The art director followed Antireal on Twitter.
Stop the bullshit. They knew what they were doing
The art director followed Antireal on Twitter.
If not for this, I would’ve chalked this up to the designs being abstract enough that it’d be feasible for two separate artists to have come up with them independently. The fact that he was following the artist is a bit damning.
It’s a shame, because he’s a fantastic artist, himself, but this is definitely going to soil his reputation, and probably calls into question some of his earlier pieces, as well.
designs being abstract enough
They copied the text and the name of a made up company. That’s so blatant I can’t believe nobody just asked “wait, is that on our lore or something?”
So abstract they contain the artist’s personal logo.
I only see the first of the comparison images linked here. The line of identical symbols inside squares is pretty convincing.
The second image contains lines of text copied verbatim, and is undeniable.
More pics are coming out. One of them has the artist’s handle in it. Original art is the yellow to the right. Whoever added it to the game intentionally smudged the name, but left enough of it to be readabale.
https://bsky.app/profile/billain.bsky.social/post/3lpafkzimqc2x
They could just market it as “with Art by Antireal” and give him the commission and fame he deserves…
They copy-pasted text and personal logo.
If you think that’s “abstract enough”, I’m guessing you’re either a plagiarist or an “AI artist”. Or do you want to admit that you didn’t really look at the comparison images?
Or do you want to admit that you didn’t really look at the comparison images?
You’re already like five comments deep into an argument that hasn’t even happened yet, calm down.
if i had a nickel for every time bungie stole art i could afford to pay for that art
Which is not much but it’s weird it has happened 5 times this last 3 years
TIL that Bungie is releasing a new game.
Although judging by this news and the first sentence on their Steam page being “…Bungie’s team-based extraction shooter.”, maybe it’s a good thing I can’t play their games.
“Bungie is making a new game based on Marathon”
Great, I’m in.
“It’s a multi-player extraction shooter”
Nope, I’m out. This smells like a “Prey” situation.
But Prey was actually good.
For real, immersive sim fans that haven’t played it are missing out. It probably should’ve had a different name though.
It did at one point, but I think they were forced to change it to Prey at some point in development. It had a “Shock” title to put it in line with System Shock and Bioshock.
Believe it was ‘Neuroshock’
That rings a bell now that you mention it. A shock title is so much more fitting!
I had the same reaction to Marathon as well as the new Black Hawk Down.
Im so tried of all these multiplayer games, make a goddamn single player campaign, fuck it add in splitscreen or the ability to play the campaign with friends if you have too
The best thing about Marathon is the shortfilm. Watch that. Then ignore the game.
I watched people play the game and was wondering what the hype was all about. The game looked so dull and boring. The outside of the map looled like a game made by a single dev for his indie game. Only yesterday i watched the short film and was loke: oooooooh, i get it, because they lie.
I can’t see the company name without thinking about this scene from Red VS Blue
Tucker: “Bungle…”
Church: “That’s an i, you idiot!”
Tucker: “Oh, right! Bingle…”
Church: “BUNGIE!”
It does often seem that Tucker had it right the first time.
NGL, it seems really practical that it was intended to be placeholder concept art that someone forgot to go in and replace.
That said, this artist they took so much inspiration from definitely deserves a place in the game’s credits at this point. Whether they actually use his art in game or not.
Placeholder doesn’t need to be anything more than basic featureless textures on cubes, and you should own them completely. If you made your placeholder to look like it fits, you’re asking for it to be forgotten and left in place. Which might not be too bad if it’s finally not too out of place and it’s yours.
Especially in a professional studio, they should know better than using stuff they just “found” as placeholder. To me it’s either terrible incompetence… or worse, they thought nobody would care anyway.
Didn’t they get caught doing this with destiny as well? It makes me wonder if it’s a studio culture thing. You’re 200% right in what they should be doing, but I still am inclined to think this is more likely an incompetence thing than malice.
The fact they keep doing it leads me to believe we’re missing several instances where they’ve gotten away with it
Absolutely. Now that people are paying attention, it’ll be easier to spot.
This is incompetence.
I’ve been in and out of games for my entire career. Every place I’ve been has had strict policies on outside art assets. I’ve even seen every new art asset to require a monthly license review to prevent any chance of outside art having slipped in somehow, including any usage of Blender’s example model Suzanne.
