Man is responsible for some of the better game music of the last decade. I think it would be really funny if Microsoft and 343 hired him as a composer on whatever Halo 5 ends up being. Just sayin'.

@flippyandnod: washington isn't an at will state though iirc. Usually it's more republican states and Washington being one wouldn't make a bunch of sense.

@animasta: Washington is an at-will state.

This is just wild speculation, but could 360i Studios/Microsoft pressed legal action after hearing the music of destiny come legally too close to Halo? Again, I assume Marty is a smart man capable of a wild range of music to prevent this scenario from happening, but this just sounds like the classic case of a creative dispute.

This is a shame. O'Donnell's music was arguably the best part of the last several Halo games. I'm fairly certain he'll do fine elsewhere. I'm not sure Bungie can say the same.

I just checked and you're right, but they aren't the worst state about that because apparently there are tiers or whatever.

I could barely understand it because fuck legalese though

A termination without cause means the employee is being terminated for reasons that are not related to any misconduct. That it, he may not be needed, they might have wanted to use someone else, they might wanted to do anything else. All this means is they did not fire him for a criminal act, act of negligence, or act contrary to workplace rules he might have committed at the workplace.

It sounds all very ominous to say, 'termination without cause!' But, the reality is boring bureaucracy. I hope he lands on his feet for whatever that is worth.

@animasta: What it comes down to is that Bungie was well within their rights to fire him, even it that reason is "just 'cause."

I honestly don't care about him (I'm sure he'll find work because people seem to like that halo music) I was mostly just clarifying for my own benefit.

The following is not about Martin O'Donnell, what I will say below is about adults who work with others and medium to high level positions.

Some people who are decent people for the most part, and competent at their jobs, yet be real pissers (hard to work with) in a collaborative setting.

In an interview recently (engadget), Shuhei Yoshida recalled the discussion that preceded his recruitment to the fledgling Sony Computer Entertainment division. During dinner, Kutaragi turned to Yoshida and said that he knew that he didn’t like him, but believed that he would join the team because he'd get to do exciting work as a result. Yoshida decided to be honest and level in response, simply responding 'that was correct'. Later in this same interview, Yoshida explained that working with Kutaragi was difficult because he was prone to making unexpected changes all of the time. The interview is interesting and worth a read.

Ten years ago everyone outside of SCE loved Ken, he seemed smart, competent and the best sort of leader for PlayStation. For gamers that made him cool and a great executive. But, that was not the whole story, and you have to imagine some of what went wrong with PS3 were Ken's rather difficult leadership.

That is what I always wonder about when someone leaves a company, shuts down a company, leaves the industry is who were they really? Was this person more or less like their perception that is widely held? Were there angels or demons hidden in their office cubical?

damn they going to court.

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

Hell yea!

Man that ODST soundtrack was amazing, never cared much for the Halo soundtracks after Halo: Combat Evolved but that ODST soundtrack was something special.

I think ODST was the last Halo game I really enjoyed to. Would love to see him do something new and different than Halo though.

Yowza, this is where it gets good.

Oh dear. Well, this is getting exciting, isn't it?

Marty is/was one of the fundamental pieces of Bungie and now he's suing them. Holy shit.

Bungie done fucked up with this one it sounds like.

oh shitt

someone get scoops on the case!

Giant Bomb should hire him.

!!!

From my anonymous source, this is what I know. Take it with a grain of salt, since I wasn't there. In fact I could be making all of this up:

Bungie and Activision had a very complicated contract that specified certain deliverables by certain dates, in relation to the Destiny project. Bungie missed one of these milestones on Destiny, in which the contract spells out that Activision's marketing department gets more control over how they market Destiny (versus Bungie's own marketing department).

So, for one of the big presentations for Destiny that made the rounds, not sure if it was the reveal presentation or the E3 after, Activision cut a trailer that didn't use Martin's music. Apparently, this made him really upset and he started causing a ruckus at Bungie. I don't recall seeing it, but this ruckus allegedly including complaining about it/trash-talking on twitter. This upset Activision, who made a phonecall to Bungie's CEO. So the CEO in turn gave Martin a stern warning. Things escalated from there, and now here we are.

And here we go.

This situation just got a whole lot more serious. I hope they can settle it out of court.

If the situation is anything remotely resembling this, ouch. It makes O'Donnnell come off as a gross primadonna. It's hard to imagine him flipping his shit that much over not having his music in a trailer of all things, but I suppose crazier things have happened.

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.

getting paid...

And there it went.

Fucking hell, what?

That's a bummer that it had to come to suing. Considering all the fond memories I have of playing the Halo games and listening to those soundtracks this is like watching my parents fight.

Source

I wonder if he'll follow former Bungie dudes, Frank O'Connor and Joesph Staten to Microsoft.

95,000 doesnt seem all too much considering the circumstances

It's almost triple what they owed him and could have been easily avoided if Harold Ryan had paid him instead of being an asshole. No matter what the cirmcumstances, I'm glad O'Donnell got paid. I hate when employers try to pull this shit.

Interesting revelations in this article about Destiny and why he was fired.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/04/ex-bungie-composer-marty-odonnell-wins-epic-legal-fight-with-former-bosses/

O’Donnell reacted angrily and believed Activision had overstepped its proper role by assuming artistic control of the trailer music. He also threatened Bungie employees in an attempt to keep the trailer from being posted online, and interrupted press briefings.

