Martin O'Donnell Fired From Bungie, Sues, Wins Get $$$$$$

Update 2:

Halo music creator wins legal settlement for unpaid wages from Bungie’s chief

Marty O’Donnell, the well-known music composer for the sci-fi shooter series Halo, has settled a lawsuit against Bungie chief executive Harold Ryan.

King County Superior Court judge Jeffrey Ramsdell in Seattle has approved a deal in which Ryan will pay O’Donnell more than $95,000 to settle legal claims related to a lawsuit that O’Donnell filed in May.

Update:

• O’Donnell said in the filing that Bungie and Ryan gave no explanation for the firing. The suit notes that Bungie has a policy to pay employees accrued but unused vacation, paid time off, sabbatical time, and other benefits. Ryan and Bungie reportedly promised to pay.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/former-halo-music-composer-sues-bungie-for-failing-to-pay-for-unpaid-benefits/

Damn, hope he goes to 343 to work on Halo once again since Halo 4's OST did not even touch his work. But hey what ever he does hope he continues to compose.

BUNGIE RESPONSE.

For more than a decade, Marty O’Donnell filled our worlds with unforgettable sounds and soundtracks, and left an indelible mark on our fans. Today, as friends, we say goodbye. We know that wherever his journey takes him, he will always have a bright and hopeful future.

We wish him luck in all his future endeavors.

One of his masterpieces

Wow, that's unexpected. And to be that upfront about it. Sounds like a big mistake on Bungie's part.

It seems odd that they would fire him without cause. I suspect that there's something else at play here.

I'm not a huge fan of the game but that ODST soundtrack is soooooooooo good. I'm sure he'll have no trouble finding work son enough.

Dude, what? This seems crazy to me.

Wait what? He's been Bungie's lead music guy since Oni. I'm not saying they're obligated to keep him, but fuck, he's a really good artist! Why would you drop him?

Damn, that's depressing. Hopefully his work is still in Destiny and he'll still be credited, but still, that really sucks. He's been with them for so long.

All those soundtracks I listened to when I was 12! Why, god? WHY?!

No more "BLOW ME AWAAAAY!" or "Dun dun dun duuuuuun! Dun dun dun duuuuuun! Dun dun dun duuuuuuuun! Doo doo doo dun dun, da doo da da doooo!"

I don't think anyone would've seen that coming. I can't imagine what the hell happened.

Wow. Never saw that one coming.

He probably did something he shouldn't have. At least from his employers point of view.

Whaaaaaaaat. At least he'll get to make scores for other games I guess.

Bungie's loss then. Firing one of the best musical talents in the industry? They'll regret that down the line.

Well, that was unexpected. Hope the guy gets work quickly, as he's one of the best game composers out there.

That's whack. His music was the shit.

Honestly I don't know how he of all people there got fired. I know he was pretty political, maybe he said something somewhere that Bungie didn't like?

Wow what the hell

Maybe Paul McCartney gave him the finger guns of doom.

The whole "without cause" thing seems pretty suspicious. His wiki page here says he was working on Destiny, and it seems really strange to let him go before the game comes out.

Edit: I should read more, I thought it was weird he got let go on a Tuesday night but April 11th was a Friday.

Pretty sure the board told him to do something and he gave them shit about it. Or he boffed the wrong guy's wife.

Genuine unique assets are rare for a company. There is no one they can hire that would replace him, short term or long. Has to be some conflict.

I'm really interested to find out what's behind this. I've always felt that Marty's been one of the major trump cards that Bungie had in their pocket, and I can't imagine a series like Halo having had a similar impact without the amazing music.

Most of the music for Destiny is probably done by now, so I guess we will hear his tunes through that once more. And even though I don't want him to get bogged down with any one series or team, it would be great if he were to return to the Halo franchise. I can't imagine why he couldn't be a sort of "hired gun" of the industry, jumping from project to project.

Pretty specific to claim "without cause". I doubt he would say that publicly that unless he was 100% sure that was the case, since there is a pretty heavy implied accusation there.

must be something odd going on at Bungie. Money crunch maybe, obviously they felt had to get rid of him for some reason.

Of course like any of these situations it's impossible to know the real circumstances unless you're directly involved.

Well this was mindbogglingly stupid move by bungie. He's pretty much been there since the start and is a huge reason why Halo is such a celebrated franchise.

That's too bad.

I don't know the guy, however, so I would not take him at his word on the ethics of Bungie's decision. I would also not declare a boycott on Destiny or start a petition to make Bungie re-hire him, but I'm sure both of those are already brewing.

Without cause is just legalese.

