Bungie forced to delay Marathon content to remove stolen art

Bungie went on with their livestream AMA despite news breaking about them plagiarizing several art assets the day before, and confirmed that some planned post-launch content will have to be delayed.

An artist noticed several assets in the Marathon Alpha that seemed familiar to her, and, upon closer inspection, she realized that some posters from her 2017 body of work were ripped off directly and ported right into the game.

Bungie responded a short time after, admitting their wrongdoing and promising to “make things right” with Antireal, the original group of artists behind that project.

In this livestream, it was revealed that this process is going to have a significant effect on Marathon moving forward. While they’re not delaying the game itself, they are going to have to slow post-launch content to make sure no more stolen work is present in the game.

Bungie delays Marathon content to remove stolen art

Marathon has already been delayed in the past. And, with Bungie winding down Destiny 2 content somewhat, it’s clear that the game must be released at this point, and that pushing it back further likely isn’t an option.

However, them needing to go back in and now remove content from Marathon will have a lasting effect on development.

Joe Cross, Marathon’s Art Director, spoke on the controversy:

“It came to our attention that an artist who worked on Marathon in the early stages of pre-production took a number of graphic elements from a graphic designer without permission or acknowledgement that was then checked in in 2020,” he explained.

Bungie

“We are working on and are 100% committed to our review process to ensure instances like this don’t happen again, on Marathon or at Bungie.”

He explained that, on top of working with Antireal to try and smooth things over, they’re also auditing all previous work from that artist and delaying early looks at the game.

This statement was part of a so-called “PlayMA” where the devs were meant to play the game and discuss it, but it was eerily quiet with no gameplay due to them not being able to show any of their plagiarized work.

They didn’t provide details as to what “making it right” with the original artist, Fern, entails. Are they going to get some sort of financial compensation for the plagiarism? Did they reach out and offer to license the work so they could keep it in the game the way it was?

Whatever conversation happened behind closed doors, it’s clear that Bungie plans to go scorched-earth and remove any art from the game that had her mark on it – even if that very art is a core part of the game’s visual identity at this point.

The original artist felt uncomfortable after looking at Marathon but didn’t have any concrete proof of them stealing her work. And, as you can see in work like what she has above, there are a ton of similarities to be drawn here.

“It was kind of vindicating to see direct plagiarism because it meant I wasn’t crazy for feeling so uncomfortable with the overall direction,” artist Fern told the Washington post. “I kept quiet about it because I was advised to seek legal action, but… I don’t have enough time or money to fly out to the U.S. to pursue an unwinnable court case against Sony.”

It also isn’t clear if these changes have affected the planned Open Beta build, either, with that still planned to be going up before Marathon drops in September.