The court filings say that O’Donnell believed he was preserving Bungie’s “creative process, artistic integrity, and reputation, keeping faith with fans, and protecting Bungie and its intellectual property from Activision’s encroachment into artistic decisions.” According to O’Donnell’s view, the “Band of Brothers” ethos that had inspired the group’s earlier work was being damaged by the Activision relationship.

Ryan and other Bungie management felt that his conduct “hurt the Bungie team, hurt the game, drove a negative online discussion, and violated Ryan’s instructions.” They also believed that O’Donnell was elevating his interest in publishing Music of the Spheres over the best interests of the company. Activision advised Bungie that O’Donnell’s conduct may constitute a breach of the parties’ contract.

Ryan recommended that O’Donnell be fired. He wasn’t fired, but his conduct was considered “unacceptable” in his performance review. O’Donnell objected to the review, as he noted that Bungie presented no evidence of permanent damage to the Bungie-Activision relationships, the audio team, or ultimate game sales.

While Destiny was planned for a September 2013 release, the story was substantially revised in August 2013. That pushed the release date back to March 2014. O’Donnell returned to work after a vacation, but the audio team and his supervisor did not consider him to be fully engaged in his work. The release date of the game, meanwhile, pushed back to September 2014. Bungie set in motion a process to terminate O’Donnell.

Meanwhile, O’Donnell argued that the audio work could not be completed until the game was in a bug-free, playable state. He felt the treatment was unfair but said he would continue to work. Members of the team complained that O’Donnell wasn’t contributing as expected, and his presence was frustrating the completion of the audio work. Ryan proposed to the Bungie board that O’Donnell be terminated.

It's crazy to me that this guy can act like that, over the course of more than a year and have multiple co-workers say they can't work with him and the court still finds that he was fired without cause.

It's complete bullshit what they tried to do with him and his stock in the company; but the guy sounds like he was losing it and I don't see how that is anyone's fault but his own and now all of his co-workers are paying for it.

Seems like a bit of he-said-she-said going on with respect to his job performance and that sort of stuff, but I'm glad that he got the stock and back-pay that he was due. Sounds like probably the best that could have been hoped for.

You know what? I think he and Bungie are better off without each other. It crappy that Bungie's lawyers fought so hard to take away his stock, but in the end that was their job to protect their client. I can imagine having O'Donnell in the boardroom because he owned 20% of the company stock WOULD have been a nightmare...but that was the reality they should have dealt with it better.

Business is brutal especially when it comes to lots of money and power. If one guy is out of step with where everyone else is going it IS tough and when that guy owns 20% of the company and is dragging like an anchor...well you get what happend. Don't think I'm siding with Bungie...Frankly, as a company I don't really like them and some of their employees give me the willies. Their games are not "fun" for me, and I tried Halo 2, 3, etc and Destiny too. I see no winners or losers, black hats and white, or right or wrong; because I view "all of it" as "This is a company that makes games I really don't seem to enjoy."

Sad he didn't join 343, but a) maybe something prevented it legally and b) maybe he's tired of making music for future space FPS games.

Sounds like he was the only trying to preserve bungie's independence, to bad it didn't work and they are now nothing but another money hungry segment of Activision with disgusting business practices. None of that seems like cause for termination though, it all says he did his job it doesn't matter if he was enthused or not.

@kidavenger: Well the stock issue had more to do with if he helped found the company or not. If he had, which they found he did, he was entitled to his stock.

Also they found his actions weren't harmful to Bunige's relationship with Activision nor did they think O'Donnell hurt Destiny's sales.

You have to also realize Marty had been with Bungie a long, long time. If he suddenly feels Activision has too much creative control over Bungie it probably isn't a random inkling. Also those who are saying O'Donnell wasn't doing his job were those sent by Bungie to give testimony on their behalf. I doubt they'd send someone who staunchly had O'Donnell's side in this matter.

Good for him. Not a big fan of his work overall but the way he got fired was bullshit, glad he got paid.

@finaldasa: I agree with you, I mean holy shit the original halo was anounced as a RTS for the mac. Bungie has been around for a while and since Activision partnered with them they have changed. I don't see them calling the company Activision-Blizzard-Bungie so I would assume that Activision is taking the publisher role more than the partner role.

I would say that both parties have legitimate grievances here. It help's O'Donnell's case that Destiny was creatively bankrupt, but it sounds like he was putting his career on the line - they simply should have parted ways on more amicable terms given their history and the lawsuit would probably have been avoided. That game's music sucked though, so I'm not sure that he was part of the solution either.

This is a common scenario in the industry.

1- Big publisher making a deal with a successful developers' company.

2- Some developers leave as soon as the deal is made.

3- Other developers fight against the big publisher's control then they get kicked out.

4- As of fear of getting fired and/or the hostile environment some developers leave the company.

5- The developers' company is no longer successful.

Must not have been in a right-to-work state.

"O’Donnell reacted angrily and believed Activision had overstepped its proper role by assuming artistic control of the trailer music. He also threatened Bungie employees in an attempt to keep the trailer from being posted online, and interrupted press briefings."

Sounds like my source from over a year ago was accurate.