• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Marty O'Donnell Fired By Bungie

HildyB

Member
Possible they didn't want it to sound like Halo. Which it did... at least to me, all the scores just kind of remind me of Halo but that might be a combination of things and my mind reaching for it.

But he should have zero problem getting snatched up by another studio. He is a talent many would love to work with.
 

caleb1915

Member
Perhaps he's a hothead and didn't think this through? If he did speak to a lawyer first he sure didn't listem when that lawyer told him not to speak publicly regarding the termination.

More specifically is the idea that airing your personal grievances on twitter is ever the right thing to do. It's -always- a social manipulation tool. He also used a negative phrasing to engender more sympathy. Neutral pov would be "Bungie board let me go today without really explaining why. Confused and frustrated after my years of service". You see the enormous difference in tone. His tweet is combative, a direct challenge, and uses specific legal terminology. It's unprofessional to try to make an amateur legal challenge on twitter to your former employer. And it -does- say a lot about someone's personality to do something like that.

If he's such a hothead why did he wait 4 days to send a tweet saying he's sad about what happened?

What's so offensive and manipulative about saying "terminated without cause", he's not claiming he was wrongfully fired. Maybe he didn't want to say fired, or just terminated. Youre claiming he's socially manipulating people, I don't think he purposefully sent a tweet that is part of a social interaction that lets people know what other people are doing to be posted on message boards, and news sites just so he can theoretically get revenge on Bungie.
 

sangreal

Member
You guys seriously believe that "I got fired for no reason!" tweet huh

he didn't say he was fired for no reason, he said he was terminated without cause which means he was not fired for misconduct (termination for cause). Another way of putting it is that he was fired for a non-specified reason. Everyone is obviously fired for some reason, but if you're an at-will employee or contractor, the employer does not have to provide the reason unless they want to fight unemployment benefits or some contract stipulation.

Even if he were guilty of misconduct, they could still terminate him without cause. It's a legal distinction that affects unemployment, severance, etc. where "without cause" is the more desirable outcome for the employee.
 
Nope, again you come across as some sort of zealot dealing on absolutes based solely on conjecture and very little information.

So Bungie firing Marty shows they don't care about the quality of their product and they don't care about their fans?


Are you ok? Because those statements don't sound rational or normal, in fact it pure nonsense.

How is that nonsense? O'Donnel has been the composer for games by Bungie since Halo 1, and is one of the most well known composers. Every Halo game except for the original has been nominated for best score in VGX awards. Halo ODST actually won. So, yes, the firing of Marty O'Donnel is a surprise, because he's the bridge between every game. He's the nostalgia connector between pre-343 Halo and Destiny. He is an integral part of Bungie, when I think of Bungie employees, I think Jason Jones, Pete Parsons, and Marty O'Donnel.

Do I feel like Bungie did it as some sort of fan vendetta? No, of course not. But I can completely understand the outrage from fans of the series.

EDIT: It's especially bad for them to fire him, since they will probably use the majority of his work for the game. Unless I'm mistaken, right about now in the dev cycle is when he would have finished his work (judging from early releases of soundtracks for Halo 2 and 3).
 

Jburton

Banned
How is that nonsense? O'Donnel has been the composer for games by Bungie since Halo 1, and is one of the most well known composers. Every Halo game except for the original has been nominated for best score in VGX awards. Halo ODST actually won. So, yes, the firing of Marty O'Donnel is a surprise, because he's the bridge between every game. He's the nostalgia connector between pre-343 Halo and Destiny. He is an integral part of Bungie, when I think of Bungie employees, I think Jason Jones, Pete Parsons, and Marty O'Donnel.

Do I feel like Bungie did it as some sort of fan vendetta? No, of course not. But I can completely understand the outrage from fans of the series.


It's complete nonsense that Valnen says it was done (sacking Marty) because they don't care about the quality of their product and they don't care about their fans.

