Bungie confirms it stole art once again, will undertake a 'thorough review' of Marathon assets
Bungie confirms it stole art once again, will undertake a 'thorough review' of Marathon assets
if i had a nickel for every time bungie stole art i could afford to pay for that art
Which is not much but it's weird it has happened 5 times this last 3 years
TIL that Bungie is releasing a new game.
Although judging by this news and the first sentence on their Steam page being "...Bungie’s team-based extraction shooter.", maybe it's a good thing I can't play their games.
Im so tried of all these multiplayer games, make a goddamn single player campaign, fuck it add in splitscreen or the ability to play the campaign with friends if you have too
They just keep doing it. I haven't played any of their post-halo games and it seems like it's going to stay that way. Feels like controversy after controversy. Removing content from Destiny 2. Stealing art. Stealing art. Stealing art. Stealing art...
I really wanted to like Destiny 2, but then they started releasing expansion packs faster than I could feasibly buy or play them. Then I learned that most of those expansions had no content anymore anyway because they think removing content is a good idea, so I just gave up.
Sadly it seems like they really would have been better off as a Halo-Making Machine like Microsoft wanted them to be.
NGL, it seems really practical that it was intended to be placeholder concept art that someone forgot to go in and replace.
That said, this artist they took so much inspiration from definitely deserves a place in the game’s credits at this point. Whether they actually use his art in game or not.
Placeholder doesn't need to be anything more than basic featureless textures on cubes, and you should own them completely. If you made your placeholder to look like it fits, you're asking for it to be forgotten and left in place. Which might not be too bad if it's finally not too out of place and it's yours.
Especially in a professional studio, they should know better than using stuff they just "found" as placeholder. To me it's either terrible incompetence... or worse, they thought nobody would care anyway.
Didn’t they get caught doing this with destiny as well? It makes me wonder if it’s a studio culture thing. You’re 200% right in what they should be doing, but I still am inclined to think this is more likely an incompetence thing than malice.
This is incompetence.
I've been in and out of games for my entire career. Every place I've been has had strict policies on outside art assets. I've even seen every new art asset to require a monthly license review to prevent any chance of outside art having slipped in somehow, including any usage of Blender's example model Suzanne.
I will say, placeholder SHOULD be more than basic featureless textures on cubes so it can't make it to a playtest without knowing about it. You know, like this. Placeholder kittens are always distinct, in my book. Plus if something subtly gets through, players will think it's a hilarious easter egg
This is fourth time a confirmed plagiarism occurred at Bungie in recent years. There is also an ongoing lawsuit over accusation of Red War story theft. This isn't some lone rogue employee issue. It's a company culture issue originating from the top. I think Sony needs to step in and clean house to address the systemic problem.
Sony exec: I have a fever and the only antidote is more micro transactions
They’re doing it again! Bungie has fallen far, completely incompetent management.
Is it only the management though? You mean to tell me absolutely none of the artists knew about this, or that literally ONLY ONE "ex-employee" artist knew this was going on among the art team? Do Bungie only have one artist making art assets for textures across various objects, as well as assets they use on their website and in their trailers?
"Ex-employee" is a scapegoat, but I guarantee you there was more than one artist, entirely unrelated to management, that knew this was going on and will happily blame the scapegoat to absolve themselves of their involvement.
Is it far fetched to say their art team could be large, but also underpaid and ignored it so the work was done? Not right but sums up my work experience in an entirely unrelated and uncreative field.
Really just devil's advocate, im curious for any corporate artist opinion
It's such a damn shame, too. Destiny 2 was some of the most fun I've had in gaming over the last decade. Absolutely jaw-dropping environments at times, clever encounter designs, the gunplay, so many things to love. And I have no doubt Marathon will be a hell of a thing from what I've seen. These people can design a game.
But GODDAMN stop stealing art from people. Upper management has got to be atrocious with all the bullshit they've pulled over the years. And you know that bullshit starts at C-suite and rolls downhill.
Just a damn shame.
Nobody has been able to explain to me how this new game has fucking anything to do with Marathon.
They're just stripping copper from the walls.
Fucking spot on analogy
Does it even have Pfhor in it...?
This is just parading a corpse around. Glad I never got into Destiny.
I did. Luckily there were points where it was shit enough to be able to leave without looking back.
I beat The Black Heart, Atheon, Crota, Oryx, Siva, Xol, Ghaul, Calus, Riven, Nezerac, Savathun, and The Witness, plus AlakHul, Atraks, Sepiks, Taniks, the Forsaken Baron, a bunch of Vex Gatelords and Overminds... I rediscovered 3 Dark Subclasses plus a fourth Light one and then merged them, I became an Iron Lord, a Dregden and went to Osiris' Lighthouse in D1 and D2, healed the Traveller (twice), I witnessed my own funeral in the Corridors of Time, bringing back Saint 14, I saved and killed Rasputin and Prince/Crow, became Taken and beat Sword Logic, Vex Simulations, and Nightmares themselves: including the real world that's four entire realities I conquered and I communed with The Long Boi In The Soup. I saw the whole story through. Anything that happens now is of lesser concern, so I can leave.
For me the big mistake started with the Dreaming City: when the world first raid changed the game for other players- I wasn't the main character any more and canonically all the raids and boss fights after that were done by other players, and mine (canonically even!) just fantasized about it pretending I was there. Even in the very last fight against the Witness, canonically, I was just one of hundreds of thousands in a faceless army that defeated it together.
Its attached to the name because:
I remember when Bungie made cool stuff like Myth the fallen lords.
Halo too, Bungie is honestly just a totally different studio than it used to be.
And Oni!
And then they made Myth II, which they had to recall (that almost bankrupted their company) because trying to uninstall it could delete your system folder and brick your PC.
At least with Myth II, Bungie actually made the right call and did the right thing.
Like they did so the past few times which still led to this happening again?
Senator, I know Marathon. I served with Marathon. You are no Marathon.
And I served a tour with Pathways Into Darkness.
They need to go bankrupt, honestly.
Behaviour like this should end your company.
When you have money and power then get caught doing something, ask for forgiveness and create a awful situation to pay the artist less and throw in that small tiny hint of “no more money later, no royalties, we own everything and you get small check….byeeeeeee” (aka the middle finger)
If i do crime and get caught or admit it, I still have to face the law about it. Does bungie?
The art director followed Antireal on Twitter.
Stop the bullshit. They knew what they were doing
If not for this, I would've chalked this up to the designs being abstract enough that it'd be feasible for two separate artists to have come up with them independently. The fact that he was following the artist is a bit damning.
It's a shame, because he's a fantastic artist, himself, but this is definitely going to soil his reputation, and probably calls into question some of his earlier pieces, as well.
They copied the text and the name of a made up company. That's so blatant I can't believe nobody just asked "wait, is that on our lore or something?"
So abstract they contain the artist's personal logo.
I only see the first of the comparison images linked here. The line of identical symbols inside squares is pretty convincing.
The second image contains lines of text copied verbatim, and is undeniable.
https://bsky.app/profile/antire.al/post/3lpa4gamtzs2l
They copy-pasted text and personal logo.
If you think that's "abstract enough", I'm guessing you're either a plagiarist or an "AI artist". Or do you want to admit that you didn't really look at the comparison images?
Some of the stuff has the artist's logo still on it.