Totally agree
I don't know whether or not he's telling the 100% truth, but I think that he's not unbiased.
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Ex-Bungie composer Marty ODonnell wins legal fight (document in the OP)
- Thread starter Steverulez
- Start date
Totally agree
I don't know whether or not he's telling the 100% truth, but I think that he's not unbiased.
Anyone claiming they changed the music because it wasn't good enough clearly hasn't listened to the music he actually wanted to use.
Way back before this happened there was a video on YouTube that had small chunks of each of the movements set to an animation of the planets, but either it was taken down or I can't find it. Only thing out there now is that crappy video games live recording.
It sorta made sense in the live action trailer, but it's incredibly misplaced in the new one. But it's typical of Activision marketing campaigns.
MakeMeFeelAlive
Member
I agree that he should be given everything that is contractually owed to him. However, reading over the story, he comes off as petty and disruptive. Yes, we dont want our stuff being overlooked and we want our own stuff promoted. But he's not bigger than the company and they signed on to this deal with activision. I dont think this is a good loom for any of the parties involved.
Compsiox
Banned
Every Official excerpt of Music of Spheres we have:
https://play.google.com/music/playl...4hJnNM2NLUSFGmTxSora8w-3sWkIe9_pg1wZvIjzfzQ==
https://play.google.com/music/playl...4hJnNM2NLUSFGmTxSora8w-3sWkIe9_pg1wZvIjzfzQ==
Balmung421
Member
Apparently the Destiny Soundtrack already has 40 minutes of the total 48 minutes that were recorded for Music of the Spheres.
On page 21:
Would love to hear the last 8 minutes!
On page 21:
Would love to hear the last 8 minutes!
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Sometimes it just doesn't work that way. A job is a job and people usually don't want to deal with having to search out something new and have to get themselves settled and comfortable all over again.
Bornstellar
Member
Every one of these makes me want more.
This isn't true, the amount on the soundtrack is very short.
Oh well? You make a deal with Activision that's what you get. obviously Activision had claim as they told Bungie his actions could be a breach of contract.
Really?
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Wow, I had no idea it got this bad. Brb reading through the court ruling.
There's more music in the game than in the soundtrack. The soundtrack does not include everything from the game. The court papers are saying when you combine the parts of Music of the Spheres from the game with the excerpts on the soundtrack, you'd get about 40 minutes of the full 48 minute suite.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
My bet is that the original story tanked in the focus groups.
You act like Activision didn't know what they were getting into, that being a company with a very prominent composer as a founder, when they signed the paperwork too.
So, reading through the VentureBeat article, I get the following impressions:
1.) Based on everything I've seen on Bungie, they have a work environment that encourages people to be incredibly proud of their own work and view their workplace as a cult-like entity whose integrity must be protected and worshipped. Given this, I'm not surprised Marty was very concerned about his work being shown and felt that Activision changing the trailer music was unacceptable. Bungie at least somewhat agreed seeing as they sent in a veto. Activision, having given Bungie a really sweet deal and spending a very large amount of money on the game, wanted to assert that they were in charge of marketing and denied Bungie's request to change it back. This is reasonable from their perspective.
2.) Marty self evidently wanted to either get his way or leave. Since he had what was likely a multimillion dollar incentive to get fired instead of leaving, he threw a major tantrum at E3. Activision obviously didn't care about his music, and Marty was okay with going out the door, so Bungie was the only one with something to lose here. This is where I feel they messed up. After E3, they should have either just fired him and gave him his money, or worked on some type of conciliation with Marty where they promised him an album release, future trailer music, concerts, or whatever. Telling him his behavior was unacceptable was fine (because it definitely was), but just leaving it at that instead of following up with one of the other options was incredibly dumb.
3.) At this point, Marty just wanted to go, but Bungie didn't want to fire him given he'd take a bunch of money with him. As such, he sat there being an obstructionist and not doing his work in an effort to get fired, and they let him do this for a year. Their original contract heavily incentivized this type of behavior, and their unwillingness to act caused them a ton of unnecessarily pain.
4.) When they finally fired Marty, it was clearly the correct choice. They should have given him his money though since he had a rock solid case against them, as this ruling shows. Instead, they got a year of expensive legal drama and bad PR, so they hurt their own reputation and spent even more money than they had to.
