Thread: Marathon launches September 23 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC)
How can you work on a game with that level of exposure and bet on the OG artist not finding out?

Yeah it's pretty bonkers.

I thought Joseph Cross was the one behind everything, but he's legit just ripped this dude off wholesale. Dudes Tumblr account is straight up dope as fuck full of top end graphic art going back years


Even found the posters he is referring to.
 
How can you work on a game with that level of exposure and bet on the OG artist not finding out?

Borderlands was originally supposed to have a generic military art style.
CA3fIjE.jpg


But then Gearbox hired the artist who made this short. Before he even did any work on the game, they stole his art style and then cut him loose and never looked back. Even the intro to Borderlands 1 is basically straight ripped from Codehunters.
 


posted in the comments, but its absolutely true



This idea that it's some rogue former employee is complete BS. Apparently a number of their Art team, including the Art Director have followed their account for years.

Honestly it's pretty disappointing. esp given it seems like they are trying to play it off as an 'oopsie' versus what it really is, which is outright asset theft.

They need to pay them out.
 
posted in the comments, but its absolutely true



This idea that it's some rogue former employee is complete BS. Apparently a number of their Art team, including the Art Director have followed their account for years.

Honestly it's pretty disappointing. esp given it seems like they are trying to play it off as an 'oopsie' versus what it really is, which is outright asset theft.

They need to pay them out.


It's baffling. Basically the whole aesthetic has been blatantly and directly stolen. Like WTF. Guess they were to busy implementing BLM fists and LGBTQIA+ flags into Destiny.

It's another result of their DEI hiring practices, spam the team with people based on diversity quotas and the focus shifts away from being professionals to being well paid activists that happen to make games. This is deeply unprofessional and NOT something that just so happens. There are reviews, processes, approvals, legal checking stuff etc. This isn't some small indie project.
 
It's baffling. Basically the whole aesthetic has been blatantly and directly stolen. Like WTF. Guess they were to busy implementing BLM fists and LGBTQIA+ flags into Destiny.

It's another result of their DEI hiring practices, spam the team with people based on diversity quotas and the focus shifts away from being professionals to being well paid activists that happen to make games. This is deeply unprofessional and NOT something that just so happens. There are reviews, processes, approvals, legal checking stuff etc. This isn't some small indie project.

This is freaking hilarious to me because basically the only thing I liked about the game, the aesthetic, didn't even come from the studio itself. I really do try to be objective, even when it's a studio that has gone woke or has fallen off in other ways, when I critique a game, so this is sort of vindicating to me in this instance where plenty of other aspects seemed retarded, like the butt ugly character designs etc. even though I liked the artstyle as a whole.

Sadly there's a trend where if a studio has shown any signs of advertising or propping up identity politics or virtue signaling, you can pretty much safely bet that something about their project will end in disaster these days. It's ironic to me that the left goes on and on about how they are the majority of higher education, when they've shown over and over again how creatively bankrupt they are in games and cinema as of late.
 
It's baffling. Basically the whole aesthetic has been blatantly and directly stolen. Like WTF. Guess they were to busy implementing BLM fists and LGBTQIA+ flags into Destiny.

It's another result of their DEI hiring practices, spam the team with people based on diversity quotas and the focus shifts away from being professionals to being well paid activists that happen to make games. This is deeply unprofessional and NOT something that just so happens. There are reviews, processes, approvals, legal checking stuff etc. This isn't some small indie project.

All they had to do was reach out and contact the Artist once they decided they liked the vibe and either commission them or bring them in as an employee, instead this shitshow. The reputational damage on this is never going away no matter how much they try and right this now.
 
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posted in the comments, but its absolutely true



This idea that it's some rogue former employee is complete BS. Apparently a number of their Art team, including the Art Director have followed their account for years.

Honestly it's pretty disappointing. esp given it seems like they are trying to play it off as an 'oopsie' versus what it really is, which is outright asset theft.

They need to pay them out.


This is a banner example of how the majority of big studios lack any creativity whatsoever.
 
This is a banner example of how the majority of big studios lack any creativity whatsoever.

Its the normal problem of too many voices in a space. Its incredibly difficult to cut through the noise (and politics) and make daring decisions. Big studio games are often committee designed and take into account "user research data" (<-- which isnt worth the paper its printed on). "Good enough" becomes Good enough and the pursuit of greatness is abandoned.
 
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Sony spent $3.6 billion for this.

It's becoming very clear why they threw Jim Ryan out the door of the moving train.

He really pushed every resource into the same live service basket and it completely flopped and fell on its face. Sony is doing crazy well with their gaming division, but this was a preventable loss of billions of dollars. And now we have an entire lost generation where Sony's best software creators haven't even released a real PS5 game yet, 5 years in.
 
Sony spent $3.6 billion for this.

I think to be fair, this almost certainly feels like it is a case of Joseph Cross, the principal Art Director, being at fault here. When you look at the Graphics work of Fenn and the Videos of Billian from Antireal, and then at Marathon and you have to ask 'Where is the Bungie in all of this? '

Bar the Character models, the entire visual identity of the game feels like it has just been lifted wholesale from them.
 
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I think to be fair, this almost certainly feels like it is a case of Joseph Cross, the principal Art Director, being at fault here. When you look at the Graphics work of Fenn and the Videos of Billian from Antireal, and then at Marathon and you have to ask 'Where is the Bungie in all of this? '

Bar the Character models, the entire visual identity of the game feels like it has just been lifted wholesale from them.

Possibly. But the whole game looks like something Sony could have built from the ground up without Bungie, for 1% of that money.