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Bungie Longtime Composer Michael Salvatori Is Laid Off

Bungie Longtime Composer Michael Salvatori Is Laid Off | Kakuchopurei

https://www.kakuchopurei.com/2023/10/bungie-longtime-composer-michael-salvatori-is-laid-off/

Today's a bad day for Bungie, as the company had to cut off a lot of its staff following what would presumably be the fallout of past corporate decisions from its current owner. But even legends aren't safe from the metaphorical guillotine. We found out that longtime Bungie composer Michael Salvatori is among the many

Bungie Longtime Composer Michael Salvatori Is Laid Off | Kakuchopurei

24 comments

Ace0fBlades

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Bungie's Halo soundtracks were iconic and can be laid at the feet of Marty and Michael.

I had heard that Marty was difficult to work with, but it's crazy that you wouldn't try to retain the talent that got your brand to live in millions of people's heads rent free.

Even stranger from Sony's perspective. If you bought an expensive race car and the first thing you start doing is throwing away the expensive parts in favor of cheaper ones, you no longer own a race car. You own something that looks like it, but can't perform.

50gp

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definitely indication of "we dont want to pay our 20-year veteran staff what they deserve"

Cagi

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Yeah, the newer music did the job well, but Marty's scores transcended good videogame music. The opening chants of Halo 1 were an instant indicator you were in for something new and special.

JIMMERZ

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Safe to say Bungie no longer cares about retaining high quality talent.

NOT_RICK

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I found it funny that they fought so hard to regain their independence from Microsoft just to sell to Sony a decade later. Seems like a ship of Theseus situation

BB69

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Or even just Activision almost immediately after leaving Microsoft. They never even released anything without having a “master”

HeartyBeast

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Come now. They released some cool Mac games before they were snapped up by MS

dynamojoe

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Marathon was a blast (and Halo incorporated many elements of it).

BB69

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I meant after leaving Microsoft.

avater

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And Windows too (Oni)

avater

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Probably too young for Marathon or Oni...

BB69

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I meant after leaving Microsoft.

BURN

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The people who fought for independence are no longer the ones running the company. Just like with InfinityWard, the people who made the company what it is have long since left or been fired/laid off. The studio is only the same in name and by what IPs it owns. Other than that it’s basically entirely different.

altima_neo

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They were tired of making the same fps game over and over, so they switched to making the same fps game over and over.

HipsterTenZero

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I'm kind of sick of the term "Laid off", it's just firing

sp6

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I think from the perspective of the employee's reputation, it's an important distinction, due to the "with cause" vs. "without cause" implication.

When I hear "laid off" I think the person was probably a fine employee who they just couldn't keep around because higher-ups wanted more money. But when I hear "fired" I think "well did they take a shit on their boss's desk or something?"

SkyezOpen

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A small indy company like ~~blizzard~~ bungie can't possibly afford to keep such a great composer on for long.

They laid off Michael sechrist too and that guy wrote deepstone lullaby. But hey, if bungie wants the soundtrack on the new destiny expansion to suck, more power to them.