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Bungie Longtime Composer Michael Salvatori Is Laid Off (www.kakuchopurei.com)

submitted 10 months ago by Goronmon@kbin.social to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] Ace0fBlades@lemmy.world 76 points 10 months ago

Bungie's Halo soundtracks were iconic and can be laid at the feet of Marty and Michael.

I had heard that Marty was difficult to work with, but it's crazy that you wouldn't try to retain the talent that got your brand to live in millions of people's heads rent free.

Even stranger from Sony's perspective. If you bought an expensive race car and the first thing you start doing is throwing away the expensive parts in favor of cheaper ones, you no longer own a race car. You own something that looks like it, but can't perform.

[-] 50gp@kbin.social 35 points 10 months ago

definitely indication of "we dont want to pay our 20-year veteran staff what they deserve"

[-] Cagi@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 months ago

Yeah, the newer music did the job well, but Marty's scores transcended good videogame music. The opening chants of Halo 1 were an instant indicator you were in for something new and special.

[-] JIMMERZ@lemm.ee 66 points 10 months ago

Safe to say Bungie no longer cares about retaining high quality talent.

[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 56 points 10 months ago

I found it funny that they fought so hard to regain their independence from Microsoft just to sell to Sony a decade later. Seems like a ship of Theseus situation

[-] BB69@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

Or even just Activision almost immediately after leaving Microsoft. They never even released anything without having a “master”

[-] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 15 points 10 months ago

Come now. They released some cool Mac games before they were snapped up by MS

[-] dynamojoe@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Marathon was a blast (and Halo incorporated many elements of it).

[-] avater@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

And Windows too (Oni)

[-] BB69@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

I meant after leaving Microsoft.

[-] avater@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Probably too young for Marathon or Oni...

[-] BB69@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

I meant after leaving Microsoft.

[-] BURN@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

The people who fought for independence are no longer the ones running the company. Just like with InfinityWard, the people who made the company what it is have long since left or been fired/laid off. The studio is only the same in name and by what IPs it owns. Other than that it’s basically entirely different.

[-] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 9 points 10 months ago

They were tired of making the same fps game over and over, so they switched to making the same fps game over and over.

[-] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 12 points 10 months ago

I'm kind of sick of the term "Laid off", it's just firing

[-] sp6@lemmy.world 68 points 10 months ago

I think from the perspective of the employee's reputation, it's an important distinction, due to the "with cause" vs. "without cause" implication.

When I hear "laid off" I think the person was probably a fine employee who they just couldn't keep around because higher-ups wanted more money. But when I hear "fired" I think "well did they take a shit on their boss's desk or something?"

[-] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

A small indy company like ~~blizzard~~ bungie can't possibly afford to keep such a great composer on for long.

They laid off Michael sechrist too and that guy wrote deepstone lullaby. But hey, if bungie wants the soundtrack on the new destiny expansion to suck, more power to them.