Destiny composer Marty O’Donnell speaks candidly about Activision

After the release of Halo: Reach, developer Bungie parted ways with Microsoft who they had been working with exclusively for years. The company wanted to do new things, such an ambitious online game known as Destiny. Halo moved to 343 Industries and Bungie went on to partner with Activision who would publish Destiny.

For a number of reasons, this did not go well. Activision wanted Destiny to be split into multiple games while Bungie wanted it to be a growing game, so they didn’t worry about splitting the community between different entries. There are many other reasons but that was definitely a big one.

Activision and Bungie recently split, allowing the developer to go independent and do new things with Destiny. Destiny and Halo composer Marty O’Donnell shed some new light on Bungie’s time with Activision in a new interview with HiddenXperia.

O’Donnell was on the board of directors at Bungie when they partnered with Activision and admits he takes some blame.

“We knew it was a risk from the get-go and then, it turned out to be exactly as bad as we thought it was going to be,” said O’Donnell. He went on to note he’s the only one who would probably ever say that because it’s better optics for everyone involved to suggest the deal was sunshine and rainbows.

“The reason why we went with Activision, it was not just the money, but as part of the contract, they did not own the [Destiny] IP. Microsoft owns the Halo IP, we wanted to make sure whoever we worked with next would not own the IP, we would own the IP. That was a non-negotiable with me, I said we need to be able to own and control the IP. Activison agreed to that and all the other big players would not agree to that, including Microsoft. We almost went back to Microsoft, if you can believe it.”

O’Donnell went on to note that Activision would never have been able to have any control over the Destiny IP so long as everyone on the Bungie board of directors didn’t allow them to. That didn’t happen.

“My biggest disappoint was we worked for a decade to be in a position to make sure we could stand up to the publisher, saying we own the IP and you can’t mess with the IP. Eventually, I was overruled and let go.”

O’Donnell also told a story of how he noticed the first red flag with Activision at a dinner before signing the contract. Marty O’Donnell has a saying, “Be nice to the goose”. It means a goose produces golden eggs, be nice to the goose and it’ll give you more golden eggs. If you’re not nice, they won’t give you more. He explained this to one of the head folks from Activision.

“He goes, ‘Yeah, I like that story… but sometimes there’s nothing like a good foie gras [a food made of duck or goose].'” O’Donnell explained. “The red flag went off, I’m in the middle of sipping some wine, he says that and I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode. What I should’ve done is stood up, flipped the table, and told all the other Bungie guys we have to get away from here now!”

As noted, Bungie is now independent but Marty O’Donnell still seems disappointed and regretful of all the events that transpired to get there. O’Donnell no longer works with Bungie and has since moved on to an indie studio known as Highwire Games.