Halo & Destiny Composer Says He was Fired by Bungie "Without Cause"

[PMAvers]

Something worth mentioning is that he worked on Bungie games prior to Halo, too. He was working on them all the way back to the Myth days.

And he had also worked on the Riven soundtrack as well.

 

[Orks da best]

Um? I hope there is a good reason for him being fired?

Considering the halo ost is well know among gamers for being epic due to him.

Though he can know be hired by 343 now, and work on halo 5, so not all bad.

 

[Ishal]

What madness is this? I bet even my grandmother would recognize the first tunes of the Halo soundtrack at this point. Hopefully we get some sort of explanation, as ludicrous as it may be.

I'm always skeptical of these "for no reasons" claims, because half the time it turns out the people involved were doing something heinous.

Could be, but as far as the public knows he's a pretty mild mannered guy. He's a conservative and tweets his views sometimes. I don't see him doing anything "heinous," but then, one can never know for sure.

 

[KazeAizen]

The sad part of this is I could never gave to shits about Halo back in its hey day. Didn't have an Xbox and no one bothered to explain the story because it was "too complicated" ***** please I play Kingdom Hearts. Can't be more complicated then that. Anyway where was I? Oh yeah. Yet the one thing I did enjoy about Halo was the music. One Final Effort is still one of the best pieces of epic video game music written. Such a shame what happened to this guy. Who knows. Perhaps he'll work on another franchise more worthy of such awesome musical talents.

 

[Hdawger]

This makes me sick. Marty is one of the best video game composers out there, if not the best, and this is how they treat him?! One of their greatest and nicest employees that has been with them for 15 years gets the shaft for no reason?! This is a sad day.

 

[thebigT125]

There's got to be a lot more to this story. I expect more details will surface in the coming weeks, and we'll see this article with a big "UPDATE" tag on it soon.

 

[Bat Vader]

If Bioware was smart they would hire him to produce the score for Mass Effect 4. Hopefully they hire him.

Yes, I think that would be a great idea, but only as a co-composer, because I really wish that they'd hire back Jack Wall. I mean the OST of Mass Effect 2 was astounding and went really good with the style of the game itself.

Jack Wall was great. I loved how the first Mass Effect seemed to have a liquid sounding soundtrack. Like the music flowed as if it was a liquid. My favorite track from ME2 was the Agent Combat theme in Lair of The Shadowbroker.

 

[Something Amyss]

He's a conservative and tweets his views sometimes.

I'm missing what precisely that changes. It's not like conservatives are less scandal prone, or less likely to commit crimes, or do bad things.

 

[Something Amyss]

I saw that they put up a note about this, including the line "We wish him luck in all his future endeavors." Did Bungie get bought out by WWE? Is it just their normal spring cleaning?

 

[Jadak]

Isn't without cause a good thing?

I mean, a cause would be something people could point to specifically identifying why you're shit, while no cause just says 'no longer desire your services', which is pretty generic, but not a black mark that makes you sound horrible.

 

[DrOswald]

Whenever I see an employee claim they were fired without cause I really wonder about it. They obviously had a reason, he just didn't like it. It was probably that he wanted more money than they were willing to give him. He knows if they have to say that gamers will throw a hissy fit.

 

[Ishal]

He's a conservative and tweets his views sometimes.

I'm missing what precisely that changes. It's not like conservatives are less scandal prone, or less likely to commit crimes, or do bad things.

It's the only thing I know about him that might spark controversy, and even then it's a stretch. I have no idea what happened.

 

[Compatriot Block]

I honestly believe that Bungie wouldn't have done this unless they had absolutely no other choice. They know how big of a deal this guy is, and I don't believe for a second that they'd throw it away without justification.

Even from an "evil corporation", it doesn't make sense from a business perspective. They know how popular and successful his soundtracks are, and losing him means losing value. Something else is up here.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I... Uh... What?

Right, so this could be either one of two things. Either Bungie found Marty doing something very, very bad and promptly terminated his employemnt, or there was a misunderstanding that he was doing something very, very bad and terminated his employment.

It could also be a massive case of office drama but I would think Bungie would be better than that.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

He and Paul McCartney were working together on Destiny, right? I wouldn't be surprised if they had a disagreement, and McCartney had more force to put behind him what with being one of the biggest names in music history.

P.S. Thanks

Is this true? As i would put my money on McCartney being twattish enough to do that, these days.

Bah! I guess some one else will benefit from his talents then. Their loss.

 

[MrDumpkins]

I hope the best for Marty, he wrote my favorite piece of music and I'm sure that Halo would not be what it is today without his talents. I would love for 343 to pick him up because Halo 4 had a good composer but he didn't what makes Halo Halo. Though he said he didn't want to work on another Halo game and was excited for his destiny work, so it wouldn't surprise me if he moved to another developer or out of the field. Either way I look forward to what he does in the future

 

[Sarge034]

Wow... that completely blows. I can understand the "without cause" part though. It is much safer to fire someone "without cause" than it is to give a cause unless you, as the employer, have indisputable proof of wrongdoing. It's a business law thing.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

I've read my share of employee contracts and I can tell you that they're often written to be a two-way street - You're allowed to quit the job without reason, but at the expense that you can also be fired for no reason. Perhaps that was the same with his contract, and as a result we may never find out.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

My guess: His work with Destiny was done and the next project is so far away that they can't justify him as a full time staff member. So termination without cause (which is a good thing in terms of severance) would be a logical choice.

If he's smart, he'll go into contract work, meaning he won't be tied to a company any longer and will be able to work with multiple projects from different producers, possibly in other mediums as well (Gaming's John Williams up against John Williams? That's an Oscar night fight I would love to see). I loved his work on the Halo series, but a part of me is curious as to how he would approach other kinds of games with different thematic elements.

 

[MPerce]

Whelp....something definitely happened. You don't just fire one of the greatest and most recognizable composers in video games for no reason. Hopefully the full story emerges soon.

I would wish the man good luck in his future endeavors, but he doesn't need it. He's gonna kick ass no matter what he works on.