Myelin Games revealed on December 12, 2021 that he was treated badly by Bungie while working with the company on a book. His first impression was positive, but things quickly took a turn for the worse. The result was a deterioration of his relationship to the company.
Myelin Games knows everything there is to know about Destiny. He is in fact so familiar with the franchise that when Bungie came up with the idea for a book, the company turned to Myelin Games right away, bringing him on board to curate a collection of cards called Grimoires. He had to extract all of the information from these into what could probably be called a lore bible.
Having completed his work on the project, Myelin Games received an email from Bungie. This was only days before the book was scheduled to be going into print. He was told that an “old guard” at the company would be giving the proof a final pass.
"In this final pass, my goal is only to make it the best it can be. Given the insight and understanding I have from cultivating the ideas and tending the soils that birthed these tales, I may offer some last minute challenges/ changes to make sure it reaches that goal — if you'll let me," the email stated. Myelin Games understood this to be a challenge. He said that it was “the old guard making clear that they had more knowledge and experience of Destiny.”
The email posed all sorts of questions about the book ranging from structure to content. "While it was upsetting to have someone question all the work I'd done a week before the deadline, I was annoyed, but I understood," Myelin Games pointed out. "Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. The book was finished. Done. Sent as a PDF to everyone,” he continued. “I checked it and noticed my title in the credits had been changed.”
"No one spoke to me about it. No one told me it was going to be changed. I was originally Lore Curator because that's what I did. I curated the lore. Making things worse, the person that was added to the team — the 'old guard' that had been around — was given that title and I was given a different title, lore consultation, which I felt didn't reflect my role."
Sensing that he had been taken advantage of by the company, Myelin Games reached out to the team at Bungie that was responsible for the book.
"I am not too sure how to bring this up and I know this is a sensitive topic, but I would like to talk about how I am credited in the book,” he said in an email. “I feel like 'lore consultation' implies that I did not do much work for the volume.” He went on to give his reasons. “I feel like I was more active in this project, being involved since it was first presented as an idea. I worked very hard on collating, curating, and deciding on which of the Grimoire cards should be included and what would give lore nerds and non-lore nerds the best experience.” He concluded by saying that he was “not sure what the best title would be, but would like to hear your thoughts."
Having received no adequate response, Myelin Games tried calling the team instead.
"Literally mid-sentence while I was describing my role and my concerns, the lead cut me off — mid-sentence. I'll have to paraphrase this because it's a phone call and not an email, but when they cut me off mid-sentence, when I was saying how I felt, they said something like 'I'm going to stop you there. We don't say "I." This is a team project.’ They then went on this rant about it not being about an individual, but rather a team. I was made to feel like I knew nothing about the games industry — which I don't — but also I was made to feel incredibly selfish for bringing up the conversation. For bringing up this talk about how I was credited in the books. Like I did something dramatically wrong. I was really mad. I vividly remember exactly where I was when I had this phone call.”
Myelin Games remarked that he was literally silent with rage. The conversation improved when the lead realized this and the two finally came to a compromise. But he was stuck with the title of Lore Consultant.
"I got a very small glimpse into how this person usually operates," Myelin Games noted. "To be very manipulative and to make me feel like an idiot. I feel like that was their true nature. Like they naturally slipped into that response so easily like it had been rehearsed and said many times before. Turns out it probably was."
The book soon turned into a collection, but Myelin Games wound up being removed from the project.
"The first thing that I thought was I got kicked off the team because I wasn't a team player," Myelin Games remarked. "I got kicked off the team because I complained. I should've just kept my mouth shut and maybe I would've been given the opportunity to work on more volumes. I felt like I'd ruined my relationship with Bungie — that I had pissed off the leadership team or this one person and that I would be shadowbanned from working with them in future."
Myelin Games pointed out that he has been trying to look forward instead of backwards. "I'm not too sure where to go from here,” he explained. “I'm hoping to provide this information to Bungie. I'm hoping that they will take it seriously. I'm hoping they will take action to ensure it doesn't happen again."
This comes in the wake of allegations by workers at Bungie that crunch and toxicity have been gaining a foothold at the company. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons even released a statement which contained a pledge to improve conditions. But the incident also recalls the longstanding practice in the games industry of not giving credit where credit is due. Contract workers who are not officially on the development team often fail to receive any kind of recognition. They never even appear in the credits. How the games industry will deal with all of these problems in the future remains to be seen.