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'Actman' interview with Marty O'Donnell

Added 2024-08-18 18:33:39 +0000 UTC

in my two Marathon videos, I've beaten up on Actman for his poor research. This time I have to commend him for giving a central figure in the history of Bungie, Marty O'Donnell, a forum to talk about Bungie. He was there shortly after Marathon Infinity was released in 1996 to the point he was fired in 2014. Some really great insights into what happened to the company, and how it devolved from a legendary creative games software company to just another business. I took a lot out of it for my current situation at work, and looking at that balance of respecting creative talent, but making money at the same time. You see the same play out in the history of Apple, where engineers had to keep saving the company from bad business-driven decisions. Apple would be long gone if they didn't give their creative people that latitude of freedom in the 90's. Most recently, Apple has mandated 30% of donations made through Patreon go to them because they host the iOS app... I feel like the critical balance is no longer in play at Apple either...

It did show that Actman still didn't know a whole lot about early Bungie, Marathon, Alex Seropian, MacWorld's Halo Announcements or even Doug Zartman! Marty kept the discussion on point, and Half-Life wasn't even mentioned!

Anyway, I recommend it. There's a lot more that you can take from it than just the rise and fall of a games developer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOriiHNw1Fg