Now, everyone comes out of this looking worse for the wear, but Activision and Marty don't really have to worry about it since the former already has a terrible reputation and Marty is only ever interested in working with his four person studio at this point. Bungie on the other hand wants to hire 100s of more staff judging by their job page, and this reflects really poorly on their work environment/management (ir)responsibility.
1.) Based on everything I've seen on Bungie, they have a work environment that encourages people to be incredibly proud of their own work and view their workplace as a cult-like entity whose integrity must be protected and worshipped. Given this, I'm not surprised Marty was very concerned about his work being shown and felt that Activision changing the trailer music was unacceptable. Bungie at least somewhat agreed seeing as they sent in a veto. Activision, having given Bungie a really sweet deal and spending a very large amount of money on the game, wanted to assert that they were in charge of marketing and denied Bungie's request to change it back. This is reasonable from their perspective.
2.) Marty self evidently wanted to either get his way or leave. Since he had what was likely a multimillion dollar incentive to get fired instead of leaving, he threw a major tantrum at E3. Activision obviously didn't care about his music, and Marty was okay with going out the door, so Bungie was the only one with something to lose here. This is where I feel they messed up. After E3, they should have either just fired him and gave him his money, or worked on some type of conciliation with Marty where they promised him an album release, future trailer music, concerts, or whatever. Telling him his behavior was unacceptable was fine (because it definitely was), but just leaving it at that instead of following up with one of the other options was incredibly dumb.
3.) At this point, Marty just wanted to go, but Bungie didn't want to fire him given he'd take a bunch of money with him. As such, he sat there being an obstructionist and not doing his work in an effort to get fired, and they let him do this for a year. Their original contract heavily incentivized this type of behavior, and their unwillingness to act caused them a ton of unnecessarily pain.
4.) When they finally fired Marty, it was clearly the correct choice. They should have given him his money though since he had a rock solid case against them, as this ruling shows. Instead, they got a year of expensive legal drama and bad PR, so they hurt their own reputation and spent even more money than they had to.
Now, everyone comes out of this looking worse for the wear, but Activision and Marty don't really have to worry about it since the former already has a terrible reputation and Marty is only ever interested in working with his four person studio at this point. Bungie on the other hand wants to hire 100s of more staff judging by their job page, and this reflects really poorly on their work environment/management (ir)responsibility.
Are you speaking of this video by chance? Always loved this mysterious thing.
Twilight Gap
Member
I think this sums it up very well.
When you make a deal with someone you expect them to be professional. It's a trailer. Seriously. My response to him would be grow up and look at our contract if he got upset about me changing music in a trailer.
I wasn't debating wether or not it was professional. I was stating that Activision cannnot pretend they didn't anticipate this confrontation. If it was such a pain point for them, they shouldn't have signed the contract in the first place. It's not like Activision is hurting for money, and it's not like Bungie didn't have any other offers on the table.
Crimson Kopite
Banned
I thought you worked at 343, not bungie
Nice writeup.
FourSerioux
Member
Marty obviously has plenty of fan support, but based on the article it seems he certainly started his own demise.
Regardless of how Bungie/Activision went about terminating his employment, it seems obvious that Marty wasn't a fan of the Activision deal, and the trailer music issue set him off on a trail of poor behaviour. You can be upset and disagree with decisions made in a work environment, but bringing that into the public eye is certainly a poor move, and any employer would see that as a serious offence.
If he kept up with a resentful attitude at work and created a poor working environment for team members then that's just another knock.
I'm not saying Activision/Bungie was right, they clearly didn't go about terminating him in the right fashion, but the actual choice to terminate does not seem inappropriate if he was acting in the fashion that the article indicated.
The story definitely leaves a bad taste for both sides involved.
Regardless of how Bungie/Activision went about terminating his employment, it seems obvious that Marty wasn't a fan of the Activision deal, and the trailer music issue set him off on a trail of poor behaviour. You can be upset and disagree with decisions made in a work environment, but bringing that into the public eye is certainly a poor move, and any employer would see that as a serious offence.
If he kept up with a resentful attitude at work and created a poor working environment for team members then that's just another knock.
I'm not saying Activision/Bungie was right, they clearly didn't go about terminating him in the right fashion, but the actual choice to terminate does not seem inappropriate if he was acting in the fashion that the article indicated.
The story definitely leaves a bad taste for both sides involved.
