Award cites ‘long-term, invaluable and unique contributions’

Over at VentureBeat, Dean Takahashi has written what is probably the best article to date on the resolution of the dispute between former Bungie composer and Audio Director Marty O’Donnell and the developer that fired him last year before the release of their latest game, Destiny. It goes into the background of how the dispute arose and resulted in O’Donnell being fired from his position as Audio Director, and how Bungie also took action to attempt to strip O’Donnell of his then-unvested shares in the developer, even going so far as to reissue shares at a secret board meeting.

What the article mostly leaves out, though, are the grounds on which the arbitrator made the award– those details are available in the full award document, available at Scribd.

There is a tendency to view the result as a complete victory and vindication for O’Donnell, and there is no doubt that the sequence of events reflects poorly on Bungie management, especially studio president Harold Ryan. However, it is worth looking at the award itself to see what O’Donnell asked for, what he actually got, and why.

What has also gone largely uncommented-upon since O’Donnell’s firing is that it presumably also means the end of the creative partnership between O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori, who remains at Bungie and is working on Destiny, while O’Donnell is moving on to found his own game company, Highwire Games, with other ex-Bungie employees. That partnership spanned multiple decades and predated both composers involvement with Bungie, with began with Myth in the mid-90s.

O’Donnell submitted several claims to arbitration, and Bungie submitted its own counter-claims. Most of these either failed, or succeeded without significant consequence.

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Narcogen and Blackstar must escape the underground volcano Pfhor base before it is engulfed by laval.

We’re fighting the Pfhor in Italy of the past in third party scenario Tempus Irae!

Tempus Irae can be played, like the other Marathon games, using the open source Aleph One engine which you can get here for Windows, Mac and Linux:

http://source.bungie.org

Tempus Irae and other third party scenarios for the Aleph One engine can be downloaded here:

http://source.bungie.org/scenarios.php#more

There’s a ZIP format archive here:

http://nardo.bungie.org/alephone.php

Direct link:

http://nardofiles.bungie.org/Tempus_Irae.zip

We use irons’ Co-Op script, (but not this time) which gives weapons and ammo to both players if either picks any up, and prevents weapon loss on death (so items can’t be destroyed in lava or slime). The script also allows one player to teleport to a destination set by themselves or their partner, in case co-op players run into a problem a solo player would have to restart for.

http://simplici7y.com/items/co-op

Tempus Irae has its own spoiler guide:

http://marathon.bungie.org/spoiler/tempus/

Subscribe to the Narcogen’s YouTube channel for Anger, Sadness and Envy video podcasts:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIof4Cp3-cam7bAFzDEwK_wzSSEya050i

Subscribe to the iTunes channel or RSS feed for shorts and audio podcasts:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anger-sadness-and-envy/id266991411?mt=2

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Music used in this episode:

“What About Bob?” by Alexander Seropian, remixed by Craig Hardgrove (intro music)
“New Pacific (Reprise)” by Alexander Seropian, remixed by Craig Hardgrove (outro music)