In Destiny 2, there weren’t many highlights in the game in 2023, but in court: A lawyer from Bungie, Don McGowan, managed to win important cases against cheaters and trolls, claiming $7.2 million. In November 2023, he lost his job at Bungie after 3 years. He is now calling for the establishment of a union for employees in the gaming industry, modeled after Hollywood.
Who is that? Don McGowan studied law in Montreal in the 90s and then worked for 16 years as a lawyer for Microsoft, Xbox, and the Pokémon Company.
In 2020, he ended up at Bungie. Here, he won two important cases for the Destiny developer in 2023:
- In May 2023, he claimed $6.7 million from a cheat seller
- In July 2023, he received $500,000 in damages from a Destiny 2 player, who had harassed the community manager and his family with hate and troll messages, forcing him to resign
In November 2023, it was over for McGowan: He and many of his colleagues lost their jobs at Bungie during the last wave of layoffs, which probably also led to the delay of the release date of The Final Shape. In the future, Sony’s legal team will represent Bungie in court.
“The company kills you if you let it”
This is what Don McGowan says now: In an interview with Gamedeveloper.com , the lawyer now advocates for the video game industry to have a union that operates like the “Hollywood union”.
He says: As a lawyer, he is usually hired to prevent unions, but after the “brutal layoffs” at Bungie and when looking at the gaming industry, he says a union is urgently needed. Such a union could ensure developers are better paid while a project is running, receive better healthcare and pensions that follow developers when they switch jobs.
The studios need a form of labor that allows them to build and dismantle the workforce depending on how their projects are going. With a model like in Hollywood, that would be possible. Minimum wages for certain roles could also come into play here.
Gaming studios promote people to prevent unions
Nowadays, studios often protect themselves from unions by promoting people to management positions. When employers feel that employees want to form a union, they are often promoted or receive higher salaries.
This leads to problems because people who cannot lead are pushed into management positions. It also increases costs for projects in unhealthy ways, whereas a union would ensure healthier salary increases.
McGowan sees his own dismissal in the context of the “whole news going around“, very coolly, saying “The company will never return your love. If you let it, they will kill you.”
Bungie won several major lawsuits in 2023. The question remains whether they will actually see the money or if the companies will file for bankruptcy: Destiny 2: Romanian cheat creator has to pay Bungie as if they bought Lightfall on Steam 240,000 times