Which is total nonsense for anyone to fire someone, to fuck up their own product and to piss off their fans.

Did you read what he said before piling on me, supporting that nonsense.


Best of all, Destiny will be scored and sound designed by one Marty O'Donnell.
 

erragal

Member
If he's such a hothead why did he wait 4 days to send a tweet saying he's sad about what happened?

What's so offensive and manipulative about saying "terminated without cause", he's not claiming he was wrongfully fired. Maybe he didn't want to say fired, or just terminated. Youre claiming he's socially manipulating people, I don't think he purposefully sent a tweet that is part of a social interaction that lets people know what other people are doing to be posted on message boards, and news sites just so he can theoretically get revenge on Bungie.


Everything that every human does in communication is on some level a manipulation. The way you construct your language determines how people perceive you...the manipulation is others perception of you.

Once you begin to think like that then you'll
stop assuming people have no motives. It may not be premeditated, calculated revenge ...the punishment I referred to could easily be an impulsive feeling believing he's been wronged and a motivating force to show how wrong they are.

He could easily have assumed no one would challenge him. And people can be hotheads at any time...maybe he had a drink and made a mistake.

What is not mistaken is that his word choice, platforn choice, and conposition/style were adversarial in tone. He made a conscious decision to challenge Bungie. I gave a perfect example of a less aggressive way to convey -more- clarity without revealing anything.

I'm not one to assume a 20 year software dev is too dumb to understand the consequences of word choice. So the next observstions become: impulsivity, feeling wronged, desire to punish thevparty that wronged you.

He cannot punish legally in an at will state. But surely he can mess with Bungies rep avlittle by putting them in a situation with no way to resolve....and then refusing to cooperate.

Your point of view operates around him being...innocent? Non manipulative? Human nature informs us that all humans are inherently manipulators of our environment and others. It's just rarelt conscious control, hence why people fuck everything up in their personal relationships.
 
wanted-keyboard-smack-o.gif

holy shit, chris pratt!
 

DesertFox

Member
parents-waving.gif


Marty, who defined the soundtrack of Halo for a decade is just... gone?

This is unbelievably terrible news. I hope that the future Destiny scores aren't affected by this. He seems to bring something intangible to the games he works on. He will be sorely missed.
 
Don't get me wrong- I'm sad to see Marty go, but seeing people digging in and picking sides the way they are with zero information to back up their position is kind of pathetic.
 

Guy.brush

Member
In the movie industry, firing the composer is always the "easy pill to swallow" when test screenings don't bring satisfying audience reactions. It's an easy change to make when all the shots are in the can, the edit & vfx is already done and dusted.
Normally the suits then bring in someone who can do the usual orchestral bombast to distract the audience from the fact that they have a stinker in front of them :)
 

Gorillaz

Member
he didn't say he was fired for no reason, he said he was terminated without cause which means he was not fired for misconduct (termination for cause). Another way of putting it is that he was fired for a non-specified reason. Everyone is obviously fired for some reason, but if you're an at-will employee or contractor, the employer does not have to provide the reason unless they want to fight unemployment benefits or some contract stipulation.

Even if he were guilty of misconduct, they could still terminate him without cause. It's a legal distinction that affects unemployment, severance, etc. where "without cause" is the more desirable outcome for the employee.

I know the legal term for it, but I meant people who automatically assumed he was fired for no reason what so ever.
 
T

Transhuman

Unconfirmed Member
Possible they didn't want it to sound like Halo. Which it did... at least to me, all the scores just kind of remind me of Halo but that might be a combination of things and my mind reaching for it.

The game has been in development for at least 5 years, I doubt they fired him because they want to rework the entire audio in 16 weeks.
 
This thread is moving fast... did you guys see this?

