Morale at Bungie falls to all-time-low, Marathon may now be delayed

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Bungie has been caught in hot water after an independent artist accused the developer of stealing her work for assets within the developer's upcoming title, Marathon.

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The independent artist ANTIREAL accused Bungie of directly ripping off some of their art pieces that date back to 2017, and Bungie has admitted to the theft in a recent statement where it apologized to the artist and announced an investigation has been launched into scanning the game's assets for any other instances of artistic plagiarism. Bungie blamed the theft of ANTIREAL's art on a former Bungie artist and pledged to make things right with the artist.

In a live stream on Friday, Bungie apologized for the art plagiarism and addressed some of the feedback it received following the Alpha playtest. Now, Forbes has spoken to both former and current Bungie employees and has learned several things about what is happening at the studio, such as current morale across the studio, the internal audit of the game assets, conversations about a delay, reworking of a marketing plan, and more.

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New Information on Situation at Bungie

• Art Theft - The publication explanation as to how ANTIREAL's art ended up within Marathon is in line with what employees and officials are discussing within the studio
• Game Asset Audit for additional plagiarized work - Sony and Bungie legal teams are tackling the investigation, and no new information is likely to come forward about this. A timeline on the audit is unclear, and if assets do need to be removed, it's unclear how long that will take. However, the audit is thorough enough that Bungie didn't reveal any more gameplay for Marathon during the recent live stream in fear of more plagiarized work being discovered by the public
• Morale - Employees describe morale across the entire studio as being in "free-fall," with "the vibes have never been worse."
• Delay - No one at the studio is even joking about Marathon being delayed from it slated September release date, as the reality is that it's entirely possible. Private conversations about a delay are being held between Bungie and Sony higher-ups, with the plan to release the game now being very unclear due to it arriving in what is described as a "now actively hostile environment".
• Marketing Plan - The whole marketing campaign for the title is now going to be reworked, following Bungie officially pulling its initial marketing campaign for Marathon at the start of this month, which included a new trailer in June and a launch of pre-orders.
• August - Bungie was planning to release a Public Beta in August, but that now may be changed to a " roadmap of public playtests."
• Good old Boys - The idea for Marathon was pitched by higher up "good old boy" Bungie leadership approximately 5 years ago, and developers telling them what would and wouldn't work were often ignored. Many of these developers suggested some sort of PvE component.