Composer Marty O'Donnell has had an eventful journey through the video game industry. His journey may mostly be associated solely with Bungie, but that enough on its own. He grew with Bungie from the Myth games through Halo's outrageous success, joined Bungie's independent effort to build the Destiny universe, and most recently founded a company now working on the controversial Six Days in Fallujah military shooter. Yet after all that, it now seems O'Donnell may suddenly be ready to say goodbye to the video game industry.
In a Twitter message that took his followers by surprise, O'Donnell posted that, "I'm thinking about retiring from the games industry for good." The tweet prompted a variety of speculation, ranging from questions about O'Donnell's company Highwire Games, to worries about his health. Ultimately, O'Donnell deleted the tweet, though the reason why isn't clear, either. It's possible that O'Donnell reconsidered the statement or simply didn't like the responses he was drawing.
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Regardless, before O'Donnell deleted the tweet, he managed to add several additional layers of controversy to the situation. He'd first go on to post that he may "be forced" to shut down his YouTube channel. This followed O'Donnell mentioning that fans who purchased some of his work from Golem on Bandcamp would "help me pay my huge legal fees. Corporate bullying." When pushed to elaborate, all O'Donnell added was, "Ask Pete Parsons," referring to Bungie's CEO.
While O'Donnell didn't explicitly state what he was referring to, the implied idea is that Bungie is currently in some type of lawsuit with O'Donnell. It's public knowledge that O'Donnell won a court case against Bungie regarding his removal from the company, a decision that rewarded him with a considerable amount of stock in the company. The case O'Donnell is currently hinting at isn't clear, but could refer to the rights of some of his music since he mentions potentially having to shut down accounts where it's available.
It's possible that O'Donnell isn't in a financial position to continue any ongoing legal battles with Bungie. Or it's possible that in order to support those legal battles, he'd have to divest himself from Highwire Games. Without clarification, nothing can be assumed. At the very least, O'Donnell has made clear that he's current in a bad situation.
For the time being, the only tweet from O'Donnell that remains on his feed is the request for fans to purchase Golem's soundtrack in order to help with his legal bills. If there is a legal matter at hand, O'Donnell likely can't speak about it publicly. That said, if it is a legal matter, the results are likely to become public eventually. For the time being, O'Donnell has yet to retire.