I know people will pick sides (and have already done so)... (Gaming)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Monday, September 07, 2015, 23:04 (3163 days ago) @ Schooly D

But personally, from what we know, I see relatable challenges on both sides of this issue. The whole thing just makes me sad.

I think, like Marty, I too would be outraged if a publisher took away my contribution on a vital event like that. But I can also see how challenging it might be for a whole studio to work with that outrage (especially in such an important role) if they were already into the thick of it and trying to make a good game despite challenges with the publisher.

So the relatable solution was to strip Marty of his shares for no reason other than "he'd be an ass at board meetings?"

That's quite a shortcut. The arbitrator's finding of fact include that after the dispute over the trailer and pushing up of Destiny's release date, that O'Donnell instigated a slowdown at work, about which the audio department complained, and that this was holding up the completion of the game. It was on the basis of that that O'Donnell was fired, and in previous versions of O'Donnell's contracts, it was crystal clear that anyone leaving Bungie for any reason would forefeit all unvested shares. A late 2010 revision of that agreement introduced ambiguities over those conditions that O'Donnell sought to use to recover his shares, but the arbitrator denied that claim.

The problem I see here is that the story "O'Donnel wins and gets back shares" is true, but people are (quite logically) connecting the dots by assuming that because he got his shares back, that O'Donnell's firing was illegal (it was not) or that it was illegal to strip a fired employee of his unvested stock (it was not). What the arbitrator found is that it was within the power of Bungie's management to choose to fire O'Donnell on a schedule that would have allowed some of his stock to vest, and that in not doing so, Bungie "breached the duty of good faith and fair dealing". Because the arbitrator deemed it fair and equitable, that is what O'Donnell was awarded.

Also... I'm sorry, I can say in my personal experience that you cannot underestimate the potential problems that can be caused by a minority shareholder being an ass at board meetings, especially if your foundation documents require unanimous votes for certain things.