Halo and Destiny Developer Forced to Pay Former Destiny Composer $95,000

Bungie, Halo and Destiny’s developer, is stated to be forced to pay $95,019 / £56,000 to a former composer by the name of Marty O’Donnell. This is what an US court has decided after Bungie lost a court case with the composer.

It is said that O’Donnell sued Bungie after he has been kicked out from the company back in May, where he responded through a tweet that he had been “terminated… without a cause”. His work can be heard in the Halo series, early Bungie titles such as Myth and Myth 2, as well as in the most recent titles, namely Destiny.

The 14-years old Bungie veteran is said to have been paid-out a sum to “cover unpaid work, outstanding vacation time and a substantial amount of damages”, according to VentureBeat. Bungie is said to have stated that during his ‘departure’, he and the studio parted as ‘friends’, even though his departure raised a lot of questions since it was during the final six months of Destiny’s development stage.

“At Bungie we don’t take that kind of thing lightly,” chief operating officer Pete Parsons previously told Eurogamer. “We don’t make those decisions lightly. We’re a team that’s committed to making an amazing game set in an amazing universe. At this time we won’t be commenting any further on it.”

O’Donnell stated that he has filed the court order due to the fact that he has not received an explanation for his ‘early retirement’ from the company. The court appears to have decided in his favor due to Bungie’s employment rules on honoring unused vacation time, paid time off and other benefits.

Thank you Eurogamer for providing us with this information
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