GreatestHits
Member
Was he not the lead audio director? I understand the two often go hand-in-hand, but you do a lot more than just compose music with those responsibilities. In my experience you are right there with the lead designer, contributing and being responsible for the vision of the game, not just the music composition. IMO the industry really doesn't have too many places for a guy who just phones in music'. I wouldn't be too excited about a big game where the Lead Audio designer or whatever he's dubbed with isn't one of the most important people on the team. Are you trying to say he was one of those in these roles that never has once booted up FMOD or an equivalent? If so, I suppose I can begin to understand your perspective
GrandHarrier
Member
It still boggles my mind that Bungie left the Microsoft umbrella to become subservient to Activision of all companies and the result has been this rolling boulder of shit that just gets worse and worse over time.
Marty's music is amazing and iconic and I'm glad that he got his.
Marty's music is amazing and iconic and I'm glad that he got his.
My main take away from that is how much Marty was creating something entirely different from the Halo sound, and it's wonderful. I wish more of this was used in the game proper to give Destiny more of a unique identity.
charlequin
Banned
Read the full arbitration judgment. He did give out unauthorized copies, including one to his pastor. Not on any huge level or with malicious intent, but the judgment comes down squarely on Bungie's side on that particular point.
WrenchNinja
Member
Are the missions still defend Ghost? Does the story still suck? Does the writing? Is there still no matchmaking? Are there any real communication options at the tower?
Oh gee, I guess they can.
neogaffer1
Banned
Well I guess we know it wasn't replaced because it sucked.
tbf when you've created something and realized it's your life's work and the company your company is working for just takes it and shoves it over to the side and even your boss who empathizes with you can't do anything about it it's really obvious that's going to create major problems.
All of this was literally Activision's fault.
For a trailer. And life's work? It was 2 years at most. They didn't want to publish his soundtrack right away and that's ground to freak out?
neogaffer1
Banned
read the last sentence of 5. he considered it to be the high point of his career. if activision didn't want to release the soundtrack, and then ignored it for the trailer, it would show that they didn't care much for it period.
So much wrong with this post I'm not even sure where to start.
Have you not been paying attention to all the changes or are you just recycling complaints from day 1 further proving my point.
The drive bye shit posts are old.
Some people don't even know who Marty is and they're just like "yeah way to go! Fuck bungie"
Idk, at times it feels very immature here
Steverulez
Member
Activision likely gave them a lot of money for the game and are the publisher but what is the point of Marty being there is he's a Audio Director and his work isn't going to be used? His work is something he would (likely) have taken immense pride in and part of that is seeing it used on the big stage like E3.
He created what seemed like great work and that was what was to be used, he was a highly influential and important member of the studio, a "founder" of the new independent Bungie, I don't think many people would take it well if that happened, particularly as its probably the start of a slippery slope.
Bungie had multiple ways they could have dealt with it, they went independent so they finally had the control they wanted.
Im not much of an Activision fan, I'm not really interested in defending them per se but Bungie knew who they were getting involved with, they signed a deal and they are an independent studio with IP ownership. I have little sympathy for the path Bungie chose
Jaime mentioned that this seem to be a regular thing, perhaps Marty was being squeezed out for a long while for whatever reason and he knew it? That doesn't bring out the best in people
You keep saying that as if trailers aren't hugely important things.
A bit OT but in this video the traveller appears entirely duplicitous. As if its terraformation of the planets is what actually gave rise to the enemies you encounter on them.
Yep, it appears that at some point the story in Destiny was actually interesting. I'm guessing the departure of Staten signals when that all changed.
The fact that Bungie uses segments for their Twitch stream countdowns but refused to release the full thing is absolutely infuriating.
seriously, this is so fucking good, please just let me buy it!
entremet
Member
They're a for profit game developer, not a church or charity.
I wish they handled this situation better, but sometimes we gotta remember that we're just hired hands in the end.
I don't think anyone would argue against O'Donnell leaving or getting fired, but the way they tried to take away what he was owed by the company.
WrenchNinja
Member
Of course I have. None of that shit has changed with Destiny. What has changed is a voice actor, order of missions, and the leveling system. Whoop De fucking do.
Anyway, this thread is about Marty's case, not whether or not Destiny sucks.
He said it was a baseless assumption - which is correct.
Reading the brief, it's pretty clear Marty needed to be fired, given the state of the audio, the audio team, and his unwillingness to fully engage in catching up. Bungie clearly erred in withholding his shares and back vacation salary, but that is now remedied. Looks like the best outcome is what happened: Mary left, and he got his pay and stock (eventually).