As reasoning for his dismissal, O’Donnell was accused of impeding the game’s progress as part of the audio team. The work, collectively called Music of the Spheres, was recorded in early 2013.
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Initially, Bungie fought beside O’Donnell on the case, but Activision won out. O’Donnell worked with Sir Paul McCartney on music for Destiny, but Activision replaced the music for the game’s E3 2013 trailer. O’Donnell claims to have been fighting to maintain Bungie’s internal culture. In the court papers, O’Donnell says he was trying to preserve Bungie’s spirit in the face of “Activision’s encroachment into artistic decisions”. But management saw his actions as disruptive and harmful.
Under the proposed agreement O’Donnell would continue working on Destiny until work was complete-no later than July 31 of 2014. O’Donnell rejected the agreement because of the deadline, however he agreed to keep working.
It was pretty much the end. The Bungie board of directors terminated O’Donnell’s employment without cause on April 11.
O’Donnell, who was a composer for the game developer, was reportedly fired without cause and made to give up his stock in the company and drop out of the company’s profit-sharing plan.
Perhaps more interestingly, the court order also shed light on the reported rupture between O’Donnell and Bungie.
O’Donnell has the right as well to recover over 192,187 shares of Bungie, which the value is not known as Bungie is not traded publicly, but it is presumed that value will be very high. What’s more interesting, though, is how the filing illustrates in depth about how O’Donnell had clashed with Bungie over stock ownership and creative control, despite being one of the company’s co-founders.
And that’s what happens when art clashes with business.
Marty O’Donnell, fresh from launching his own game studio, is ready to put the whole affair behind him.
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O’Donnell said that he was happy it was finally over and just wanted to move on.
