Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: activision, Bungie, Destiny, entertainment, games, halo, marty o'donnell, video games

Destiny And Halo Composer Wins Lawsuit Against Former Employer Bungie

Last year, composer Marty O'Donnell was unceremoniously dumped by Bungie, who he had become synonymous with. In response, O'Donnell filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination.

Well, the ruling on that has now concluded, with the courts falling in favour of the composer, awarding him $142,500 and allowing him to retain stock in the developer.. 

Thanks to a very good write up by VentureBeat, we now know the reason for this divorce too. The trouble started when Activision wouldn't allow the soundtrack to be sold separately, like the Halo ones had, which started a rift between the composer and publisher.

This disagreement then spilt over the boiling point when Activision re-edited the Destiny debut E3 2013 trailer, and had their own music composed for the ad taking out O'Donnel's work. O'Donnell thought this was the company overstepping creative bounds and then went on to be a disruptive force in press briefings and the like, causing Activision and Bungie to part ways with him.

This is a really sad story too, because I think Destiny's soundtrack is the very peak of O'Donnell's work, and that back catalogue contains Halo. Since then though, he has started a new developer called Highwire Games, so hopefully, we hear more from him before too long.

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