamental communication breakdown between what he said he was going to do v. what Activision was expecting. I've seen managers completely flat out lie about what's currently happening, then only communicate what their actual plan was at the last minute and you get screwed.

My guess is it went down like this:
1. O'Donnel was promised something by someone Activision, he acted based on that understanding
2. Somewhere along the line, a higher up at Activision had his own idea of how this was going to go, running completely counter to what O'Donnel was previously told.
3. O'Donnel, feeling attacked by having his music cut and seeing goalposts moved, took an obstructionist path to try and course correct on what he was originally told.
4. Activision fires him because of this.
5. Besides firing him, Activision also decides not to pay him money owed AND takes away his stocks, because fuck contracts, we're Activision and do whatever we want.

How much of an asshole O'Donnel was at #3 is anyone's guess, you could definitely make the argument it was enough to fire him, even though it's likely Activision only brought this on themselves.

Part #5 is where Activision is acting like the scum of the earth and needs to die, regardless of who was the asshole prior.
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Activision had no part in 3 - 5. That is Bungie. Activision is only the publisher here, not the parent company.
 
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