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1486150cookie-checkMarty O’Donnell Offers His Take On Activision And Bungie Partnership
Industry News
2020/07

Marty O’Donnell Offers His Take On Activision And Bungie Partnership

A new report has surfaced that features Bungie co-founder and former executive Marty O’Donnell, which depicts the man offering his take on the partnership with Activision being “bad from the start.”

Activision is no stranger to controversy. Whether it be the company adding in microtransactions that raise an eye-brow to CEO Bobby Kotick pulling his usual salary trick to make more money, the company, at this point, is known to pull untrustworthy moves without question.

Adding on to that sentiment is O’Donnell, an individual best known for composing video game music and working with Bungie on games such as Oni, Myth, Halo, and Destiny.

Publication site gamesindustry.biz cites O’Donnell saying the following during an interview with YouTuber HiddenXperia when asked about the deal between Bungie and Activision:

“There were seven of us total I think… and made that deal with Activision. We knew it was a risk right from the get go, and it turned out to be exactly as bad as we thought it to be.”

O’Donnell continues and elaborates on the situation regarding Activision and Bungie and highlights:

“I am the only one who is gonna say that, except anyone who no longer works for Bungie, and anyone who no longer works for Bungie is gonna say, ‘yeah, it was bad from the start.'”

After offering his view on the deal with Activision, O’Donnell notes that the relationship between the publisher and developer was not a “marriage made in heaven,” implying that it was quite the opposite:

“That was not a marriage made in heaven at all.”

The publication site sourced the following excerpt from O’Donnell during the YouTube interview, which touches on the man in question talking about future IP control and events that unfolded after Bungie signed a multi-year publishing deal with Activision in 2010 — this is after Bungie parted ways with Microsoft and the Halo IP:

“I kept saying we need to be able to own and control the IP and Activision agreed to that, and all of the other big players during that period would not agree to do that, including Microsoft who was very close to making a serious [offer]. We almost went back to Microsoft, if you can believe it.”

The publication site notes that O’Donnell “was let go from Bungie without cause in 2014,” after claiming Activision was interfering with Destiny’s creative process.

Lastly, O’Donnell won a legal case in 2015 against Bungie after the company forced him to give up his shares and any future profit entitlement.

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