They just trained their employees using other people’s copyrighted works. What’s the problem?
Bungie appears to have plagarized an artist's work and style in their extraction shooter "Marathon" according to this Bluesky post
Submitted 1 day ago by KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml to games@lemmy.world
https://bsky.app/profile/billain.bsky.social/post/3lpafkzimqc2x
Comments
CorneliusTalmadge@lemmy.world 1 day ago
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
The implication that generative AI would spit out pixel-for-pixel copies from its training data is flat out wrong. Even generative AI would have made more original assets than what Bungie put in Marathon. The worst part is that this is like the 4th time they’ve been caught doing this.
Being inspired by an art style and using that style is fine, and completely normal. Thats how art works. But copying is not fine.
theblips@lemm.ee 12 hours ago
I agree but it can get pretty close. Try asking gpt-4o to generate a realistic picture of an adventure who wears a hat and wields a whip to find lost treasure. It returns basically a picture of Harrison Ford
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 20 hours ago
There’s nothing wrong with inspiration (attribution is nice), but what’s evident is they straight up LIFTED parts of antireal’s art into in-game assets.
mishielda1234@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
This is something Sam Altman would say
peanuts4life@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
The lead art director of marathon has followed her since before the game began development and he still stole her shit wholesale. Disgusting.
Redecco@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
It’s definitely a really bad look, but I can imagine how it could have happened.
A former artist or even an outsourced artist probably delivered them a texture sheet of graphics, nobody caught that several of the graphics were plaigerized, the artist never mentioned it, assumed it was purely for a blockout or temporary, maybe they used it during a mood boarding/visual development stage and it got pushed along the pipeline.
Trying to reverse search graphics your artists make for you would probably not be done in the good faith sense, if there wasn’t suspicion that it wasn’t original anyways? But happening four times seems like a reason to realy crack down on that kind of thing for the future … Bungies management has also constantly had issues too.
Artists use photobashing all the time to develop concepts since timelines push design work faster and faster. Photobashing other artists work is usually an issue but taking artwork within creative liberties through sufficient alteration is typically the move.
I’d call it a management issue. Probably bad oversight of outsourcing, or maybe internally disorganized production. Also text and graphics seems like they’d probably have vetted the designs and someone really tried to pass it off without raising attention somehow … So I’m guessing outsourced and not an internal employee? Idk.
DaedalousIlios@pawb.social 13 hours ago
Man, as somebody who grew up with Halo, it’s really depressed to see how they seem to just be utterly incapable of an original thought anymore.
slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 13 hours ago
I mean is there even a simgle person still working on bungie that was somehow related to the good halos?
DaedalousIlios@pawb.social 13 hours ago
I don’t think that matters. This is likely a decision handed down by upper management. And that’s what makes it depressing; what could’ve continued to be some of the greatest creators of Sci-Fi video games instead have mismanaged their talent and shot both their feet off.
JakenVeina@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
Is the BlueSky OP here not a native English speaker? Cause, BOY that was tough to follow.
paraphrand@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Bungie had similar problems with Destiny 2, if I remember correctly.
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 23 hours ago
Love the response. Very CYA and they’re called out on it by multiple people:
hi, tell legal to reply to my email from months ago.
i simply can’t believe you’re thanking anyone “for bringing this to our attention” just because it went viral.
what about all the times i’ve directly contacted you privately about using my work? why should i have to hurt your brand to be heard?
So, we had some unknown outsource companies at fault for plagiarizing previously and now unknown former empleyee? How convenient! Surely the fact that art director and other marathon artists follow her means nothing.
I really wish i could buy that this was actually just an overeager artist who got laid off to pay for pete parsons’ 80th classic car but not only is this the 4th time this has happened, joseph cross was following and clearly aware of antireal. yall knew and fully intended on getting away with it
haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 22 hours ago
Honestly, at this point the company should be dismantled and the leadership thrown in prison. These corporate edgelords wont learn. They will just overstep, inch by inch and the courts will understate their deeds over and over until there is only one company that rules the world and sell you your fucking liver by the minute.
Dismantle this pile of shit.
ms_lane@lemmy.world 1 day ago
🎶 Oops I did it again! 🎶
🎶 I stole your art, added it to my game, ooh baby 🎶
secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 13 hours ago
How is Bungie still in business? I loved destiny but after a while of them being so hostile and anti-consumer I just left. Fuck Bungie and fuck whoever works for those ass hats
collapse_already@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
This will be entertaining in their ongoing Red War plagiarism lawsuit.
circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
Should have just used AI, at least then people could debate whether or not it was plagiarism
Samdell@lemmy.eco.br 1 day ago
I wasn’t expecting quality from modern Bungie but this is definitely an unexpected low
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
What art did they steal?
TheSambassador@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Turns out you can click the link and find out! It links to a very short Bluesky post! Try it out! Lemmy has more than just headlines!
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 15 hours ago
I hear there’s this thing called a ‘hyperlink’ you can click to find out
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 day ago
BUNGIE LITERALLY ALREADY MADE MARATHON
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 1 day ago
This new game has essentially no relation besides name and logo to the old Marathon games. Sadly, because the old ones were the shit.
Geetnerd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
How dare you.
I loved the Marathon games. They were better than Doom!
tuckerm@feddit.online 1 day ago
Calling this a Marathon game makes no sense, and I don't just mean aesthetically. The business case can't possibly be there, either.
Anyone who has a nostalgic attachment to Marathon (👋) won't be interested in this new game, and anyone interested in this new game probably doesn't care about the name "Marathon."
On top of that, there's the fact that Marathon kind of looked like Halo. When Bungie made Halo, they were clearly taking after their own art style from their previous games. Which means Bungie could have announced that they're making a singleplayer first person shooter that kind of looks like Halo. Everyone would have lost their minds. Instead, they announced yet another live service game, and no one is interested.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well now I’m not buying it.
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Its worse than that: this game is somehow CANON with the original Marathon
Anti_Iridium@lemmy.world 1 day ago
How dare you
audaxdreik@pawb.social 1 day ago
It’s hilariously awful because, as a fan of the original Marathon trilogy, the aesthetic of the new game is the only thing that appealed to me; and it was stolen.
I have no interest in an extraction shooter. You can make an extraction shooter if you want, but you gotta make something that players can get emotionally invested in first. Original Marathon players won’t recognize this and new players won’t care so what was the fucking point of any of this, I’m going crazy. This industry has lost all direction
M137@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
They did steal artwork, but the whole aesthetic wasn’t stolen… the stuff they stole is a very small part of the game (I’m pretty sure, haven’t and won’t play it). I’m in no way defending them, but saying the whole aesthetic was stolen just because they used some text and icons from someone istället just dumb.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I was hoping it was gonna be a clever, fun story shooter like the original. But it just sounds like a reskinned Helldivers with no connection to the original besides the name.
Luckily classic Marathon is available on Steam for free.
Malix@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
I’m just spitballing, but the ip owner needs to do something with the ip so they can keep it? IIRC similar things have been mentioned here and there when some long forgotten ip suddenly gets a new loweffort installment.
So, could be that they were making the extraction shooty anyway, so they slapped Marathon on it “just to refresh the timer”? I dunno if that’s how it works, not a lawyer.
Geetnerd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I played the original games, on a Performa 6100 Mac, back in the day!
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
Look at you with your fancy PowerPC model. We had to make do with a 68040 and we liked it!
goes outside to yell at the clouds to get off of his lawn
Taleya@aussie.zone 1 day ago
Legit, i only clicked this because i was “wait wtf? system 7 marathon??”