The legal battle between composer Marty O’Donnell and Bungie, the game studio that made Destiny and Halo, took a huge personal toll and tore friendships apart, according to O’Donnell’s attorney. The story is like a plot from a video game — and not a happy one.
Tom Buscaglia, the Game Attorney.
O’Donnell, an award-winning composer of the memorable music for both the Halo and Destiny series, won an 18-month legal fight on Friday when an arbitrator in Washington state ruled that Bungie broke its agreement with O’Donnell by firing him without cause in April 2014 and then stripped him of his founder’s stock. Bungie’s Halo games alone have sold more than 60 million copies, and Destiny, published by Activision, is also selling millions of copies.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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