If you are in an "at will" employment state your employer will typically specify you were fired without cause. They do this because they can, you don't need a stated reason to fire someone.

If they fire a person "with cause", then the person fired may find a way to challenge the cause for firing as invalid and thus win a financial settlement for improper termination. So they just fire "without cause" whenever possible.

It doesn't really mean anything except Bungie would rather minimize their chance of being sued than give an explanation to him or anyone else why they no longer want him.

Note that all layoffs (reductions in jobs to save money) are by definition "without cause" even though they seem to lay off the least useful employees preferentially. Any layoff is by law not due to anything the employee did, but due to the employer's situation.

He says "terminated me without cause", they say "as friends, say goodbye". Somethin funky goin on.

Well, that's the best thing about Bungie gone right there, the Halo music was always a massive part of those games and his absence for me was one of the reasons Halo 4 felt a bit flat for me.

I've no doubt that he'll be snapped up right away though, he's not only a brilliant talent, but a great name for another developer to sign.

tearing up a bit;(

I hope he doesn't just go to 343 and do more Halo. It would be cool to see him do music for something else.

You can do that under US employment law? Was he actually an employee or was he just a contractor who worked for them a bunch? Unless he was made redundant I don't see how you could terminate him without giving him an opportunity to respond, especially if it was for misconduct.

Sad day. Hopefully he will continue to make music for games, I'm sure he could get a job for another game company if he wanted to.

Take a hint Frankie, go hire that man!

At least now he might make music for games that are actually fun to play. I had enough of Halo after 3, but damn the multiplayer in 2 was a revolution at the time.

I don't know that you can be fired and "Today, as friends, we say goodbye."

His music is incredible. The ODST soundtrack was amazing.

@tru3_blu3: "Blow Me Away" is Breaking Benjamin. It's was just on the soundtrack.

Bungie was never that great, a one-trick pony with Halo. I hope he finds actual good games to work on.

That's too bad, the guy did some good work.

Then again, my favorite Halo soundtrack was Halo 2, which was mostly for the guitar shredding, but I digress, the man did good work, even beyond the guitar shredding (which wasn't him).

hahahah business people always think the creative monkeys or people who do the actual work are overpaid. Best thing he can do now is go work for direct competition and make the best soundtrack of any game ever. Then add "thanks for firing me Bungie" into the credits.

@tourgen: While I'm not disagreeing with you on him being able to go to work for direct competition, does anyone ever buy a AAA game just because of the soundtrack or the dude working on the soundtrack? I've bought indie games before if they come with a soundtrack by a guy I like, but those are cheap and usually come with the game and the soundtrack bundled.

If I wanted this guys music I'd just buy the OST as opposed to a full game. I don't see him being a major selling point for working on a game as opposed to a nice box to tick off that whatever game he works on will probably have pretty good music on it.

@trafalgarlaw

Yeah no, I'm not gonna believe an anonymous reddit post until I see empirical proof.

@tourgen: Borderlands would be competition for Destiny, no? Or whatever Borderworld game they're hopefully working on.That'd be a weird pairing.

Couldn't it be that they simply want to change their sound, musical scores and voice acting management after using that guy's work in over 10 years of Halo? They're moving on creatively, so I think it's plausible that they want to change up their sound into something new and fresh, using new musical minds.

This dude has made some of my favourite game soundtracks of all time. I'm sure he'll land okay.

Fuck man. I just found this out, I'm pretty saddened by this. This guy has had a huge effect on my childhood, and my life in general. I wonder if Microsoft will chomp him up for 343, or if he'd even want that?

That Bungie response seems... tonally different than his tweet.

Must just be me.

There are better ways to find new directions than to just flat out fire the guy that's been a key part of your games' audio for so long. This move is a PR mistake on Bungie's part unless they had a legitimately good reason to simply can him.

If it's about the money like that completely unsubstantiated reddit post claims, it's the best response they can give, because now if Marty decides to speak out about it any more he looks like the bad guy. You have to assume he stepped out of line at some point or he wouldn't have been fired but would have just left.

I believe work like this is "work for hire" and do not normally get royalties from the game itself but they may from selling the soundtrack itself. The "musician" works at the request of the producer isn't happy with the work or attitude it is their prerogative to fire them and hire someone else.

I never cared for the music in these games. If it turns out that O'Donnell felt like he needed more money, he should have made a better effort in producing and selling the soundtrack instead of whining about it to the producers.

ps. Why do people feel like he should go work at 343? I would rather see him get out and do something else...

I hope Destiny's soundtrack doesn't suffer as a result. I imagine those are one of the last things to be finished before a game's release.

I think that post has been deleted from reddit. They een doubt that bullshit.