It’s not been a good 24 hours for Sony, with live service game Fairgames seemingly falling apart at the seams and Stellar Blade PC being blocked for sale in a whopping 129 countries. But now subsidiary Bungie has been forced to respond to accusations of plagiarism.
Overnight, artist and illustrator 4nt1r34l took to X (or Twitter) to demonstrate how posters she designed in 2017 have been ripped off in upcoming extraction shooter Marathon.
“The Marathon alpha released recently and its environments are covered with assets lifted from poster designs I made in 2017,” she wrote.
“Bungie is of course not obligated to hire me when making a game that draws overwhelmingly from the same design language I have refined for the last decade, but clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution.
“I don’t have the resources nor the energy to spare to pursue this legally but I have lost count of the number of times a major company has deemed it easier to pay a designer to imitate or steal my work than to write me an email.”
To its credit, Bungie has responded almost immediately, fessing up to the accusations and promising to put things right.
Here’s its statement, as posted on BlueSky, in full:
“We immediately investigated a concern regarding unauthorised use of artist decals in Marathon and confirmed that a former Bungie artist included these in a texture sheet that was ultimately used in-game.
“This issue was unknown by our existing art team, and we are still reviewing how this oversight occurred. We take matters like this very seriously. We have reached out to 4nt1r34l to discuss this issue and are committed to do right by the artist.
“As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission.
“To prevent similar issues in the future, we are conducting a thorough review of our in-game assets, specifically those done by the former Bungie artist, and implementing stricter checks to document all artist contributions.
“We value the creativity and dedication of all artists who contribute to our games, and we are committed to doing right by them. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
So, it’s a good response from Bungie, then, and an admission that it made an error.
No Comment! Be the first one.