How Does a Large Game Developer Steal This Much Art?

Bungie is a division of Sony Interactive, and they got caught stealing wholesale. Again. Bungie Stealing ‘Marathon’ Art Is Probably The Last Straw

The situation is so bad, that in a recent livestream promoting the product in question, Marathon, they showed no footage of the game.

Marathon developer Bungie has been accused of, and has now admitted to, stealing artwork used in the current build of Marathon from an artist who first published the work in 2017.

That artist is ANTIREAL, who posted several comparisons of her work and existing Bungie Marathon assets which go far beyond “inspiration” and often are direct 1:1 lifts of images, words, symbols and even ANTIREAL’s own personal logo.

This was what was identified, and not by Bungie. Bungie eventually admitted to the theft, blamed it on an ex-employee, though several members of the art department apparently do follow @4nt1r34l on either X or Instagram.

There is no disputing the asset rips. They are 1:1 in many, many cases that are clear to see. The result of that, if Bungie will simply cut the artist a check and credit them, is unclear. It is possible that legal action could be pursued here but the artist did not seem to think they had the resources to mount the campaign. That could change, given the attention that this story has now gotten.

If you click the link at the top, the first image, of many, shows an image copied directly from Antireal's catalog into the game, with only the color grading being changed. Fewer changes were made in other places.

So if this was done so blatantly, did Bungie steal anything else from anyone else? A review is underway.

I believe it is too early to start naming and blaming specific individuals within Bungie, but the studio will need to do an intense investigation into this and come out with a lengthy explanation in addition to the terms they’ve come to with the artist, publicly. And they may promise this will not happen in the future but it has now happened four times in the past four years, the others with Destiny fan art that was lifted in some capacity for the game or in merchandise. That was third party contractors, however, and this is Bungie in-house. Or former in-house. Or whatever you want to believe.

So if something that should never happen, happened four times in four years, that means you have no procedures in place to prevent it, and you are not training your employees in the fine details of copyright. That would seem to be another problem.

This isn't the only example of the games industry stealing stuff. There were at least a couple of examples of similar insanity in Assassin's Creed: Shadows from Ubisoft, though only one example of plagiarism that I can recall. Aside from lifting a banner from a historical-reenactment society, Chinese architecture was included in a game based in Japan, and then there was the one-legged Torii gate fiasco.

It's almost like the large corporations think they will never get caught.

Oh, and there seems to be even more trouble at Bungie. New ‘Marathon’ Info: Bungie Morale, Launch Worries And Changing Plans

Chaos has engulfed Bungie after an artist, ANTIREAL, came forward to accuse Bungie of ripping off her 2017 work as its upcoming extraction shooter Marathon was starting to take shape as early as 2018. Bungie admitted to the plagiarism, supposedly the work of one ex-artist, and promised to make things right, but the story gained traction among gaming outlets and reaction streamers alike, and it’s poisoned the previous positive conversation about the aesthetic of the game.

But all of this is happening after another not-great time period for Marathon in the last few weeks, starting with the gameplay reveal and then its Closed Alpha, both of which received mostly mixed-to-negative feedback. A livestream on Friday addressed both the art plagiarism and Alpha feedback in what ended up being the most uncomfortable on-camera offerings I’ve ever seen from the studio.

Marathon was supposed to be released in a few months time, but that is questionable. Even if they come to some agreement with Antireal, they clearly need to review all of the art to see if anything else has been stolen.

The results of the alpha test may be a bigger hurdle.

There are a number of videos on this kerfuffle, but I will reference only Ryan Kinel's video It's OVER For Marathon! | Bungie FALLING APART After Art Theft CONTROVERSY. The video is 7 minutes. (Ryan K. is not safe for work. Probably)