This certainly sounds the right way to do this.
But I really wonder about the stuff at bungie being “just” incompetence, because their defence is “weren’t aware of this, just used assets left by a former Bungie employee that’s not here anymore”… And yet the art director had been following the plagiarized artist on twitter this whole time.
And they have an history of “just taking” when they think they can get away with it, as they’ve done with fanart. So, shitty studio culture sounds a definite possibility at that point.
I will say, placeholder SHOULD be more than basic featureless textures on cubes so it can’t make it to a playtest without knowing about it. You know, like this. Placeholder kittens are always distinct, in my book. Plus if something subtly gets through, players will think it’s a hilarious easter egg
They just keep doing it. I haven’t played any of their post-halo games and it seems like it’s going to stay that way. Feels like controversy after controversy. Removing content from Destiny 2. Stealing art. Stealing art. Stealing art. Stealing art…
I really wanted to like Destiny 2, but then they started releasing expansion packs faster than I could feasibly buy or play them. Then I learned that most of those expansions had no content anymore anyway because they think removing content is a good idea, so I just gave up.
Sadly it seems like they really would have been better off as a Halo-Making Machine like Microsoft wanted them to be.
They’re doing it again! Bungie has fallen far, completely incompetent management.
Is it only the management though? You mean to tell me absolutely none of the artists knew about this, or that literally ONLY ONE “ex-employee” artist knew this was going on among the art team? Do Bungie only have one artist making art assets for textures across various objects, as well as assets they use on their website and in their trailers?
“Ex-employee” is a scapegoat, but I guarantee you there was more than one artist, entirely unrelated to management, that knew this was going on and will happily blame the scapegoat to absolve themselves of their involvement.
Is it far fetched to say their art team could be large, but also underpaid and ignored it so the work was done? Not right but sums up my work experience in an entirely unrelated and uncreative field.
Really just devil’s advocate, im curious for any corporate artist opinion
It’s such a damn shame, too. Destiny 2 was some of the most fun I’ve had in gaming over the last decade. Absolutely jaw-dropping environments at times, clever encounter designs, the gunplay, so many things to love. And I have no doubt Marathon will be a hell of a thing from what I’ve seen. These people can design a game.
But GODDAMN stop stealing art from people. Upper management has got to be atrocious with all the bullshit they’ve pulled over the years. And you know that bullshit starts at C-suite and rolls downhill.
Just a damn shame.
This is fourth time a confirmed plagiarism occurred at Bungie in recent years. There is also an ongoing lawsuit over accusation of Red War story theft. This isn’t some lone rogue employee issue. It’s a company culture issue originating from the top. I think Sony needs to step in and clean house to address the systemic problem.
Sony exec: I have a fever and the only antidote is more micro transactions
Like they did so the past few times which still led to this happening again?
I remember when Bungie made cool stuff like Myth the fallen lords.
Halo too, Bungie is honestly just a totally different studio than it used to be.
And Oni!
And then they made Myth II, which they had to recall (that almost bankrupted their company) because trying to uninstall it could delete your system folder and brick your PC.
At least with Myth II, Bungie actually made the right call and did the right thing.
Nobody has been able to explain to me how this new game has fucking anything to do with Marathon.
They’re just stripping copper from the walls.
Fucking spot on analogy
Its attached to the name because:
-
No creatives at Bungie can come up with an original idea apparently
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Bungie believes the name alone will carry it (it wont)
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Does it even have Pfhor in it…?
Senator, I know Marathon. I served with Marathon. You are no Marathon.
And I served a tour with Pathways Into Darkness.
When you have money and power then get caught doing something, ask for forgiveness and create a awful situation to pay the artist less and throw in that small tiny hint of “no more money later, no royalties, we own everything and you get small check….byeeeeeee” (aka the middle finger)
They need to go bankrupt, honestly.
Behaviour like this should end your company.
I would be sad for the good artist and developers at bungie to loose their jobs. Hopefully they are more careful and the artist ends up happy with the result of their talks.
First offense, sure.
But they’ll just keep being scum so it needs to come back to them.
Yeah, i do hope it hurts their reputation and game sales. I think we 99% agree. Hopefully this results in better games without ethical lapses in the future.
If i do crime and get caught or admit it, I still have to face the law about it. Does bungie?
