‘Halo,’ ‘Destiny’ composer Marty O’Donnell wins lawsuit against Bungie

O’Donnell worked with Sir Paul McCartney on music for Destiny, but Activision replaced the music for the game’s E3 2013 trailer. A court-appointed arbitrator has ruled that Bungie did indeed violate the contract with O’Donnell when he was fired “without cause” and forced him to forfeit his company stock and be removed from Bungie’s profit-sharing plan. Shortly thereafter, O’Donnell and Bungie were at odds. While O’Donnell wasn’t immediately terminated, his next performance review was not positive and after a perceived drop in work ethic from colleagues, Bungie dismissed the composer, igniting the ensuing year and a half long legal battle. While the team at Bungie filed a complaint to Activision, the publisher essentially overruled the complaint.

O’Donnell, who had composed a full symphonic suite of eight movements for Destiny dubbed The Music of the Spheres, was incensed that Activision were overstepping their bounds.

In 2010, three years after Bungie’s 2007 split from Microsoft, the developer entered into a ten-year development and marketing deal with Activision for its new first-person shooter franchise, eventually named Destiny.

O’Donnell believed the Bungie spirit was being compromised by the Activision agreement, and perhaps they were. O’Donnell rejected the agreement because of the deadline, however he agreed to keep working. O’Donnell is also entitled to recover 192,187.5 Bungie shares, the value of which is unknown (Bungie is not a publicly traded company), but is presumed to be high.

What might be more interesting about this week’s news, however, is that court papers shine a light on the events surrounding O’Donnell’s eventual termination, which came in April 2014. In other words, Bungie will have to let him hang on to his share of stock in the company.

And that’s what happens when art clashes with business.

Speaking to GamesBeat, O’Donnell kept it short and sweet, saying that he’s “happy (the legal ordeals are) over”, and that he’s “ready to move on”.