Bungie Inc

To: Amanda Greeley

Supervisor, Bungie Inc.

From: Adesh Gupta

Game Development Intern, Bungie Inc.

Date: September 14, 2015

Re: Thoughts on state of privacy and ethics in the Computer Science field

Bungie Inc. is a video game development company headquartered in Washington. Since its inception, Bungie Inc. has been focusing on developing role playing games which captivate the youth, giving them a sense of living the game. Bungie Inc. was instrumental in the development of the video game franchise “Halo”, which proved to be a blockbuster, after being acquired by Microsoft. Games like Pathways into Darkness, Marathon, helped establish Bungie Inc. as a force to reckon with in the gaming industry. Early in 2007, after the success of the

Halo series, Bungie Inc. split from Microsoft and became an independent company, and has recently signed a ten year publishing deal with Activision. With Activision, Bungie Inc.’s first project was “Destiny”, a first person shooter game which, again, proved to be a huge success. I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to intern at a company which focuses on providing the best to its employees and strictly adhering to its code of ethics.
An incident came to light during the development of Destiny which has raised a few concerns in my mind regarding equality of employees and appreciating them for the hard work put in by them for the success of the company’s projects.

The recent course case of Audio Director Marty O’Donnell and how he was fired from the company has further aggravated those concerns. The court case, where Marty O’Donnell prevailed, has been given his lost pay, profit sharing for the franchise, Destiny, and his founder’s stock, has shown everyone that something went wrong on the part of the company which should be accepted. As instructed by the Chief Operating Officer Pete Parsons, Marty O’Donnell put in all the effort, collaborated with ex-Beatles star Paul McCartney and designed the music for the whole video game franchise Destiny. After being given a commitment that the music designed would be used in the video game, his music was unrightfully removed and replaced with one designed by Activision just before the launch of the game trailer. As Bungie Inc. had the right to take all artistic decisions in the project, I feel Marty was just trying to preserve the intellectual property of the company by protesting against such a move by Activision. According to me, this violated the industry’s code of ethics in that the intellectual property control was encroached upon and we as a team, could not stand up to them. Since being a technology giant, Activision was able to encroach on our work and we could not respond to that, to add to that, the Chief Executive Officer fired Marty, who tried to take a stand. Such an action has sent out a very unnecessary but a negative message and has worried me, for in future, if I don’t receive the full backing of my boss, my career could be well over before it begins. I feel that the company was not fair to Marty and took action against him just because he raised his voice against something wrong, which is not adhering to the industry’s code of ethics

Bungie Inc. has been following for so many years.
I am very pleased and ecstatic at the huge success of Destiny and I wish it continues to grow. All in all, I would just like to say that we as a company, should stick together as a team and fight the odds. Bungie Inc. has reached heights of success through the effort of all the employees who have given everything to this company. Bungie Inc. should strive to form relations with companies who will respect and honor the code of ethics and not use their dominance in the industry to get the better of us. In my opinion, this case and any other future cases will harm the company’s reputation, in the view of both, the employees who will not feel secure in their role and also the outside world, who will see Bungie Inc. as a company that can be bogged down by corporate overlord relationship. I have enjoyed interning at the company thus far and I am humbled by the support shown by you and the other colleagues to help me transition into the workplace. I genuinely look forward to new challenges and goals within the company. I hope to join as a full time employee at Bungie Inc. once I graduate.