Quote from supposed "Bungie_employee" on Reddit

"Okay. So I can't give out too much detail here, but I will let you know what I know. Marty was a contracted employee, he didn't just get a fee for each game he produced. Marty had received a significant raise in the last few years, but was now asking for another. This created tension between him and the board (some of whom already felt he was overpaid). A verbal argument ensued recently between Marty and a member of the board. Shortly there after he was let go. So there was certainly 'cause' but one that a lot of us felt could be worked through. But money talks. The board feels they can get someone for cheaper, and without the drama, that will have a better ROI.

So basically it seems that tensions rose to a breaking point, one the board felt they couldn't work past, or didn't want to deal with, so they let Marty go. I'm not saying it was right (I don't think it was), but that is the situation."
 
Don't get me wrong- I'm sad to see Marty go, but seeing people digging in and picking sides the way they are with zero information to back up their position is kind of pathetic.
The best posts are those that open with, or at least contain words to the effect of 'I/we don't know all the information, but fuck you Bungie board'.

I think situations like this just play into our cynical nature :p
 

Mooreberg

Member
Okay I'm getting a little sick of criticism of a company being compared to the straight up libel that mort engaged in. Those critical of bungie are not doing the same thing and the difference should be obvious.

The concern around Destiny and Bungie has been something that i have seen a lot of talk about but its been something i've been thinking about since the first reveal (and I can see others agree with me at least in part). They got a huge deal from Activision (good for them) and they are trying to make a game with complete artistic freedom. These are all good things.

My concern draws from two places. First of all as a long time halo fan I should be very excited for this game. It seems to look like halo in many ways, play like halo, etc. But so far it has left me cold. Like others have said we haven't even seen multiplayer and we are getting pretty close to launch. I won't go into all the reasons because they are only my opinion...but i haven't heard the excitement around this game like there was for titanfall or even something like infamous second son.

Secondly this studio has so much money behind destiny it cannot afford to fail (edited to make more sense). They have taken an untested product and have made a game that will probably be one of the most expensive ever made with a huge team. This frightens me because unless this game has great press and sells insanely good it could hurt bungie for years to come. And that isn't good.

When you add on top this kind of firings of some of the people who to many games are Bungie it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. And all this worries me...

I think the game is going to pretty damn good. I am more concerned with what Activision's influence could be like post release. Some of the COD additions lately seem like a poorly timed April Fools joke. I would hope biannual releases and retail grade expansions inbetween would be enough, but who knows. At least in this case Bungie is still independent and should have more creative control over the products.

As for the present circumstance, it would be good for them to clarify what happened. Too much speculation can be damaging, as we have observed.
 

Guy.brush

Member
The game has been in development for at least 5 years, I doubt they fired him because they want to rework the entire audio in 16 weeks.

The replacement score for TROY by composer James Horner who came in for the fired Gabriel Yared was written in about four weeks. So 16 weeks would be plenty of time.
 

a916

Member
And with that my hype for Destiny falls by 50%

The game is months away from release, he's probably already done a ton of work for that game already.

With a September release, the game is done at the start of August. Content is probably locked in on or before June... so I think we're good here.
 

Xpliskin

Member
Here's the real story (my guess):

FAMOUS COMPOSER -> BIG BUDGET -> Activision won't fund/Not enough money -> find cheaper composer
 

Vire

Member
They fired our favorite composer without our consent? Without cause?

This is incredibly silly, what do you think Bungie is going to make a post saying: Hey internet and Bungie fans, do you think we should fire Marty O' Donnell?

No? Okay.
 
Not good enough, as shown by the comments under that.


They won't be getting any more of it for future games though, which leaves them in a rather bad position.

Do you feel that every game that was not scored and engineered by Marty has bad music that makes the experience suffer? Because that's what you're implying when you make statements like this and that's why people feel you're being disproportionally passionate about the situation.

Maybe whoever Bungie hires next will be just as good. Maybe they're not as good but still better than most. Maybe they'll be forgettable. However seeing as how we have absolutely no clue who that next person could be, it's pretty silly to speculate that Bungie is in a bad position as if it's a forgone conclusion.
 
Top Bottom